In Just Tess: A Trans Female's Journey to Womanhood, author Tess Juliana opens a window into the tender, complex, and deeply human evolution of identity, soul, and purpose. This memoir is not just a record of transition from male to female, but a spiritual and emotional chronicle of duality, of two spirits, Jules and Tess, walking side by side until they could become one. Tess Juliana’s life is anything but ordinary.
Born with what many Indigenous cultures would call the gift of "Two Spirits," she navigated much of her early life as Jules, a man who served honorably in the United States Air Force as an air traffic controller. Jules' military career included a transformative year in remote Greenland, an experience that sparked a lifelong passion for geology and the Arctic's harsh and magnificent landscapes. That same passion carried him into a decades-long career in science education, during which he earned degrees in geology, science education, and biology. But science and adventure were only half the story. In Just Tess, the reader travels not only through physical terrain, across glaciers, mountains, and oceans, but also through the interior landscapes of longing, silence, love, fear, and truth.
The journey of gender identity is painted not as a linear path, but as a deeply personal, spiritual process marked by revelations, regressions, and an unyielding desire for authenticity. Tess reveals her inner conflict with raw vulnerability: “I just want to be a girl!” A cry of the heart that is as much about self-recognition as it is about public affirmation. This declaration became the axis on which everything else turned, marriage, friendships, and the very fabric of who Jules once was. And yet, Tess never discards Jules. She honors him. Jules was the naturalist, the sailor, the mountaineer who taught biology and loved geology. He was the one who spent hours reading, writing, playing guitar, and speaking to passengers on Princess Cruises about the wonder of Earth’s ecosystems. Tess did not destroy him to become herself; she absorbed him.
The book includes poetic fragments and journal entries from The Songs of the Sirens, a lyrical body of writing chronicling the first four years of her transition. These are more than diary entries; they are spiritual hymns, unfiltered thoughts, and existential reflections. They read like ocean waves, sometimes calm, sometimes crashing, but always reaching for light. Despite the pain and rejection, Tess never loses her sense of wonder. The same awe that Jules felt staring into the wild remains present in Tess’s view of womanhood. But she doesn't idealize the journey. This is not a fairy tale with a magical transformation. Tess invites us to see womanhood, whether cisgender or transgender, not as a fixed destination but as a constantly evolving experience. One that is at once universal and incredibly unique.
Tess Juliana currently lives in Arizona with Joanne and their sheepadoodle, Journey, a name that fittingly echoes the theme of the book itself. Their life together is a quiet testimony to the power of love that adapts, transforms, and endures. In the end, Just Tess is not only a trans memoir. It’s a testament to human resilience, the tension between identity and expectation, and the sacredness of telling one’s truth, no matter the cost. Readers come away from it not just knowing who Tess is, but understanding the multiplicity within themselves. Because in a world that often demands we choose one identity, one truth, Just Tess reminds us that being whole sometimes means honoring both spirits within.
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