…a reconciliation…finding .me.

Tuesday, July 1st 4:57 pm

Good evening everyone! Happy Dominion Day!!

Why evening and not morning?

Why an extra entry for this week?

Well…

I see this journal as a kind of therapy for me and given that this is the end of a planning and contemplative weekend I thought I would throw a few ideas out into the ether to soothe my mind.

I didn’t have as much time as I would have imagined this weekend due to a surprise visit from my older brother and my cousin but conversations with them have stimulated reflection in areas that I might not have ventured into without their prompting.

I guess that one of the pitfalls of transition is the feeling that once one has begun the process of transition that there is a certain script to follow as the ground has been well trodden before. Conversations with my brother in particular challenge me in ways I don’t expect and though to a large degree they are positive exchanges, at times they can be most challenging.

One of the most challenging questions he has had for me (so far) is the supposition that what I am doing is selfish (or self-ful in his vocabulary). The accusation of selfishness is something that I have fought against my whole life. Who am I to presume that my interests are more important than the interests of those I care for most? Is my quest for gender congruence selfish? Is my asking for what everyone else takes for granted asking for too much?

My brother would answer (I presume) that I am only taking my ‘full’ portion. I am only looking after myself and that being selfish (or self-ful) is O.K. . Maybe - but the times that I’ve ‘postponed’ transitioning (at least three times to my count so far) have always been predicated on my wanting, one more time, to live up to what I supposed society expected from me. They were, in order, ‘to be a man’ - so I joined the military, ‘to get a good job’ - so I did my masters degree and joined the public service and ‘to start a family’ - so I got married. My selfishness now - if it truly is that - is to reject a fourth postponement of my transition for the reason of ‘do whatever it takes to make your marriage work’.

Don’t get me wrong, I made those decisions out of my own free will and they were, in some cases, in my short term best interest, but I also made them for the reasons of appeasement, self-preservation and, tragically, love.

I joined the military to do what I could to prove that I could be a man - it didn’t work out so well and I was mostly miserable there.

I furthered my education because I wanted to have a strong base to support myself when I did transition - it worked out fine but another five years had passed by before I was done my MBA and had a good job.

I got married because I fell in love and it felt so right that I thought I might have a chance at having a family and living a ‘normal’ life. I truly felt I was being saved from my transsexuality by love.

I never, at any time, questioned whether or not I was transsexual but I did try to do whatever I could to avoid, what I hoped was an avoidable inconvenience - transition.

My regret is that, despite my self-knowledge, my fear of the imagined derision I thought I would face from society at large, prevented me from facing my ‘true self’ much earlier and that that fear led to me lying to and hurting myself and others - my wife mainly.

What I have discovered over the past few years and the past few weeks is that I was hurting my wife more by hiding my transsexuality from her and that so long as you try your best to blend in as a woman, society generally accepts transgender people without derision.

Transitioning, to me, is the least selfish thing I can do at the moment since it allows me stop lying to myself and others. It gives me the chance to be authentic and to give more fully of myself since I am not forced to suppress my femininity out of fear of persecution. It allows me to be one-hundred percent myself and to put one-hundred percent of myself out there for others.

Transition means that the male me, a construct that I invested a great deal of effort becoming and being, will have to make way for the true me, the female me. And that, I’ll admit is selfish. I am taking away a brother, a husband, a buddy and a male employee but in return I will be a more engaged sister, a more giving partner, a more honest friend and a more productive worker - someone who will be fully there, not just a pale shadow of imagined expectations.

Is it selfish to want to be the best person you could possibly be?

Is it selfish to want to live authentically?

Am I taking ‘more than my share’ or ‘beggaring others’ so that I can be happy?

I don’t think so.

I think that every decision I made to delay my inevitable transition just compounded the lie.

I think that every postponement I made increased my potential to hurt others.

If honesty is truly the best policy then the best policy for me is to transition.

If ‘above all do no harm’ is a guiding principle then I need to be authentically me.

I don’t want to deceive and I don’t want to hurt.

Is that so selfish?

