A Day in the Life

Monday morning.  Fresh from a shower, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, surveying my face.  I pluck stray eyebrow hairs and then look critically at my eyes.  I make sure that all traces of mascara, eyeliner, and eyeshadow are completely removed; there are usually little particles that linger.

To shave or not to shave my face?  The amount of beard is dwindling, but still significant.  Usually I will not shave today, to give my irritated face and neck  a rest after several days of very close shaving.  If I’m having electrolysis in the next day or so, I have to refrain from shaving until then, anyway.  If I’m having laser hair removal, though, I have to make sure to shave closely again.  Am I going anywhere after work?  Do I look too scruffy?  I make the complex calculations and decide to skip shaving.

I get dressed in some of the remaining men’s clothing I have.  Fortunately, I did the laundry this weekend, because I only have enough work clothes to make it through the five-day week.  I put on a tight undershirt with a loose polo shirt over it, to help conceal my breasts.  I slip into my battered old work shoes.  I can’t bring myself to buy any more men’s shoes, so I’m hoping this pair, which I bought 18 years ago, will survive a little while longer.

Now to my hair.  I pull it back and secure it with a rubber band, then, armed with maximum hold hairspray, comb and spray it into submission, finally ending up with a  reasonable facsimile of a man’s haircut.  It looks a little messy, but presentable.

As I walk into my workplace, I settle into the old familiar habits of a lifetime.  My walk, my gestures, and voice become more masculine.  I learned by mimicry long ago to camouflage myself, to blend in with the men like I was “supposed to”.  But I can’t help but notice that my mannerisms have lately become a little more feminine and fluid.  That would have bothered me in times past, but I really don’t care now.  I have even caught myself answering the phone in my more feminine voice.

I go through my day totally focused on work and trying not to think of anything else.  It’s a good day if I don’t hear some bigoted, hateful remark from particular coworkers.  They believe I am “one of them”—i.e., a white, Christian, heterosexual cisgender male—and so don’t bother to censor their remarks.  I want to speak up and call them out, but I feel surrounded and afraid. I stew in silence, chastising myself for my lack of courage.

At times my thoughts drift toward transitioning at work—how would it be if I was myself here?  Some people, I think, may be able to make the adjustment, some, I think, will be at least covertly hostile.  Will they let me use the women’s room?  Will anyone even talk to me?  Will management be actively working to get rid of me?  Will some unhinged person decide enough is enough and bring a gun to work with them (many of my coworkers are proud of their concealed-carry permits)?  Or would someone wait for me outside to physically express their displeasure with my “lifestyle”?

I stop by the grocery store on my way home.  I’m hoping I don’t run into anyone I know; it’s become somewhat embarrassing for me to be seen in “male mode” by people who know me as I really am—kind of like walking around half-naked. I hurry home and put on my “outside clothes” to work in the garden.  I’m generally still afraid of my neighbors’ reaction to my transition, so I am still presenting as a male even here in my own yard.  Soon it’s time to wind down for the day; I put on my PJs and robe, curl up in front of the TV with my cat, and wonder how much longer it will be until I’m able to be totally me.

If They Only Knew

I'm now somewhere in the middle of my transition.  Though I'm mentally ready, and indeed, impatient, there remain some things that I want to have in place before beginning to live completely as a woman.  In the meantime; I am troubled and rather in a quandary regarding when to come out to some of my oldest friends.

Recently I have been getting some invitations to cookouts, parties, game nights, etc. from friends who don't yet know what is happening with me.  Though I still care about them and want to see them, they expect to see me in my male guise, and it is becoming difficult for me to bring myself to "dress in drag" for their sake.  So I make excuses, and the bonds of friendship grow ever weaker.

Why don't I just bite the bullet and tell them, you might ask.  There are two main reasons.  The first is that I fear losing their friendship.  I haven't told these people because I doubt that they will be able to accept me as I really am.  Yes, intellectually I know that if they can't accept me, they weren't really my friends.  The person they have known all these years has been a shadow of my full self, and in a way they really don't know me at all.  Still, the bonds of friendship are old and deep, and I am loath to risk severing them.

The second reason revolves around my job.  I feel it is necessary that my employer and coworkers do not find out about my transition until I am ready to tell them.  Now, I have two main circles of old friends.  In each circle, there is at least one person that has some connection with my employer and/or my coworkers.  If I tell one person in either circle, I think the entire circle will know.  So there is a real risk, especially if they don't react well to my revelation, that word would get out prematurely, and possibly dim my prospects for a successful transition at work.

You see my dilemma.  While I'm in this in-between state, there seems no good solution.  However, it is getting emotionally harder to continue going to work as a male, and my impatience to get on with it is growing.  It may be that I will come to the point that I need to proceed before I have all the desired ducks in a row.  I know difficult times are still ahead, and I look forward to a time when all this is well behind me.

Lifequake

How does one decide to totally upend one's life?  This is a question that has occupied my mind a lot lately.  Readers of this blog will know that I've been wrestling with the idea of transitioning to full-time womanhood for several months now.  I know this is a very big deal, most likely the biggest decision I will ever make.  And I also can see that transitioning would not be easy, or fun, and carries the risk of losing family, friends, and employment.  Given that I am big-decision-averse, I have really been struggling with this.  How does one make a decision this huge?

