Who Knows?

Do I want everyone to know I'm transgender?  I've been thinking about this lately.  It's been more than 9 months since I fully socially transitioned, but I find that my mind is far from settled on how I feel about being known as a trans woman.

I lived with a very large secret from as far back as I can remember until last October.  I very early on learned to hide my feelings and outwardly conform to the appearance of a cisgender male.  That secret was very hard to bear and took an enormous amount of emotional energy to maintain.  Once I became willing and able to share the secret with more and more people, it was a huge relief.  It is so freeing to not have to lie about yourself.  I never want to go back to that place again.

At the same time, I'm conscious that being a known trans person is likely to be a liability in many circumstances.  I thankfully have very accepting people in my life.  For them, it's no big deal.  But to others in the world, trans people are perceived as a threat--never mind that the threat is imaginary.  To be able to be seen as a cisgender woman in the larger world is definitely a boost to safety and privilege--and given the misogyny, harassment, and threat of violence to which all women are subject, that's saying something.  I'm aware that I am lucky enough to be seen as a cis woman by the casual observer.  I have no confidence that the illusion holds up to scrutiny.  I feel like people figure out I'm trans if they spend any amount of time around me. 

I still struggle with confidence in myself as a woman.  I'm always aware of being different from most other women.  I often feel awkward; my education in the ways of women seems half-done.  There are so many little things to learn that most take for granted.  In my darkest moments, I look in the mirror and see a man in a dress.  I expend a lot of effort in trying to look "put together", partly to combat my insecurity (partly because I like clothes and makeup).  Sometimes I tire of being "the transgender one", a curiosity.  Sometimes I long to be known simply as a woman.

I'm not ashamed of being transgender, or of my past.  I'm proud of how far I've come.  Sometimes I enjoy being "special". And one of the advantages of getting older is that one gradually stops caring what other people think.  However, I also know that being a known trans person has definite risks. It's still early days in my transition, and there is lot to process and come to terms with.  Do I want everyone to know I'm transgender?  Still wrestling with that one.

Lucky

I'm one of the lucky ones.

I live in a time and place where, although it's not easy, it is possible for a transgender person to live a relatively peaceful existence.  As yet, there is no law prescribing jail time or the death penalty for being trans, though some of us are still condemned to death by individuals filled with fear and hatred.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I have some family members that will still speak to me.  Many of my old friends still speak to me.  I have a church community that embraces me for who I am.  None of them have tried to harm me.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I was able to keep my job.  Because of this, I can keep a roof over my head and food on my table.  I have employer-provided insurance and can afford to pay for medical care and medications.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  Because of genetically inherited traits, I can blend in reasonably well with other women.  I can use a public bathroom without putting myself in danger.  While I am regularly, though unintentionally, misgendered and occasionally deadnamed by people who knew me before transition, strangers use the correct pronouns.  No one shouts derogatory remarks at me when I'm walking down the street.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I was born into a white, middle-class family, drastically reducing my chances of being harassed by the police and murdered for being trans, as well as having a much easier time getting an education and employment.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I didn't do anything to deserve my luck, and sometimes I feel guilty about it.  My heart is heavy for all those who aren't so lucky.  The only thing I know to do is to try (and I often fall short) to help those who are less lucky.  We all deserve to live a life free from hate, fear, and deprivation.

I'm one of the lucky ones.  And I wonder how long my luck will last.

Yesterday...and Today

I guess it's time for a look back at another year gone. 2016 will forever be remembered by me as my rebirth year.  My time and energy were mostly concentrated on transitioning, so instead of a lot of summation about what went on during the year, I thought I'd write about what life has been like since October 7, my rebirthday.

For me, one of the most remarkable things about my new life is how little has changed.  I still get up and go to work every morning.  True, I spend more time on my clothing choices, and have the added tasks of fixing my hair and makeup, but those things have quickly become normal.  I still have the same job duties with the same people.  I come home in the evenings and fix dinner.  In short, life is much the same, with this significant difference: I feel much happier and have more energy.

From my perspective, inside looking out, I don't feel any different.  I'm still the same old me.  Since I can't see what I look like (unless I look in the mirror), I often forget that other people perceive me differently than they used to.  It's still a mild (though welcome) surprise when people call me "ma'am", or refer to me as "she" or "her".  However, I must add that it is now more unpleasant to referred to as "he" or "him"--at those times, my self-doubt is triggered, and I'm acutely aware that some people still see me on some level as male.  But back to my main point--I feel very natural and my presentation is unforced, so I often forget that I've changed in the eyes of the world.  This is the real me, folks.

And now, as I settle into my new life, I ask myself, "what now?".  The last several years have been consumed with caring for my ailing wife and transitioning.  Now, no longer having those tasks, there is suddenly space for other things.  I begin to remember what I used to like to do.  I've begun reconnecting with old friends.  I bought a bike and started riding again.  My interest in genealogy has been renewed.  I'm hoping to begin writing and playing music more often.  And I am finally finding the time and energy to address the mess and disorder in my house.

I feel very blessed that my transition has been so smooth and 95% positive.  But I'm also concerned that my life is finally coming together at the same time that the world seems to be running off the rails.  Still, I'm grateful for every new day--and new year.