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday June 29th 6:15 am

Good morning everyone! It is dripping wet out here this morning after some pretty fierce thunderstorms ripped through the area last night. Luckily when I woke up we still had power or I wouldn’t be able to write this with the warm comfort of my weekend coffee latte to fend off the heavy dampness surrounding me. The sun is bravely trying to peak through the clouds in the East, a cacophony of creatures is celebrating the fresh rainfall and every so often a fresh breeze shakes the droplets of rain still resting on the leaves cascading waterfall-like down to the ground below. All in all a truly inspirational morning!

In Canada summer begins with the long weekend celebrating Canada day on July 1st (unfortunately it looks like my American friends will have to wait until next weekend to begin theirs this year…). With the beginning of summer, I will be spending this weekend reflecting and preparing for my new beginning this fall when I transition to full-time. To be honest I think the entire summer will be spent in that effort but since I have four days away from work, I intend to spend some serious time planning what my next steps will be.

I remember last year at this time quite vividly since it was during this same weekend that I told my wife about my decision to begin estrogen therapy to help alleviate my dysphoria. I had agonized over the decision for the better part of a year since I knew what her probable reaction would be. She told me that if that was my intention then I should find somewhere else to live. I rushed to find and furnish an apartment and, except for the odd occasion, it has sat empty the whole year, serving mainly as a salve to her conscience since she knows that if my transition does get to be too much for her, I have some place to go when she kicks me out.

I started on low levels of premarin at the beginning of October but didn’t really begin intensive hormone therapy until April this year when I began my estradiol valerate injections. The changes, as I’ve chronicled in this journal, have become noticeable, especially since I started the injections. I now find it difficult to ‘pass’ as a man unless I bind my breasts - something that I haven’t done yet and hope not to have to ever endure the indignity of.

When I explained to my wife my intention to begin taking estrogen, I told her that it was an experiment to see if the experience of calm that I felt when taking spironolactone for over a year would be enhanced by adding estrogen to the mix. At the time I felt that there was a 50/50 chance that the difference would be noticeable and that I would soon be back to just taking the spironolactone alone - after all if the difference wasn’t noticeable who wants to go through the difficulty of a complete transition? Was I ever wrong about that prediction!! At the low levels I was taking before April the difference was there but once I had started the estradiol injections the difference was through the roof! A recent increase to the amounts of estradiol and androcur and the reintroduction of spironolactone to my regime has helped make me feel myself for the first time since puberty. It is as some transpeople have described it, like the removing the ‘snow’ from the picture when tuning in old television sets. I see, hear, smell and feel things much more clearly, more intimately than I did before. I feel better being myself and others feel better being around me. I wasn’t necessarily a bad person before, but I am a much better, more genuine person now. I increasingly don’t have anything to hide (except at work and people there are noticing the changes despite my not openly admitting to them) and I feel good about being myself - it shows.

Which leaves my wife to ask ‘What next for us?’. I honestly don’t know - a great deal depends on her reaction to us being treated as two women when we go places now as a couple. As I have written earlier, in the winter, spring and fall I could wear coats to cover my ‘girls’ and I would more or less pass as a rather effeminate man. During the summer I can’t wear coats and my now more feminine face, breasts and long hair definitely say ‘woman’, even when I wear more masculine clothes. My wife will either accept that as being ‘fine’ or will say ‘enough is enough’ - at which point I will begin moving to my apartment and we will start leading separate public lives. She is relatively comfortable with me in private so long as I don’t cross the ‘dress or skirt’ line that she has established (though I haven’t actually tested that one yet). I do wear relatively tight shirts and tank tops which my breasts clearly ‘tent’ out, I don’t hide my changes around her or even my painted toe-nails (pink!), so there is some margin of tolerance in her, at least in the privacy of our home. We haven’t been out together in public since she returned so I don’t know how it will work out in those situations.

My plan now is to stay and help out around her house as long as I can and hope that she can overcome her aversion to my transition to full time. Above all else we still love each other intensely and though my transition and her reaction to it has strained that bond somewhat, we continue to enjoy our time together. Ironically, as I’ve mentioned before, our marriage / friendship has improved greatly since I started counselling, started taking the spironolactone two years ago and began estrogen last October. I am a much happier person and that impacts all of my relationships.