A curious thing has been happening for the last couple of years.  While the decision-making part of my brain is struggling with this question, the rest of me seems to be going full steam ahead.  Especially since the passing of my dear wife, the pace of change is accelerating.  I still work as a male, but most of the rest of my time is spent as Wendy.  I already have a very tentative and generalized timeline for transition forming.  I'm wrapping up hair removal and thinking about hormones.  Every plan that I make includes a consideration of how my transition would affect it.  Meanwhile, decision-making brain is still asking, "Should I or shouldn't I?"

I guess it's time for me to admit to myself that this is happening.  I want to waffle and hedge and qualify, but if I'm honest, I know that I am transitioning.  I tremble with fear at the immensity of it, but I continue to move forward.  As I stumble toward this lifequake, I'm thankful for the supportive friends and community I have.  I'm going to need all the help and support I can get.

Reality Check

Note: I recently suffered a serious loss, but I'm not going to write about that now.  The wound is still too fresh.

The past couple of weeks I have experienced an unprecedented amount of life as a woman.  Parties, lunches, Zumba, candlelight vigils, and even performing music on the stage.  I'm very out these days...but only in select company.  Specifically, among my church friends and in the local LGBT community.  Sometimes I get caught up in the euphoria of being Wendy and start to forget that my very existence is threatening to some people.  If I'm seriously thinking about living full-time as a woman, I feel like I need to bring myself back to earth by remembering times when I didn't experience such warm acceptance.

Not that I have experienced any real threats or violence so far--thank goodness--but there have been times when I knew I was clearly an alien presence to someone.  A couple of examples will suffice.

One Sunday afternoon a couple of years or so ago, I decided to go out shopping.  I was dressed very casually with the intent to blend in.  I wasn't very successful, apparently.  As I emerged from a store, I encountered two well-dressed middle-aged ladies, obviously fresh from church.  As soon as they saw me, one audibly gasped and dropped her bag in shock.  The other indignantly exclaimed, "Look at him!"  I chose to ignore them and walked to my car, but I was utterly humiliated.  I lost all heart to shop and went home soon after, my tail between my legs.

More recently, I was enjoying a potluck lunch after the service at church when a couple I'd never seen before sat down near me.  This was their first time visiting our church, and a friend introduced me to them.  I smiled and greeted them both.  The wife smiled warmly and said, "Nice to meet you!", but the husband did not speak and refused to look at me.  I could tell I made him very uncomfortable, and he in turn made me very uncomfortable.  After a few minutes he got up and left, never acknowledging my presence in any way.

As you can see, I have never really experienced anything earth-shatteringly bad (yet).  Just enough to remind me that the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and that the farther I walk down this road, the more of these prickly moments I can expect to experience.

Hair

I pause in the midst of a very heartrending and stressful crisis to talk about something totally different and seemingly inconsequential--hair.  After many years of wishing and procrastination, I had my hair done professionally.  More specifically, I had it cut in a feminine style and colored.  No more wigs!

It's amazing how the right haircut can make you feel wonderful!  In a sea of personal upheaval, it is a little buoy of light.  But it's also a rather large milestone in my undeclared, not yet settled-upon, yet ongoing, transition to womanhood.  Though I can make it look masculine for work, by default it is definitely a feminine hairstyle.

I had a new feeling the other day when going from a female gender presentation to male.  Often I feel sad when I go back to guy mode, but this time I felt like I was getting into drag (or drab: DRessed As a Boy).  In other words, I felt like presenting as female was my default and that presenting as male required work and was something of a disguise.  This seems pretty significant to me.

Before this, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror when not in full-on Wendy mode; I really didn't like the guy I saw.  Now, I find I'm looking at myself and smiling.  With the new hairstyle and my beard shadow gone, I can see a woman in the mirror, even without makeup on.  That feels so right.

To Be "Real"

Well, I try my best to be just like I am
But everybody wants you to be just like them.
                                  -Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm"

From my earliest days in the transgender community, I have occasionally encountered people--always male-to-female transsexuals who are living as women full-time--who have regarded anyone who is not on their path with condescension and even scorn.  To be more specific, they regard people like me--who are not actively in transition to full-time womanhood, and/or who can only outwardly manifest their inner woman part-time--are just wannabes and not real transgender people.  Some even state that those who are not full-time have no right to call themselves transgender.

I have to admit, this attitude really raises my hackles--so much so, in fact, that I am having to try very hard to make this blog entry something other than a string of profanities.  Yes, it usually takes a great deal of struggle, pain, and loss to transition.  Kudos to those who make it through.  But transition is not everyone's path.  Some simply don't need to.  They have found another way to be at peace with their gender identity.  Others can't, because of life circumstances and obligations.  Some, like me, are uncertain if transition to full-time is the answer; I personally feel very conflicted and am feeling my way through one day at a time.  I consider all of the above to be transgender people; we all feel some discomfort with our assigned gender or some pull away from that gender.

I was once informed by a transwoman on a Unitarian Universalist LGBT mailing list that I was either a woman or a man--that if I didn't go full-time and have genital reassignment surgery, then I was only a man who was pretending to be transgender.  (Oh, and that bisexuals are only gays in denial.)  Very black-and-white thinking and atypical for UUs.  Folks, life is not black-and-white--it just isn't.  The two conventional genders in our culture, man and woman, are generalizations and oversimplifications of a more complex reality.  Quite a few of us just don't fit--to me, that's the definition of transgender.  I'm a person in that gray area, and I will not be erased or minimized because I don't fit into a neat little box, or walk a particular path.  My feelings are just as real, just as valid, as anyone else's.  Life is not a contest, and there is no one correct way to get through it.  My wish is that those who wish to denigrate those who are different from them find a way to cultivate a little wisdom and a lot more empathy.

