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It has been over six months since I revealed my internal gender
to the outside world and quit trying to live in the role that
had become impossible for me to maintain. Since it is an
anniversary of sorts, it seems like an appropriate time to look
back on those six months, and perhaps to lay out goals for the
coming six months.
To say that dealing with the resolution to my gender dysphoria
has been hard on everyone is hopelessly inadequate. Each one of
us has been forced to struggle internally with having their
world turned upside down. Unlike most life-events, this one is
so unusual that finding someone to help with the emotional
trauma is nearly impossible. Since 1996, I have had a therapist
and support group who were sympathetic and knowledgeable, and my
quarterly visits were largely responsible for keeping me going
while my transition was put on hold. Unfortunately, for M, the
kids, and my parents, there was not enough help. They had each
other, and I wanted to be helpful in providing resources for
understanding, but mostly they all suffered in silence.
That any of us have had to suffer at times makes me angry still,
but anger without a legitimate target is wasted energy.
Any residual anger is muted now, like a wound that has healed
but left a visible scar. The others have gone through their own
range of emotions as they grieved the personal loss of an
important part of their life. I don't know if any preparation
could prevent a gender transition from feeling very much like a
death. Never mind that there is a rebirth of a
similar-yet-different person, it is the death that hurts
so much.
I am both humbled and joyous that we are all still together. The
seven of us spent a nice Christmas day doing traditional things
like lots of other people, opening gifts, eating a big turkey
dinner, and playing board games in the afternoon. This year,
oldest daughter gave me a name plate in a wooden stand to sit on
my desk - in my new name, which the family all still have great
difficulty saying. When I opened it, she told me that I would
need to get a job soon to have a place to display it.
The hugs we give one another on parting now are more heartfelt
than ever. I think this speaks more than any words could. I
think (hope) the worst is over and it is my most fervent wish
for the new year that healing for everyone will continue.
I've not been this long without work since my 18th birthday.
Although I enjoyed my summer working at the lake very much, the
search for something productive to do has become very tedious.
Years of planning paid off when much to my surprise, the highly
unlikely possibility that I would lose my job because of my
transition turned into a certainty.
I remember how when I would hear about people who were
unemployed before, I would feel a brief pang of sympathy, then
quickly move on to earning and spending money as before, never
imagining such a thing could happen to me. After all, I
was good at my work, highly valued, and all that sort of thing.
Wanting to work, but not having the opportunity, is a serious
thing. Even if the financial strain is cushioned by reserves,
there is a feeling of uselessness that gnaws at you
relentlessly. I can see that left unresolved, it could spiral
into disillusionment and major depression. Telling oneself all
the little "one day at a time" pick-me-up platitudes wears thin
after awhile.
When the right opportunity for work comes along, I will almost
certainly have to move to accommodate it. This will complicate
all our lives again, since M needs to continue working here to
maintain her income and benefits, and there is no chance that we
would sell the house we built with our own hands anyway. Most
likely, our future is to join the ranks of soldiers and other
sorts of expatriates, those who are forced into long periods
apart in order to support themselves and their families. I doubt
many of them look forward to the separation, but they seem to
cope somehow.
Nary a day goes by that I don't think about someone I haven't
seen for six months or more. This uprooting-in-situ feels akin
to moving suddenly to a foreign land. The few who were close
enough and wished to keep up a friendship I see on occasion.
From some there was a parting exchange of e-mails (though we
didn't call it that), but from the majority of others, there is
only silence. Mostly, I miss a lot of those people. It
saddens me that the perceived immutability of birth-assigned
gender can have such a powerful effect on even casual
relationships. But I can't change any of that.
Of my two closest male friends, one is fully aware of my
situation, and we will remain friends, but our shared future
activities are uncertain. Our families were all so close that my
children still refer to he and his wife as "uncle" and "aunt". I
haven't given up on the future though, and I don't think he has
either.
The other friend, my hiking partner of 25 years who lives many
states distant, is unaware of my situation so far as I know.
It was just more convenient to ignore the issue when we
vacationed together countless times all these past years, and I
still don't know how to tell him. He knew that strangers who saw
me began assuming I was female, but he ignored it, chalking it
up to my long hair. Our friendship was always about shared
interests, with the emotional content unspoken, and I fear that
telling him will be a disaster. My reluctance to speak up is
simply rejection anxiety. We've been through a lot together -
like 60 hours inside a 2-person dome tent below Muir pass in the
Sierra-Nevada Mountains, while the blizzard howled around us
like it would never end, and we survived on hard salami, cheese,
crackers, and snow-melt. He had brought Chuck Yeager's
autobiography in his pack to read, and he tore the chapters
apart so we could both read at the same time. How ironic that
he, who I've spent more alone time with than anybody but M, will
be the last person, whom I care about, to know.