All that to say that I have much to think about over the course of this summer. My name change will come through in October or November which means I will transition to full-time at work around the same time. My wife’s health is still an issue so that may affect our relationship as well. Part of me realizes that it would be much easier to be separate from my wife while I adjust to living full-time as a woman but most of me can’t imagine living without her.

My wife reminded my yesterday of a wise thing that her elderly friend in Montreal said about marriage - ‘Find someone whose faults you can accept’. We are, each of us, not perfect and marriage tests us in ways we cannot imagine until we experience them. I have found that I have become accustomed to my wife’s ‘quirks’, I just hope that she will find the charity and love to accept mine.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, June 22nd 6:27 am

Good morning everyone! It is a cool rainy Sunday morning outside here at my wife’s place this morning. I am sitting under the bug tent listening to the rain pitter patter on the fabric above while I drink some wonderfully hot Mexican chocolate and coffee, being inspired and getting energized for my journal entry this morning!

It was a busy week at work (again) which I suppose is a good thing since I get more opportunities to prove to my managers that I am worth keeping around - especially considering my impending transition, but on the downside I get home and crash because I don’t have the energy to enjoy my part-timeness during my wife’s absence.

That said, the weekends are another story and while I haven’t ‘dressed up to the nines’ and gone out anywhere, I have, as reported last week, become very comfortable (too comfortable?) wearing shirts that do not hide or conceal my breasts when I do my errands and chores, either at home or shopping in general. People see my bust, long hair, feminine clothes and judge female about sixty or seventy percent of the time. I only had one incident of a person stopping and ‘tisk, tisking’ me (an elderly lady), everyone else just went about their business. I was only wearing a light lip gloss (Burt’s Bees Cherry Lip Gloss) and no other make-up other than my smile! I even got lucky and managed to get a really good deal on a white gold necklace with an aquamarine stone and a matching pair of earrings!! The lady at the counter in the large busy department store treated me as female the whole time! All in all a very successful, wonderful shopping day!! Next week, I think I will venture out in sandals to show off my painted toe-nails, lip gloss and maybe even some mascara when I go shopping and see how that works. Oh the joy of finally getting to be me!!!!

Which brings me to the ‘bad news’ portion of this entry. I don’t know what I will do when my wife comes back. We have spoken everyday and I have told her what I have been doing including reporting on my shopping trips. What she doesn’t know or understand though was ‘how’ I did my shopping. I wore female blouses that fit me and I carry a purse. Practically, I don’t know what else I can do though. It is summer and on sunny days people don’t wear jackets because it is too uncomfortable and sweaty to wear them - I know because that is what I tried to do for a couple of hours last weekend until I just gave up and took the jacket off, much to my relief. The only way I can present as male on my upper body now is to wear very baggy, oversized male shirts, which I do when my wife’s friends come by to visit or we visit them. Even then, short of uncomfortably binding my breasts, people do notice, especially now that I am at my lightest weight in over twenty years (yaay me!!!). I only get away with it at work because I wear oversized shirts (ie. collar size 16.5 or 17 inches when I am about a 14.5 in the neck now…) and I wear a jacket outside of my office - though to be honest even they are fitting a bit snug these days… . All that to say, either I be myself most of the time away from work or I sit in my dark basement waiting for fall and winter fashions to cover up my girls.

At one time in my life going downstairs to play endless computer games and drink beer would have been a slice of heaven but not now.

I don’t know how my wife is going to react to my new level of androgyny / femininity but I do know that it will be a question of her comfort level and/or a steep learning curve for her which means it will be the same or even more difficult for her than it was for me. She likes(d) being married to a man and I love being honestly myself, honestly female, so I am not sure where the compromise might be on this issue.

As I said last week, presenting publicly as female doesn’t really feel like a dramatic event for me. What strikes me the most is how normal it feels. I pull my shoulders back, push my chest forward and walk around with a great big smile on my face (well, maybe I am not smiling all the time but I am a lot more open with my emotions than I ever have been before). When I tried to keep up the male facade, that is what felt like a performance. I love being myself, comfortably, mundanely female - what a joy it is!!