Remembrances of Nerdiness Past

Reading this article about nerds and misogyny started my memory a-stirring.  You see, I was a teenage nerd.  Well, in truth, I'm still a nerd, but anyway...I was a shy, introverted, intelligent guy; skinny, small, wore glasses, read a lot, a little socially backward--pretty much your textbook case.  As mentioned in previous entries, I also hated myself because I liked to dress as a girl, tended toward femininity, and identified to some extent with girls my age.  I was depressed a lot, though I tried not to show it, and I was always in fear that someone would discover my secret.

Despite that, I actually had quite a few friends, both male and female.  I was the guy that girls loved to talk to but were never attracted to.  All my male and female friends were busily dating and doing all the things that teenagers do--but not me.  As I grew older, I increasingly felt isolated, freakish, and resentful.  My self-loathing grew, and I erected an emotional wall around my heart.  I resented men for being able to attract women, and I resented women for not being attracted to me.  I'm afraid I veered at times into misogyny, which was probably fueled by the hatred I felt for my own feminine tendencies.

Eventually, I learned that there were others like me and started to accept my transgender nature.  At last, one cold January Friday night, I attended my first transgender support group meeting.  For the first time, I revealed myself as Wendy to other people, and was accepted.

The next day, I was walking on air.  I felt so free, so courageous, so happy, so confident--perhaps for the first time in my life.  I attended a planning meeting for my high school reunion and noticed that one of the women there seemed very interested in me--she was hanging on my every word, laughing at my jokes; in short, she seemed attracted to me.  It was a new experience, and a harbinger of the ensuing months.  I attended more support group meetings, allowing myself to more fully explore and accept my feminine aspect.  I wasn't fully free of bouts of depression, but my spirits began to lift and my self-loathing receded into the background.  And like magic, later that year I managed to meet and start a romantic relationship with a woman, really for the first time.

It may seem trite, but I really believe you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you.  Not love yourself in a narcissistic sense, but accept who you truly are--warts and all.  The problem was not other people; it was me.  Now, I'm still a nerd, but a nerd who, through much effort and painful growth, has found love.

The Year of Wendy

As another year draws to a close, I am inevitably called to look backward at what has been and forward to what may be.  2014 was certainly a year like no other in my life, and it certainly feels like a turning point or watershed or something equally portentous.

There are two main threads that are running through my life right now.  One thread is, for want of a better phrase, "the Transgender Experience".  I began the year in a rush of elation after a month of attending church services and other events as a woman (see The December of Wendy).  Yes, I felt very liberated by these experiences, but also confused.  Now that I had stepped farther out of the closet than ever before, what was I going to do next?  Was I going to go to church as a man or a woman, both, or neither?  At first I made it a point to reappear in my male guise for a few Sundays, just to show (to myself and others), that nothing had changed; I was still the same old me.  But I couldn't get back in the closet.  Now that I had gone to church as a woman several times, I wanted to do it again.  And again.  As the year went on, I made fewer appearances as a male, both at church services and other related activities,  When I did go as a male, it was generally due to some circumstances beyond my control, and I found that I felt frustrated in those instances.

There was one special fear that kept me at an impasse for a while: fear of performing music as a woman.  It's a situation where I can't hide--in front of everyone, the center of attention, an obviously trans person who looks more or less like a woman but sings more or less like a man.  Eventually I found the right way to negotiate this fear.  My first performance was in a group, where I could stay more in the background, singing backing vocals in a high register, performing two songs written by women.  My second performances was singing one of my own songs solo.  I eventually became pretty comfortable with performing as a woman, to the point that I sang two songs by myself and participated in a jam session only yesterday.

This year I also screened my rock opera, Transposition, for the first time in front of two small audiences.  Transposition has a transgender main character and is about the struggle of that character to come to terms with gender identity and spirituality.  It was received at both screenings with enthusiasm.

I spent more time as Wendy this year than ever before; I averaged about once a week.  That doesn't seem like much, but considering the previous years I averaged once every two or three months, it's a huge jump.  For the first time, I was able to explore social situations consistently as a woman.  I'm still trying to figure out what kind of woman I am or could be, but fortunately, I've got a lot of strong, intelligent, quirky, and all around fabulous women for role models.  Really, I've only just begun to integrate the long-compartmentalized sides of me into one whole person.

Finally, there was the dawning conscious realization of what I long knew in my heart of hearts: I want to be a woman.  I found (with trepidation) that I was already moving on a path that could lead to a full-time transition to social womanhood.

I mentioned two threads; the other thread is "The Caregiver Experience".  My wife's health has been deteriorating for some years now, and our relationship has gone from being equal partners and best friends to more like me being a parent and she being a child.  She is basically helpless and completely dependent on me now.  Much of the spring and summer of this year was spent in hospitals and inpatient rehab.  This fall she seemed to decline rapidly for a time; and while she has made some improvements in the past month, it's clear that the end is coming.  It could be tomorrow, or in a year or two, but it's coming.  I've prepared for it about as much as one can do, but I know I will be devastated when it comes.  Meanwhile, we exist in a limbo.  Our love is intact, but her capacity to understand what is going on around her is greatly diminished.  Consequently, I feel lonely much of the time.  My best friend is still there, yet she's not there.  My life is going on, hers is drawing to a close.