Fear Itself

At the end of 2014, I reflected on the past year and contemplated the near future in a blog entry called “The Year of Wendy”.  I was filled with fear at what was coming: the continuing decline and ultimate death of my wife, and transitioning to full-time female.  I was convinced that both experiences would be hellish, filled with suffering and pain.  Now I am on the other side of those experiences, and thinking about my fear versus the reality of both situations.

I am blessed (and cursed) with a very vivid imagination.  Add to that a worldview that leans toward the pessimistic, and a generous dollop of fear, and—voila!—you have a tendency to imagine nightmare scenarios for any given situation.

In the case of my wife’s illness, which included dementia, I was full of fears that she would forget me and everyone else completely, that she might become either violent or catatonic, and that I would be forced to put her in a nursing home, where she would be scared and lonely.  Ultimately, I feared she would die alone, not knowing who she was or how deeply she was loved.

Events unfolded much differently.  Although her mental capacity was much diminished, she never forgot the people around her or herself.  She retained her curiosity and humor up to near the end.  And she died at home, peacefully, with me holding her hand.  Don’t get me wrong—it was by no means easy or fun.  It was the most difficult experience I have ever had or am likely to have.  There were times when it seemed like we were both in hell.  But despite all that, my fearful imaginings were far, far worse than the reality.

Considering my gender transition, I was similarly full of doom-filled prognostications.  I feared I would lose my family, friends, and job.  Perhaps I would be unemployable and become destitute.  Maybe someone would vandalize my house or car, beat me up, or even try to kill me.  Unfortunately, these things all really do happen to transgender people, so my fears were not unjustified.

Again, the reality has so far been much different.  Yes, I have lost family—whether temporarily or permanently remains to be seen.  I currently am not welcome in the home in which I grew up, and that is very, very hard.  However, aside from that, my transition has been remarkably painless.  I have the support of many family members and friends who love me as I am.  My legal name and gender changes have been remarkably easy.  And my transition at work has gone astoundingly smoothly.  

Everyone knows the quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.  It’s almost a cliché.  But it’s true.  My worst enemy throughout my life has been my fear and my ability to imagine Armageddons everywhere.  What I have gone through in the past few years has been very, very difficult.  But the fear and associated anxiety have caused me much more suffering than was needful.  I hope that in the future I will be able to more successfully limit my fears to the probable instead of the possible.

Boundaries

As I write this, I anticipate I have less than a week to go before shedding all semblance of a male identity.  I contemplate this momentous change with a mixture of excitement, apprehension, and impatience. I am mindful of boundaries.

Boundaries are strange, invisible dividers.  It's very mysterious, in a way, how they work.  A boundary marks the point in time when two people become lovers.  On one side of the boundary, they are very careful with each other, with how they touch, how they behave.  On the other side, the rules completely change.  Boundaries separate strangers from acquaintances, good neighborhoods from bad, one country from another, day from night, waking from dreaming.

We are told that a boundary separates male from female.  A boundary that, some say, that is impossible to cross.  I know that this is not so; I have been crossing that boundary ever since I was a small child, and so have many others.  This boundary sometimes seems totally imaginary to me, but I know it has some sort of reality.  In the same way that a boundary between two countries is made real by structures, laws, languages, and custom, so too is the boundary between men and women.  Many arguments can be, and have been, made to the effect that this boundary is totally arbitrary and in no way based on reality.  One could also make the case that the boundary between England and Scotland is similarly arbitrary, though you're likely to have some angry Scots on your hands if you bring it up in the wrong place.  My point is that although these boundaries are artificial, they have a kind of reality nonetheless.

And so I prepare to cross the male-female boundary for the last time.  On one side of that boundary, I am expected to wear particular clothing, to speak, move, and look a certain way.  On the other side of that boundary, all those expectations change.  On this side, I have a particular name and gender according to various governmental and private organization; those things change when I cross the boundary.  The things I am interested in and am capable of doing are also expected to be different on each side of the boundary.  In this last, I am afraid I am going to largely disregard those expectations.  I hope that, once I cross that boundary, I never forget I spent much of my life tiptoeing back and forth across it.  It can be crossed, moved, chipped away, widened and narrowed. If I never cross it again, it will not be because it's a real barrier, but because I choose not to.

Of Pickles and Puberties

A few weeks after I started hormone replacement therapy, I developed a strong craving for dill pickles.  I found this both amusing and a little alarming.  What other unexpected changes were in store for me?  Was this just a phase?

A phase it may be, but months later, I still crave pickles; I go through about a jar a week currently.  A friend's daughter, in learning about my pickle craze, asked her mother, "Is Miss Wendy pregnant?"  That tickled me.  Though I'm not pregnant, I am hormonal, and as it turns out, it's not an uncommon craving.

I think back to another time when I craved pickles; I was hormonal then, too.  When I was in my early teens, I seemed to be ravenously hungry all the time.  Both my parents worked, so when my brother and I came home from school, we were on our own for an hour or so.  Almost first thing, I would head to the refrigerator, and get some pickles.  If there was any excess, I would pour the juice into a glass and drink it.  I would further fortify myself with dry-roasted peanuts and hope that I could make it until supper.