I don’t even bother very much with trying too hard to be male at work now now either. For example, on Friday I baked cookies for a meeting I was chairing (a brainstorming session therefore energy food was required). The alternative was buying donuts (and then eating them, ugh…), so I just got up a bit earlier than usual and baked up a batch of ‘The Joy of Cooking’s’ sesame seed cookies (aka benne seed wafers). I was roundly complimented on how well they turned out and many, usually hard to please people (including my Director General who is a woman (does that really make any difference?)) took two. I was worried initially that bringing my own baking to work might ‘out’ myself too early, but in reflection it was a great thing to do because it was a ‘team player’ type of a thing - even though it is usually women who do it. Another example of my ‘outness’ at work is that I carry a purse instead of a briefcase or backpack to work now - actually it is a unisex purse but it is still a purse.  Here is a picture of it:. I think that the only thing that keeps me a credible male in their eyes now is that most know that I am married.

It seems that the more I allow myself to be myself, the better I feel and the more people like me. I think there is a trend in there somewhere but I am not sure… .

The trend to letting myself be more myself is a positive one from my point of view but from my wife’s point of view I am sure it sucks royally. It will be interesting to see how she reacts when she gets back. They say it is hard to stuff the genie back in the bottle so unless she is more than a bit accommodating and understanding I might find myself either really depressed or living in my apartment earlier than planned (or both…).

I have found that I really enjoy the comfortable mundaneness of being female and being accepted for the most part as female in public.

I have found that I enjoy the honesty of being me everywhere I go.

Oh the joy of finally being me!!

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, June 15th 6:48 am

Good morning everyone! It is a fresh, noisy morning outside here at my wife’s place in the Gatineau hills of Quebec. The chipmunks are chipping, the squirrels are squirrelling, the geese are honking and the birds are singing - it is the tail end of Spring and everything is alive! As the sun slowly brightens the green canopy that surrounds me, it is hard not to be in awe of all the exuberant affirmations of life!!

I have had an interesting week, it started with a three day course (that had an interesting conclusion), then my wife left to visit her sister in the United States and I went shopping as myself on Saturday. Not, on the face of it, too interesting, but as usual I’ve drawn some conclusions related to my transition from it.

The course was interesting from the standpoint of how much of an effect the hormones have had on me physically since these days, even when I wear a suit and tie and despite the receding hairline, I look very androgynous, leaning to the fem side more than a bit. This became especially poignant when one of the speakers on the final day was someone who was in my flight (a group of about 12 cadets) in recruit term at military college (I think he may even have been my roommate at some point…) - in other words we got to know each other very well at the time. I recognized him right away but he seemed to take the full hour of the presentation to realize who I was - he was looking at me oddly throughout it. When I spoke with him at the end of the talk he was quite uncomfortable and didn’t ask the obvious question (ie. what’s with the long hair, etc…). The changes the hormones have made over the past seven or eight months have been subtle but to someone who hasn’t seen me in close to twenty years, they are quite obvious. Still it was nice to see him, I gave him my card and we said we would keep in touch. He is someone who won’t be surprised when I announce my transition later this year.

As I mentioned, my wife left for a visit with her sister so she will be gone for two weeks and I can dress, make-up and do all the girly things I want at the house during her absence. It is really quite an empowering feeling and one that affirms to me the rightness of what I am doing. The only time I have put on any male clothes so far is to go to work. Wearing skirts, dresses, shorts, t-shirts, some lip gloss or whatever I want around the house is really nice. I also did some work outside wearing a sports bra, a light top and skirt yesterday which was really neat! I am truly at the point where I am comfortable being me and I am really not worried what the neighbours (or anyone else for that matter) thinks.

I am starting to realize that is really what transition is all about - being comfortable being yourself. I never have been before and now, despite my insecurities about my appearance (receding hairline, big hands, feet, etc…), I am very comfortable being out as Marybeth - or at least as an androgynous Marybeth.

It was very cloudy and rainy yesterday morning when I went out shopping so I took my wallet and wore a jacket over a nice pink striped blouse that, while not too tight, did show my burgeoning breasts. Over the course of my morning shopping it gradually brightened up and got warmer so I took off my jacket and just carried my wallet in my hand while I did my shopping. I got one or two strange looks and one, quite indignant ‘Sir’, but otherwise it went quite well. As I said, I am comfortable and happy being who I am so I didn’t have any problems. I was very apprehensive about taking off ‘my armour - ie. my coat’ but I soon realized I didn’t have anything to worry about and I went about my business. Next weekend I am going to put in my contacts, wear a bit of mascara and put on a subtle shade of lipstick or gloss and see how that works (I have an updated picture in my ‘About Marybeth’ page if you want to see how that might look).