To be honest, I dread the coming year.  I don't see any path forward that doesn't lead through hell.  Maybe more than one hell.  It's clear that I want--no, need--to spend more time as a woman, perhaps even all the time, but I don't see any way of doing that that doesn't lead to great loss and pain.  Add to that the loss and pain of my soul mate's decline and eventual death, and it becomes something so big that I doubt my ability to get through it.  I'm a strong person, but this seems too much to bear.  I've been pretty depressed lately, brought to my knees by the enormity of it all.  All I can do is try to stand up and put one foot in front of the other, praying for unexpected grace, hoping for an unlooked-for path to open up.  Or barring that, the strength to keep breathing and pushing through to daylight again.

"Afraid of Knowing Where I Belong..."

Way back in 2001 or thereabouts, I wrote a song called "Pariah".  The lyrics are a bit cryptic, but it's basically about a person who goes crazy at work and starts singing and dancing in their cubicle until they're carried off.  Some of the lyrics, though, are less fantasy and more autobiography:

     Daring to dream I'm as good as you
     Was I made in His image, too?
     Once I thought I knew (Afraid of knowing where I belong)

Even then, I was acknowledging that I was afraid of knowing the truth about myself.  And I have been pretty successful in my denial.  In fact, for someone who is so introspective, my capacity for self-deception is astonishing.  Even as I type this, I hesitate in stating the unvarnished truth.

I want to be a woman.

There it is.  To be fair, I have long admitted that "in a perfect world", I would choose to live in a more feminine role.  If there were a third gender role, I would belong to that gender.  But this is the real, imperfect world, and it's time I confront what I really want for the rest of my life in this world.

I have been thinking about transition a lot in the past year or so.  Trying it on for size in my mind--if I transitioned to full-time womanhood, what would I do in this or that situation.  Most likely another transition--my wife's decline in health and the inevitable end of that decline--has been a stimulus, forcing me to examine what my life will be like after she's gone.  And middle age is a time to reexamine the road you're on.  Yesterday morning I was brought up short when I suddenly realized that I am already transitioning!

When did it start?  When I started coming out to people at church?  When I starting writing a transgender rock opera?  Or is it more recently, when I started laser hair removal on my face?  That was certainly taking it to a whole new level.  My decision to start coming to church services as Wendy was probably the real turning point.  At first I was a little ambivalent, but as I've grown more comfortable and confident I've gotten to the point that I'm reluctant to go as a male.  I've started going to other social events as a woman as well--keeping within my comfort zone, but pushing the envelope all the same.

There are other ways that I am not-entirely-consciously preparing the way for a full-time existence.  For quite some time I have been reluctant to spend any money on men's clothing.  I need to replace several articles of clothing that are becoming old and worn-out, but am uninterested in doing so.  I just can't bring myself to buy a new pair of men's shoes or shirts or underwear.  I am forever planning more hair removal on pretty much my entire body, and other cosmetic changes like a more feminine hairstyle and pierced ears (and forever procrastinating).

Beyond mere appearance, I have become more reluctant to identify myself as a man.  When my wife refers to me as her husband or as a man, I feel little gnat bites of pain in my heart.  I am beginning to identify more with my women friends and less with my men friends.  I have long counted myself a feminist, but take it more personally than I used to.  Generally, my gender dysphoria is on the increase.

So is it inevitable that I will transition to full-time womanhood?  I don't know.  There are so many rational reasons not to, reasons I have spelled out in other blog entries.  Who would choose to do something that could cost them family, friends, and employment?  Who would give up male privilege for the misogyny, inequality and downright belittlement women have to deal with all the time?  Even more, who in the world would want to be a visibly transgender woman and risk ridicule, harassment, violence and death at the hands of transphobic rednecks?  Who would transition in northeast Tennessee, for Pete's sake?!?

Can my rational and well-founded fears stop my heart's yearning?  Once I thought I knew.

Afraid of knowing where I belong...


 

Coming Out Stories

A Night at the Opera

I thought that it would be nice to share some of my coming out stories on this National Coming Out day.  Yes, stories plural--I am not out everywhere and to everyone, but I have come out to quite a few people at different times over the years.

The first person I ever came out to was my best friend.  We were both in our early twenties, I was deeply closeted and had never heard the word "transgender".  I was also a teetotaler.  After I heard him talking--with some amusement, but not unkindly--about some Penthouse letter he read in which the letter-writer, a man, confessed he liked to crossdress, my deep dark secret began to burn a hole in my soul.  I needed desperately to confide in someone.  So I arranged to hang out with my friend one evening when his roommate was gone.  I told him I wanted to try drinking some alcohol; I thought I could only overcome my fear of telling someone if I got drunk.  In truth, I don't think he gave me a great deal of alcohol, but in the early hours of the night, I finally, haltingly, told him that I liked wearing women's clothing.  He was very kind, even tender, as he assured me it was OK.

The next day, things were a little awkward.  He didn't seem to want to talk about or reference the night before, though he did call me later on to make sure I was all right.  In the years to come, he ran hot and cold about the subject.  Sometimes he didn't want to hear about it, other times he did and seemed fascinated.  He did eventually see me as Wendy, once, but I think it unnerved him a bit.  In recent years, we have lost touch.