At the time, just at the beginning of puberty, I was very confused.  I was very clearly attracted to girls, yet I both wanted to date them and to be one of them.  Was I gay?  No, I liked girls and not boys.  But why did I want to dress and act like a girl?

At school my male and female classmates began to pair up.  Alas, I didn't appear to be much of a catch to the girls.  I was very small for my age; I didn't really catch up until I was around 16. I wore glasses and was known as being--gasp!--smart.  I had a less than movie-star-perfect smile.  And I was ashamed because of my secret crossdressing.  I began to fervently wish that puberty would hurry up and get to work on me, so that I could become a man.  I realized and regretted that I wouldn't look so nice in dresses any more, but the anticipation that women would begin to notice me seemed to make up for it.  And maybe I wouldn't even want to dress up anymore.  "When I was a child, I behaved as a girl, but when I became a man, I put away girlish things."  Or something like that.  It did not ever even cross my mind that some women might be attracted to me as a woman.

Well, as it turned out, it took more than testosterone to entice women to flock to my side.  I had to like and have confidence in myself, and that was a tall order.  By the time I got myself together enough to start dating seriously, I was beginning to have second thoughts about what puberty had done to me.

Now I'm much older, but pubescent again.  Some of what the first adolescence did to my body is not changeable, but I feel like I'm moving--albeit slowly--in the right direction.  I certainly don't expect women to flock to my side once I become a "grown-up woman"; as a widow still in mourning, I wouldn't even want them to.  But maybe, just maybe, when I'm ready, lightning will strike a second time.  If not, that's OK, too.

Meanwhile, where are those pickles?

Memoria

I recently finished reading She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan.  It's a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it; it's very well-written, poignant and funny by turns. I was struck both by the similarities and vast differences in the experiences of each transgender person.  And reading the book reminded me of a time in which I was briefly in physical proximity to Ms. Boylan.

It was 2007, at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta.  SCC is one of the largest and longest-running transgender conferences in the world.  It was two weeks before my wedding; for my wife-to-be and I, it was our fourth straight year at SCC.  It was a strange, scary, and wonderful time; we were excited about our upcoming nuptials but worried about her health.  She had a lump in her neck that was growing rapidly; it had, in the space of a couple of months, gone from being about the size of a quarter to the size of my fist; large enough that it was about to cross her collar bone.  In about another month we would learn that she had small-cell lung cancer; the lump was a swollen lymph node, filling with cancerous cells.

This particular SCC, despite the worries, had been the most enjoyable for me so far.  I had had the opportunity to finally meet in person several online friends that I had made in the past year or so.  Also, for the first time, I was spending the whole extended weekend as a woman, from the time we left the house until we returned.  I was in love with my soulmate, a woman who loved me just as I was.

This particular morning we were sitting in the large hotel atrium, next to a Starbucks stand; my fiancée was having her morning coffee.  She had befriended the elderly barista, with whom she seemed to form an instant connection.  The barista seemed very gentle and very wise; she had had cancer, and seemed to see in my fiancée a reflection of herself.  She went so far as to give my dear a Starbucks travel mug, gratis.


A couple of tables over, an attractive woman in jeans, with long, blond hair, sat with her feet propped up on a chair, engrossed in a book.  I recognized her as Jennifer Finney Boylan; even though I had missed her presentation the conference and had not even read any of her books yet, she was (and is) a celebrity.  I was struck by how comfortable and unselfconscious she seemed; just an ordinary woman enjoying her book and coffee.  I longed to be so centered; I had spent nearly ten years oscillating between two identities, one male, one female.  Paradoxically, this kept me sane; though it could be egregious at times, I was able to be a woman at least part of the time, which I needed, and to maintain the semblance of a normal male life, which I was holding on to.  I wished that I could think of something to say to her, but really, what could I have said?  I left her in peace to her book and coffee.

The morning drew on, and all of us sitting next to the Starbucks stand went our separate ways.

A year later, my wife and I were at the same hotel for SCC 2008, our fifth and final year.  She was emaciated and bald from the radiation, but had been pronounced cancer-free.  Though we didn't quite understand it yet, she was also exhibiting some early signs of dementia; her brain was cloudy much of the time.  Leaning on my arm for support, she made her way to the Starbucks stand, only to find a different barista working there.  She asked this new person where her friend was.  "She died of cancer earlier this year", was the sad reply.  My wife, who had only known this woman for a couple of days a year before, put her head on my shoulder and cried.

Nearly eight years later, she is dead, too.  In the intervening period, we both suffered much as her health declined.  I also realized, and grudgingly accepted, that I needed to stop the oscillation between genders and become, at last, a woman solely.  I read Jennifer Finney Boylan's books and wonder why I didn't read them before.  I think it's because I was afraid that, in reading her story, I would see too much of the dream of myself I was trying not to see.  I think that my wife saw herself, and the future she dreaded, in the barista.

And so the world goes; we intersect, sometimes we travel in the same direction for a while, and then we diverge, each pulled along her own path.