I think I am finally beginning to understand experientially what Liz has been writing about in her blog (http://pattiedelish.blogspot.com/) these past months. I always took her at her word that the transition she described, that of gradually being accepted as female outside of work, was theoretically possible but I never really understood what she meant until yesterday. I am finally understanding that transition isn’t about one day people see you as a guy and the next, akin to being struck by lightening, they see you as a girl. It is a gradual process that happens so subtly you hardly even notice it.

With the help of hormones and just by being myself I have slowly come to be accepted as female by more and more people. Some still view me as male when I don’t, like yesterday, wear any make-up or I wear clothing that doesn’t emphasize my breasts, but given the breadth of female expression these days, many just give me the benefit of the doubt. There as still things that I can do to tip the balance more in the ‘female’ favour like lose more weight, get a haircut that covers my hairline more effectively, wear earrings or put on some make-up but it is nice to know that going out as I did yesterday I was still accepted as female by some and at least I wasn’t harassed by anyone. It was a neat experience and happy realization that just by being myself, I was accepted as female.

Liz and those others who’ve written similar things in the blogs and journals that I’ve read over the years are right - transition just happens - it isn’t accompanied by a thunderclap or trumpets - it just is. It feels normal, it feels right, it feels like being me (which, actually, is kind of a disappointment because I was really looking forward to the trumpets…)

AH-HA!

The question I am really asking myself these days is - ‘Why did I wait over twenty years to transition???’ I have never felt so comfortable, so much myself. I walk proudly, with my back straight - not hunched over like I used to. I always have a smile on my face these days! I am not afraid to laugh or express sympathy and I even cry on occasion.

In short, it feels good to be alive!

So now I join all of God’s creatures on this wondrous Spring morning in looking forward to the future, the coming Summer Solstice and everything else that life has to offer with unrestrained joy!

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, June 8th 5:28 am

Good morning everyone! It is an overcast, warm and humid morning in the Gatineau hills today. Observers here say that the weather has been good for black fly and mosquito populations and I would have to agree with them. Even under the bug tent outside a few of them have managed to invade, so here I sit, unfortunately, in the relative safety of the interior of my wife’s house.

It is often said that transition for a transgender person is a very selfish act. For me it is one of the very few times in my life that I have put my own happiness above the happiness and comfort of those around me. As I’ve written here before my life has been mostly about sacrificing myself to the detriment and eventual deterioration of my mental health.

Sacrifice is an interesting idea, I think it happens in one of two cases, either one is completely enlightened and sacrifices oneself because of a belief in the greater good (ie. a saint), or one has such a low opinion of oneself that they think the comfort of everyone around them is worth more than their own comfort (ie. a non-person). For the longest time I didn’t accept the person that I am and tried to be a person I wasn’t at such a fundamental level that the only way I could find comfort was through escapist activities (for me it was reading, computer games, and alcohol). I sacrificed myself because I thought that if I couldn’t be happy, then at least I could help others to me happy. That is why transition for me is much more than the hormones, the clothes and the physical changes, though they are important contributors to my happiness, it is fundamentally about finally accepting that I am allowed to be myself, a person, warts and all.

Right now I am struggling with my transition because I am trying to imagine how the particular type of woman I am becoming might be able to fit into the world. In some ways it is true that I am going through puberty at forty but I am going through it with the disadvantage of a 25 years of testosterone poisoning I am at that awkward stage where my body is changing (but nowhere near as fast as I would like for it to!) in the process of becoming a woman. I am asking all those puberty period questions about my body - will the hormones make my breasts big enough, will they soften my face and body enough so that I will appear feminine without surgery - will everything ‘fit’ together so that people will identify me as a woman, not as a ‘man-in-a-dress’? I think the answers to those questions is ‘wait and see’ but oh, the suspense! In the meantime, I am in-between and wondering whether surgery will be required to fix the faults or if nature will work its’ magic.