In 1998, I began attending a transgender support group in Knoxville called Swans.  In the course of just four months, I went from being totally in the closet to hanging out with other trans people and even going out in public a couple of times.  I was riding high in what is sometimes called the Pink Fog: a state of euphoria brought on by the sudden release of my transgender feelings.  In this state, I determined that the time was right to come out to my parents.  After all, they were fairly liberal, relatively speaking.  I wasn't sure I could verbally tell them, though, so I wrote them a long letter (we don't communicate very well).  I told them that I was a crossdresser, but not to worry, I was not crazy and had no intention of transitioning to female.  I mailed the letter and waited in an agony of anticipation.  In a few days, I got a phone call; my mother assured me that everything was all right, that they loved me just the same.  Relief flooded through me and I felt on top of the world.

Then the other shoe dropped.  I got a letter in the mail in which my mother expressed all her fears (and my father's).  She was not surprised by my revelation, but my father was devastated.  They felt that I was deluded and perhaps under the pernicious influence of the people in the support group.  Their counsel was to get back into the closet and tell no one.  I was stunned; my euphoria was drowned under a tidal wave of depression.  My next visit with them was very strained.  I tried to bring the subject up with my mother, but it was clear that she was very uncomfortable talking about it.  When I showed up one weekend wearing shorts with my legs shaved, I was asked to wear long pants in future visits because I was upsetting my father.  Later, when I started growing my hair longer, my father unleashed a contemptuous verbal assault upon me.  He later apologized (after a fashion) in an email.  As it stands today, our relationship is cordial, but strained; we have established a don't-ask-don't-tell detente.

The third and final story I want to share today is a happier one.  After attending a Unitarian Universalist church for a few months I had become friends with a lady who, like me, sang in the choir.  She played violin and wanted a guitar accompanist; she and I began playing music together, and in that way we gradually got to know each other better.  In fact, despite a significant difference in ages (she was older than me), we became good friends.

One Sunday a member of our church, who happened to be gay, delivered a moving sermon about a transgender friend of his; I think his purpose was to raise awareness of trans people and issues.  I was very affected by this, and again, I had a burning desire to tell someone.  By this time I had been going to the support group for years (though it was ending) and was much more self-assured, but still this part of my life was very compartmentalized.  Anyway, I decided to tell my new friend.  I sat down with her and told her my little spiel and showed her a few pictures.  Her reaction was astonishing.  She was very interested in knowing more, was smiling broadly.  In a few minutes, she was going through her jewelry for clip-on earrings I could borrow and had me trying on high heels she no longer wore.  I had never felt such total and instant acceptance from a cisgender person before.  My head was spinning.

In the ensuing months, our relationship deepened.  She wanted to meet me as Wendy, face-to-face.  When I stood before her, feeling vulnerable, she embraced me and whispered, "It's nice to meet, you, Wendy".  She continually supported and even egged me own.  Our first night out together was as two women, watching an opera in Knoxville.  Our first vacation together was as two women, also; a trip to Charleston, SC, and nearby beaches.  Though I had difficulty dealing with the difference in our ages at first, we fell in love and eventually married.  She has always been my staunchest supporter and has never wavered in her total acceptance of all of me.

I have more stories to share, but that's enough for now.  Happy Coming Out Day!

Certainty

As I watch and listen to the emerging stories of transgender children, what strikes me the most is how certain they are about their gender.  They know they are boys or girls, in spite of what their parents and others say, in spite of what kind of bodies they were born with. I enjoy hearing these stories because they help validate the transgender experience, that this is something inborn and not caused by bad parenting or whatever.  At the same time, I'm troubled that the current transgender party line seems to be an emphasis on certainty; trans people are 100% sure of their gender, that there is no doubt and was never any doubt.  That doesn't jibe with my experience, though I did tell my mother when I was a small child that I wanted to be a girl.  It's safe to say that I'm not sure of much of anything, at least not for long (that's probably why I'm a Unitarian Universalist). 

So what am I sure of, as pertains to gender?

1. I know I like to wear women's clothing, jewelry, and makeup.  I've been doing it since the age of three, though my parents made it clear that it was not acceptable.
2. I want to look more like a woman.  I spend a lot of time thinking about what steps I can take to make myself look more feminine (under the radar).  I would prefer having a feminine hairstyle, more feminine curves, and a lot less body hair.
3. I usually feel a deep sense of peace and rightness when I'm in feminine mode.  When I look in the mirror and see a woman looking back at me, my soul says "yes". 
4. I'm generally more comfortable in the company of women than men.  I could care less about the things that most men talk about, while I often find women's conversations interesting.  All my healthcare providers (family doctor, dentist, optometrist, etc.) are women.  I like chick flicks--well, at least some of them.
5. I feel pretty comfortable interacting with people as a woman.  I feel more sociable, somehow.  And I like being addressed with a feminine name, pronouns, and honorifics.  I don't even mind it when someone calls me "ma'am" when I'm in male mode.
6. I'm very sensitive and empathetic.  It's not uncommon for me to get teary-eyed during a tender moment, or to feel real pain when seeing someone else suffer.

Does all this mean that I'm really a woman?  Beats me!  I really don't know what it means to be sure of your gender.  It just doesn't compute with me.  I'm sure that I'm me, that's all.  And I'm also sure that:

1. I've been socialized from birth as a male.  I know how to navigate social settings as a male pretty well.
2. I have a male body and am comfortable with my "plumbing".
3. I have a male voice.  Especially important for someone who sings, my voice falls within the male range.
4. I'm attracted to women.
5. I've built a career as a male and have generated a lot of good will that has helped me stay employed through numerous layoffs, corporate buyouts, etc.
6. Society often exacts a heavy price on those who publicly cross gender lines.  Sometimes it's marginally OK to change from one gender to the other, as long as you're never ambiguous and are certain about your gender identity (from birth, if possible).

