It was hard to love and accept myself the way I was when there was something about myself I wish I could change!
When I was 25 years old, I crashed headfirst into the paradox of change. I discovered a truth about myself that I simply could not accept, I simply could not love myself as I was.
I was born a bouncing baby boy. I lived the first 25 years of my life as male. It didn’t even occur to me that I could be anything else, or that I might want to be anything else.
But as I came to know myself in all my parts, I realized that there were an awful lot of parts that felt a lot more female than male. I noticed that a whole lot of subtle things that just felt somehow off all clicked into place when viewed through the lens of a different gender.
My internal gender identity was shifting toward female. The more I thought of myself as a woman, the happier and more right I felt inside. It simply made sense on a deep level that I cannot convey with words. But as I started to feel more and more of that glorious rightness, I also began to feel more and more uncomfortable dissonance, because my body was male and everyone I knew treated me as male...
Something had to give.
I had to either squish my newfound gender identity back into Pandora’s Box, or change my body and my gender role in society to match my identity. In other words, I had to either change my inside back to male, or change my outside to female. I read the stories of other transsexuals, others who had made the courageous journey across the gender gap. The phrase that was burned into my mind was “Transition”
They wrote that the process of transition – of changing one’s body and gender role – was so painful, so traumatic, and so irreversible that it must not be undertaken except as a last resort to suicide...
I wasn’t feeling suicidal. I could easily imagine how I would be feeling suicidal if I had been feeling dissonance between my inside and my outside since I was young, but grace had gifted me with the bliss of ignorance until 25.
I could also easily imagine how, if I didn’t take action, I would feel more and more uncomfortable, more and more dissonant, more and more miserable.
Take me, for instance.
40 plus years ago, I identified as male. There I was, male, doing my thing. I had lots of friends, I had lots of girlfriends, I had a good paying civil service career, I had married and started a family.
Then *BOOM* something hits me, I have a massive gender avalanche, and now I identify as female. So I take steps to shift my body and my gender role from male to female.
It’s a mask I started to put on when I started dressing more openly and eventually presenting and projecting myself as a woman when interacting with people. It’s a set of assumptions and scripts about how we expect others to act and how we’re expected to act. For instance, when I was wearing the male mask, I went to the men’s bathroom and it wasn’t okay to chat with other fellow bath-roomers. Now, when I’m wearing the female mask, I go into the women’s bathroom and it is okay to chat with other women that are using the facilities. I did notice that I’m happier playing the role of a woman versus playing a male role and that did have something to do with who I was about. One was comfortable for me, and one was unimaginably uncomfortable for me.
When I was dressed fully as a woman I noticed how everyone started treating me differently, because I was switching gender roles, and roles tell people how to treat you. But I was basically the same person. Inside of me I felt, there was this switch that got flipped. One day, I’m a male, and the next day, I’m a female. However from my point of view, one day I’m me, and the next day I’m still me. My core sense of self didn’t change when I changed my gender role.
One day, I’m having heterosexual sex with my spouse. The next day, I’m having lesbian sex with my spouse. Same spouse, pretty much the same me, a little-different-but-not-entirely-different sex, but the labels change as if I had crossed a huge chasm. It’s like clothes. I can wear women's jeans or I can wear male slacks. On any given day, whether I’m wearing women's jeans or male slacks doesn’t change who I am. My pants don’t define me. Heh. That would be a pretty funny thing to say out of context, so I’ll say it again. My pants don’t define me. But I do have a fashion sense, and what I prefer to wear is part of who I'm about. So if I really prefer women's jeans to male slacks, I’ll change, even if it costs $30,000 and is very physically and emotionally painful. (;This metaphor is silly. Pants are easy to change and gender role isn’t. But I hope you get my point. That there’s a difference between evert individual core... and the roles played.
People are people. Before I started to transitioned, when I’d meet someone, I’d immediately say to myself either “I’ve just met a man” or “I’ve just met a woman.” Now I say to myself “I’ve just met a person.” Because when you get down to it, past all the stereotypes and all the bullshit, people are people.
Trisha
When I was dressed fully as a woman I noticed how everyone started treating me differently, because I was switching gender roles, and roles tell people how to treat you. But I was basically the same person. Inside of me I felt, there was this switch that got flipped. One day, I’m a male, and the next day, I’m a female. However from my point of view, one day I’m me, and the next day I’m still me. My core sense of self didn’t change when I changed my gender role.
One day, I’m having heterosexual sex with my spouse. The next day, I’m having lesbian sex with my spouse. Same spouse, pretty much the same me, a little-different-but-not-entirely-different sex, but the labels change as if I had crossed a huge chasm. It’s like clothes. I can wear women's jeans or I can wear male slacks. On any given day, whether I’m wearing women's jeans or male slacks doesn’t change who I am. My pants don’t define me. Heh. That would be a pretty funny thing to say out of context, so I’ll say it again. My pants don’t define me. But I do have a fashion sense, and what I prefer to wear is part of who I'm about. So if I really prefer women's jeans to male slacks, I’ll change, even if it costs $30,000 and is very physically and emotionally painful. (;This metaphor is silly. Pants are easy to change and gender role isn’t. But I hope you get my point. That there’s a difference between evert individual core... and the roles played.
People are people. Before I started to transitioned, when I’d meet someone, I’d immediately say to myself either “I’ve just met a man” or “I’ve just met a woman.” Now I say to myself “I’ve just met a person.” Because when you get down to it, past all the stereotypes and all the bullshit, people are people.
Trisha
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