After a lifetime of forcing my mind and soul to conform to the expectations of others I am now hoping my body, through the magic of hormones and diet will conform to the expectations of my mind and my soul. I am already much happier and more at peace because of my personal acceptance of myself and the physical changes but when society sees something that doesn’t fit their expectations they can be hostile so I labour, selfishly, to try to fit within the parameters of their expectations.

I spend my time learning all those things that little girls learn. I am recapturing my pre-puberty voice, I am learning to dress myself attractively, I am learning to behave in a ladylike way, I am learning to express my emotions, I am learning to walk, I am learning to talk.

I am learning to allow myself to be myself.

I am learning to be confident as myself.

I am learning to be a person.

Does all this time learning take away from the time that I should be spending on my relationship with my wife? Yes, it does. Does that make me selfish? Yes, it does.

But It isn’t that clear cut. As a purported male, my escapism (reading, computer games and alcohol - often in combination) took me away from my marriage more than all the activities associated with my transition combined - and they didn’t make me happy!!!

Transition takes time. It is a huge learning curve. It changes me from male to female. The former frustrated, unhappy and depressed me is exchanged for the confident, happy and peaceful me.

The old me just survived, the new me thrives.

I understand that there will be sacrifice involved but I choose the sacrifice of a person who loves themselves fully and because of that can love others as fully.

I know I will never be a saint but is it too much to ask to be a person?

In closing I would like to leave you with a small ‘poem’ that I wrote that reflects how I am trying to come to grips with the essential differences between me and other women.

Different

I will always be different,

Just outside the norm.

Always yearning, striving to fit in as best I understand I should.

As male, or female I will always be slightly off,

Something won’t quite be right.

As a man I tried to learn the behaviours that would allow me to be accepted,

Though my instincts betrayed my intentions.

But the fact remains, my female mind, my female soul,

Were ill-suited to my male body.

As a woman I take hormones to conform my body to female norms,

That my hairline, my large hands and my large feet betray.

But the fact remains I will always have reminders of a male body that was unbecoming,

Though my female mind, my female soul are at peace.
        
I will always be different,

Just a little out of the ordinary.

But the fact remains,

I am a person.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Saturday, May 31st 10:04 am

Good morning everyone! It is a rainy thunderstorming day here in the Gatineau hills of Quebec so I am pleasantly ensconced in my favourite armchair with a hot cup of Mexican hot chocolate to warm and (hopefully) inspire me.

I was up early this morning but I wasn’t in the mood to write for some reason so I delayed my turn at the keyboard until after breakfast and after my wife left for a meeting in town. Let’s see what I can come up with…

It was a relatively eventful week life-wise and transition-wise as well. I happily managed to get over my poison ivy by Thursday night and just as I was sitting down to celebrate with a piping hot cup of peppermint tea, I promptly spilled it onto my left thigh causing first and second degree burns to a relatively large expanse of my upper left thigh. I cursed and cried for about a half-hour while I ran water over it prior to my wife arriving home from a dinner with friends and driving me to the emergency room. It didn’t turn out to be as bad as it looked and is now healing quite well. That said it does seem to be another setback of sorts as I will have to wait a few weeks before I can start my exercise routine again. I guess I will have just have to starve myself to lose the weight I need to before I transition at work this fall!

As I screamed and cried on Thursday night at the seeming unfairness of my misfortune I gradually came to realize that I really needed to get on with my transition and get even more serious about moving forward with it. I realized that my poison ivy adventure and then my close encounter with boiling hot tea were physical manifestations of the mental anguish that I am going through as I find yet another (really good!) reason to delay living full-time by another month or so. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this recent delaying behaviour was just a continuation of the same behaviour that I have exhibited my whole life.

The reasons I have come up with not to transition have at various times included:

(…by the way, you can play along and see if you can tally the same number of self-defeating behaviours that I have exhibited at various times in my life…)

In my teens I didn’t transition because I thought that all trans-whatevers were freaks and I didn’t want to admit I was a freak. So I went to military college and almost went crazy trying to fit in. It turned out that despite my best efforts I didn’t fool them and eight years later the army and I mutually decided to end our association.