So add all those things together, and what do you get?  I don't seem to fit comfortably anywhere.  I'm unable to pledge my allegiance to the idea that there's two, and only two genders.  Even if I someday transition to full-time womanhood, I don't think I'll ever be 100% certain.  Most likely I will always be a square peg.  But I'm not sure of that either.
 
 

Hiding in Plain Sight

I have been going out in public as a woman since early 1998; you'd think I was an old hand.  But on Sunday, after attending church services, a committee meeting, getting takeout food, fueling my car, and getting groceries, I felt a real sense of accomplishment that I was able to do all these things with little anxiety.  It felt like something new, and it took a little soul-searching to figure out why.  In a nutshell, I concluded that I was, for the moment at least, no longer hiding.

As I mentioned, I've been doing things as a woman for quite some time.  I've gone shopping and dining out too many times to count.  I've gone to museums and musicals, taken dance lessons, even went on a week-long beach vacation.  But in surveying all those experiences, I can break them down into two groups: experiences in LGBT-friendly territory and sojourns into "civilian" territory.  My strategies for dealing with each have historically been different.

For LGBT-friendly spaces, I tend to operate relatively normally; outside of my normal shyness, I have very little fear.  'Nuff said.

For "civilian" territory, my strategies have more or less been to blend in the background as much as possible, avoid attracting any attention, and for God's sake, don't talk to or look at anyone!  My anxiety levels tend to be high, and I feel very tightly wound.  Not that I've had any really horrible experiences so far.  Yes, I've been stared at, pointed at, giggled and laughed at--temporarily humiliating, not majorly traumatic.  Still, I feel much more pressure to "pass" and therefore escape unwanted attention, especially from people who react to trans folk with violence.  If I am with a cisgender person, I try to get that person to shield me from any other human contact as much as possible.  For much of my time out, that person has been the woman who is now my wife.

Take the aforementioned trip to the beach and surrounding areas.  Sounds like a trans person's dream, doesn't it?  Well, what I remember most is constant fear (that, and how much it hurts to shave closely twice a day for a week).  I was a walking bundle of apprehension, and my now-wife did nearly everything in the way of social interaction for me.  She paid for the meals (male name on the credit card, you see).  She bought the tickets to attractions.  She made the phone calls.  Meanwhile, I was like a little child clinging to my mother's skirts.  It was a relief to change back to male mode just to get away from the fear (well, and the shaving).  And so it continued for much of the next decade; despite her efforts to encourage (and sometimes goad) me, I largely depended on her to shield me from human contact.  And then, illness crept in and she became unable to be a companion and buffer on my forays out into the world.

Left to my own devices, I was forced to come up with new strategies.  For a while I stopped going places as Wendy, but I couldn't retreat into the closet again for long.  I managed to fight down the fear and begin finding new outlets.  The main outlet, as documented in previous blog entries, has become my church community: first I came out to a small group, then a larger group, then the women's group, and finally, I have recently begun attending church services as a woman.  Even though our church is LGBT-friendly, and therefore in the "safe" zone, it is still enough of a stretch and demands enough social interaction that my confidence and social skills are gradually improving.  I am also finding that my increased confidence in "safe" spaces is gradually seeping into the public arena, too.  And encouraged by the example of others, I am increasingly feeling that it's OK not to pass; being openly transgender is somehow freeing (if still scary).

I think of my journey thus far as a slowly-opening flower.  An incredibly, glacially slow-opening flower, but it's opening nonetheless.  Here's hoping that it will continue to open, at whatever pace.

My Dysphoria Ain't Like Dat-phoria

(Sorry for the title, but I couldn't resist.)

I think it's pretty hard for for people to understand my particular variety of transgender.  Heck, it's pretty hard for me to understand.  Mostly that's because of the conflict between our binary conception of gender and my internal gender, which I believe falls somewhere in between male and female.

Transsexuals have the advantages of a relatively easy set of metaphors (x trapped in a y body, etc.), and a clear destination (i.e., they identify fully with a particular gender).  I'm not saying that they have it easy--they don't.  I don't think any trans person has it easy.  But I think people have an easier time understanding transsexuals because they don't call the gender binary into question so much.

Then there's me.  I do experience gender dysphoria--there is a conflict between my internal (brain) gender and my body.  However, from all I've heard and been told, it is of a different order of magnitude from most transsexuals.  I discussed this in an earlier blog entry--I don't experience distress about my genitals.  But in large part, I do wish my body was more female-looking.  I feel better and more attractive when I'm in feminine mode.  In my case, it's mostly hair that distresses me most--the scarcity of it on top and the proliferation elsewhere.  Sometimes I do wish I had breasts, and smaller hands and feet.  Occasionally, I think about taking female hormones, but am frightened by the accompanying loss of male sexual function and the fact that it would become harder to pass as a man.  My voice is another source of conflict, as I love singing, doing impressions and generally using silly voices.  I'm getting a little better at using a more feminine-sounding voice as Wendy, but if I had to sacrifice my lower register permanently I would miss it.