The only solution I can come up with on friends is to take
advantage of opportunities to make new friends - people who
don't carry the baggage of the past in their heads. A new work
group will help with this enormously. In the mean time, I'm
going to force myself out of the house more, perhaps find
volunteer or other social groups to join. I'm not an unfriendly
person, just a bit shy with new people. Finding people to do
special things with may be the hardest. I intend to take
an extended wilderness hike next summer again, having missed out
last summer. Many men, and almost all women in my age group
either can't or don't want to do such physically demanding
activities anymore, so I'll be working on this extra hard.
After the relationship issues I've described, all that's really
left of importance is how I feel about myself. In my visit to
the therapist a few weeks ago, I told him I hadn't scheduled an
appointment in a long time because "I don't feel like I need
therapy - I need a job!" He had comforting stories of past
clients who made it through similar circumstances. I told him
the thought of socially de-transitioning in order to improve my
odds of finding work had briefly crossed my mind, but I knew
that wouldn't work for very long. He agreed.
Aside from the work issues, I still notice the feeling like a
weight has been lifted from my shoulders as I go about my daily
business. It just feels comfortable, and I notice myself
losing learned male behaviors unconsciously. The other day, I
had to take care of some business by phone concerning a credit
card in my old name, and I didn't want to go into my personal
story, so I tried to find my old voice, but I couldn't. The
woman on the other end said, "Ma'am, you'll have to get Mr. __
to call to take care of this." I called back the next day
and did a forced imitation of some newly-invented imitation male
voice that wasn't very convincing, but they let me by after
several verification questions.
Some of the mental things that took the longest to become
completely comfortable with were social taboos reinforced in
youth - things like using the ladies room without trepidation,
or carrying a purse - things that little boys taunt one another
over so mercilessly. I think they call it operant conditioning
in the psychology biz.
Figuring out where I fit into the universe of women is an
ongoing thing. This has meant learning to think about women as
much more diverse individuals, much like I had always thought
about men. Before, there was a tendency for my thoughts to form
around stereotypes with women I didn't know well, based on
initial appearances, since I wasn't allowed to be in their
groups as a peer. Just as there were always some men I had
nothing in common with, so are there some women.
A weird thing happens sometimes when I see a
weekly-beauty-shop-appointment-blue-haired,
no-goals-past-cooking-tonight's-dinner, submissive Mrs.
[husband-name]. it scares me just a bit since I can't imagine
being like that. In fact, it was that image which gave me pause
about transition more than once. But then I focus on women I
know who aren't like that at all, regardless of their ages, and
I know I fit in somewhere. It isn't a bias, just a self-image
visualization thing. Of course the thought of becoming a
pot-bellied, balding guy with a bad comb-over was far worse.
Maybe I just have a fear of getting old.
I still worry too much about how I look, but the fear of being
"read" is long gone. I will never be frilly or hyper-feminine,
and on the scale of gender specific behaviors, I will probably
never be in the center of the female bell curve, which pleases
some people, and makes some others nervous. I do sometimes worry
that I won't be taken seriously because I'm a woman.
I am reasonably certain that I would have had much more success
in job-hunting if my resume was headed by my old name.
All in all, I'm confident that I've done the right thing, and
all the little bits and pieces that go into making a whole life
will continue to improve.
I'm optimistic that 2004 will be a very good year.
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The
web directions said that digital photos are now allowed, as long
as they conform to some simple rules, so I set up a temporary
photo studio. An hour and a half later, I finally had a
picture I could live with. Of course, the number of shots I took
had a lot more to do with vanity than with technical issues. If
I had it to do over, I'd just pay someone like I did last time
and be done with it.
My
difficulty in taking a picture I liked made me decide that my
hair needed an update, so off to the hair salon I went today.
I'm finally back to the length and style I've always preferred.
It only took one attempt to get a picture I was happy with this
time. A curious thing is that I got a lot of advice not to
cut my hair when it was really long, both from hairdressers and
friends. But these were usually people with short hair. Another
head-scratcher.