I do think of transitioning to full-time female sometimes.  But, unlike most of my transsexual brothers and sisters, I would feel loss at giving up my male identity.  And since my gender dysphoria is not so severe that it overrides all other concerns, and absent a third gender role in society, I'm left with a choice.  I can transition to full-time female, which I believe would be a better fit in some ways.  However, I would most certainly lose my job, and given the fact that the IT pool is so small in this area, I would almost certainly be blacklisted and either have to take a job in another profession or move.  Since the state I live in does not recognize same-sex marriage, my marriage would be invalidated if I managed to get my gender legally changed to female--not good at any time, even worse given the state of my wife's health.  Furthermore, I would be a lesbian with male genitals, which would perhaps make me even more of a social pariah.  Of course I could have GRS (Genital Reassignment Surgery), but since I really have no desire to do that, it would be a surgery forced upon me by social pressure and not something I really wanted to do.  Oh, and some, perhaps all, of my family would cut off contact with me.  The employment difficulties mentioned before would no doubt force me to move, so I would be separated from my friends--and I don't make friends quickly or easily.  This is not a very appealing scenario.

The other choice is to remain as I am--living in a male role most of the time, spending enough time in a female role to keep me sane.  It's a compromise solution, but I get to keep my job, my family, the friends I treasure.  I'm lucky in that I have an accepting spouse and a church community that has thus far shown me nothing but love and support.  Right now I'm not thinking much about the future or how my circumstance or feelings may change in times to come.  I'm just taking one day at a time, grateful for what I have.

The December of Wendy

It's been a long time since my last post. Events of the last few years have made my life increasingly chaotic and my time to devote to this blog has been, and will continue to be, limited. My wife is suffering from a degenerative disease and so she needs ever-increasing amounts of care. Plus I have involuntarily changed jobs. So, too, time for getting out and about as Wendy has decreased. Until very recently.

I had a couple of landmark events earlier in the year. Back in May I made my first appearance during a church service as Wendy. That went very well, but it was a big step and I felt I needed to draw back and get my bearings. Then in November I attended our church's Women's Retreat for the first time, to my knowledge making me the first person to have attended both Men's and Women's Retreats. That also went very well; although I only attended for one day instead of the whole weekend, I participated in a number of activities. One of the scariest in a way was doing an hour-long yoga workshop. I do yoga pretty much every day but this was my first time as Wendy. I was a bit worried about losing my wig and/or breast forms, but somehow managed to keep together. Anyway, it was an enjoyable day, I was totally accepted, and I was invited back next year.

Meanwhile, a TS woman joined our church choir, and somehow her presence spurred me toward making further appearances as Wendy during church services. I still had some apprehension about this; as I have blogged before, it is difficult to switch genders back and forth in a social setting. I felt like I almost had to renegotiate all my relationships with people who know me primarily through my male identity. I also had major apprehensions about stand up in front of everyone while singing in the choir. I talked about these things with the minister of our church; she was very encouraging and positive, and assuaged my fears for the most part.

At church

So for three Sundays in a row in December, which happened also to be special holiday services, I attended as Wendy. I even rehearsed and sang with the choir--in the tenor section. I could have sung alto, but our choir has a greater need for tenors. That felt a little odd, especially on a couple of songs where the tenors and basses sang sections without the altos and sopranos. Mostly I felt very relaxed and not out of place at all. Occasionally someone slipped and called me by my male name, but I expected that. A number of people didn't recognize me, even though I sat in my same old place and sang in the same old place. Even the choir director didn't recognize me at first, despite having been given advance notice! I was a little disconcerting having people I know walk right by me with no sign of recognition, though. I was greeted with some warm hugs and compliments, too. It was overwhelmingly a positive experience.

New Year's Eve

I followed that up with an all-too-rare shopping trip and a New Year's Eve party as well. As the party was disco-themed, I scored a pair of very gaudy sparkly silver 4-inch platform heels. I wore a formal gown and a tiara to top it all off. I had a wonderful time that night, too. I saw a number of people I hadn't seen in a while, hugged some, surprised others, danced, talked, and generally felt a warm glow. Incredibly, I didn't break an ankle in those heels, though I did lose a pair of sequined earrings.

Having ended the year in so glorious a fashion, I am now faced with questions: What now? How often am I going to attended church services as Wendy? Where am I going? But those are topics for other blog entries.

Separate Ways, Worlds Apart?

(Oh God, how have I sunk to using Journey songs as post titles?)

When am I Wendy, and when am I not? It used to seem so easy; if I wore women’s clothing and makeup, I was Wendy. It was easy to talk of being in “Wendy mode”—the external trappings of femininity sort of flicked a switch in my brain and let the suppressed thoughts and feelings loose. Now it doesn’t seem so clear.

It was a little more than 15 years ago when I first formalized the internal male/female split in my psyche by naming the feminine part “Wendy”. It’s been a useful contrivance that allowed me to compartmentalized my conflicted feelings into two different identities, each somewhat separate. But the two identities were never really separate in that they shared the same brain, the same body, the same memories, etc. There has been some integration of the two, especially in recent years, in different spheres.

Physically, of course, I only have one body, and I have certainly sacrificed some of my masculinity in order to be able to more easily slip into Wendy mode. It began when I decided to shave my legs during the wintertime months when I could conceal it easily. These days, I shave my legs all year round and do other periodic body hair removal. Last week I took it to another level by beginning laser hair removal on my face. I pluck my eyebrows (to a certain degree) and use women’s face creams, moisturizers, etc. I have long hair, though thanks to age plus testosterone my forehead is too high and my hair too thin for it to look very good in a feminine style. I almost always have painted toenails and I usually have on one or more articles of women’s and/or unisex clothing. And I have noticed that my speech and movement have become somewhat more effeminate; I have never been what you’d call a macho man, but I used to actively try to suppress any hint of femininity in my behavior much more than I do now.

In my mind, I’m also more androgynous. I used to police my thoughts as much as my actions to try to block out anything I thought of as feminine, particularly as an adolescent. Now I’m much more comfortable letting my thoughts roam where they will without trying to suppress them on the basis of gender appropriateness (whatever that means). I have left behind much of my cultural upbringing and am now much more tolerant of diversity, more conscious of white male hetero privilege, and much more in sympathy with progressive and feminist values. What’s more, my gender dysphoria seems to be on the increase. It sometimes causes an internal cringe if people refer to me as a man; on the other hand, I don’t feel entirely comfortable calling myself a woman, either. I usually use gender-neutral language to refer to myself. And in the nexus between the mental and the physical, to look at myself in the mirror and see an overtly masculine person is somewhat painful, so that I often avoid looking at myself at all.

In the social sphere, I used to keep my masculine and feminine personas completely apart. No one knew both sides of me, and that’s the way I wanted it. But the two worlds seem to be slowly merging. The first person to really know both sides of me was the woman who became my wife; now that circle has enlarged to include many people at my church. I find that having two personas is the most awkward in the social realm, and I’m still learning how to best navigate that seldom-trodden path.

I have always tried to present either 100% male or 100% female to others, but in reality the line has blurred. One of the things I’ve learned about being transgender is that you can’t have it completely both ways. To increase my comfort level with myself I’ve had to relinquish some of the appearance of masculinity and move toward the feminine, and the movement hasn’t ended yet. The increased gender dysphoria, the creeping feminization of my appearance, and a desire for more and longer continuous social experiences as Wendy, are indicators that I’ve got more gender exploration and transformation to discover.

The Other Side of Passing

There is much talk in the transgender community about “passing”; in this context it means to be identified by others as the gender you are presenting.  Historically, though, “passing” has an older, almost opposite meaning; it means to conceal one’s membership in a minority group in order to be identified with a higher status group—for example, a black woman who passes herself off as white, or a gay man who passes himself off as heterosexual, in order to avoid discrimination.

I’m not passing judgment on those who attempt to pass in either sense.  In fact, I think many of us trans people try, and succeed in passing as non-trans.  It dawned on me recently that I’ve been successfully passing as a “normal” cisgender man for several decades now.  I conceal and suppress those characteristics and interests that might mark me as effeminate, sissy, or whatever.  I hide the fact that I identify with women at least as much as I identify with men.  In other words, I hide my transgender identity.

I’m not proud of this.  But it’s not easy to step up and loudly proclaim who and what you are if it’s not particularly socially acceptable.  It can get downright hazardous.  I learned early on to suppress my feminine interests and mannerisms in order to avoid getting beaten up and ridiculed by my peers, and to gain approval from my parents and other family.  Even now I have little protection under the law if someone decides to discriminate against me because of my gender expression.

In a perfect world, of course, I could just be myself and not suffer any repercussions.  Alas, the world I live in is not perfect.  Where I live, being white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, native English-speaking, Christian, conservative, Republican, extraverted, and affluent means being at the top of the social ladder.  The more of those characteristics I have or can fake, the less social friction I will experience.  It’s relatively easy to hide or at least mask the fact that I’m an introverted, socially/religiously liberal, Unitarian Universalist transgender person, so my status remains relatively high.  The ugly truth is it’s much easier to gloss over those little details of my life than to stand up and proudly proclaim exactly who and what I am.

I’ve found that over time, as I’ve more fully explored my feminine aspect, that I’ve been able to let more of it leak into my male presentation, but it’s not easy for me.  I think it’s this pressure to keep my head down and conform that drives me to maintain two separate identities, one trying to pass as a man, the other trying to pass as a woman.  In the absence of a “third gender” role in our society, I don’t see that changing.  But in my own, slow way, I am inching toward being as true to myself, inside and out, as I can be.

Episode IV: A New Blog

Five years ago, more or less, I started a blog on the late, lamented Yahoo! 360; when that was discontinued, I lost heart and interest and blogged no more.  Now I feel the urge to write again; I make no claims of being a great writer or having original thoughts, but I want to share what I have nonetheless.

A little about me: I’m a human being living on the planet Earth; more specifically, the northeastern corner of the state of Tennessee, in the United States of America.  I was born a male approximately four decades ago, was socialized as a male, and remain male-bodied.  Most of the time, I dress and act more or less in ways culturally sanctioned for men, and use my male birth name.  Sometimes, though, I dress and act more or less in ways culturally sanctioned for women, and use the name Wendy.  If you must use a label, transgender will do.  I am married to a woman who is OK with all this.  I work as a server administrator for a smallish corporation in the process of being swallowed by a gargantuan corporation.  I lead a rock band, in which I play guitar and sing.  I write and record my own songs.  I am a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

I sometimes think I'm a walking contradiction.  I'm open-minded, yet stubborn.  A religious agnostic.  A cynical optimist.  A sloppy perfectionist.  A womanly man.  An IT professional with a distrust of technology.  A very shy person who loves to play music in front of an audience.  You get the idea.  I'm mostly OK with contradictions and paradoxes; in fact, I think they make life interesting.  While I maintain this blog, I want to share my contradictions, thoughts and history with anyone who might be reading.  I want to add my voice to the babble of humanity, if only for a time.