In my twenties I postponed my transition because I wanted to get a good education so I went back to school and earned my MBA. Then I thought, it is a tough job market out there, I really should land a solid job before I transition. By the time I accomplished that I was already twenty-nine years old.

When I was thirty I met a good friend that I had dated while doing my MBA. We hit it off again like we had never broken up. Even though it had been almost three years since we had seen each other last, it seemed like it had just been that previous evening - I had fallen in love. Love seemed like a good reason to get married and since I was getting married I didn’t need to transition, love conquers all - right? I found out the hard way that while it is conceivable that love might conquer all, I don’t think the poet that conceived that line was transgendered, otherwise he/she would have added the transsexual clause. We are still together and the last ten years have been amazing but we have recently and painfully come to the mutual understanding that as soon I go full-time I will be living by myself in my apartment - end of story.

In my forties (ie. for the last month) despite my unequivocal understanding that the only way I can live sanely is to live authentically as a woman, I have kept finding ‘really good reasons’ to delay going full-time. They have included ensuring a secure position at work before I come out, staying with my wife for as long as I can, getting scalp advancement surgery to hide my receding hairline and on and on and on … I have used these justifications to procrastinate doing the things that I know I must do before I go full-time - coming out to my boss at work being chief among them.

The epiphany that I reached after I calmed down a bit from the burn on my thigh was that there will always be something that is ‘not quite right’ and that I will never ‘quite’ be ready to go full-time.

‘If you dwell upon limitations you will meet them’
-from the Tao Te Ching (I think…)

I realized that my health (mental, physical and spiritual) is that most important thing that I have - everything else I can accommodate. My skills are the most important thing at work, my love for my wife is the most important thing in my marriage and my authenticity is the most important thing in my gender presentation. Once I go full-time everything will either fall into place or it wasn’t very solid to begin with.

How do I know this? I know this because of an experience I had yesterday that catalysed a number of seemingly disparate incidents over the past few years into an understanding of how being authentically myself, being honestly female, is so fundamentally empowering and fulfilling for me. It turned a mundane (and quite painful!) event into an extraordinary experience.

I have gone to the same dermatologist for my laser electrolysis for the past three years and over that time I have become quite friendly with many of the staff. Yesterday was my ninth laser electrolysis session with them and, as my skin had softened quite a bit since my last session due to my increased estrogen dose, I told them that I was transitioning. They weren’t surprised in the least. My dermatologist actually smiled widely, congratulated me and asked if she should change my records to reflect my new gender! The staff were all very interested in my revelation. One of the nurses told me that her friend had transitioned from female to male and that he was much happier now, and in her view, made much more sense as a man than he ever had as a woman. Another complimented me on my hair! It was the first time that I had come out to relative strangers and, while I admit I was afraid of what their reactions might be (after all the laser is scary instrument of extreme pain!!), it felt really empowering once I told them. After that I felt more comfortable, more at ease, and the laser session went very smoothly. Needless to say I was very very happy for the rest of the day despite the pain and the swelling!!!

It then occurred to me that every time that I have been allowed, and allowed myself, to be authentic with other people I have always felt a kind ‘pressure’ come off a bit. This usually happens when I am with my parents - especially my mom (who both know about my transition and accept me), my brother and cousins (who know and accept me), my therapist (who knows and accepts (and encourages) me), my trans friends (who know and accept me), etc… When I leave these situations I feel ‘the pressure’ come back. I even feel more comfortable when I am around people who know about me but don’t necessarily accept me, like my wife. Every one of the situations I described is a ‘safe’ situation so I guess I just expected that being honest with them would feel good and it did. What really blew me away was how good it felt when I revealed myself in a potentially ‘unsafe’ situation. I suppose I would have felt relief that my ‘secret’ was out but the icing on the case was that I was accepted - and even supported!! It felt like I was walking on air!! I felt no ‘pressure’ at all.

How can I describe the ‘pressure’ to someone who isn’t transgendered? It is like a kind of constraining sieve that every thought, every word, every action and every feeling has to go through before it can be released into the world. Now I understand that everyone has to censor these things to some degree so that we can live together in a ‘civilized’ society, but imagine how it feels to censor the natural tendencies of your gender. I learned at a very early age that my instinctual body language, thoughts, words, actions, reactions and feelings might be thought to be ‘unusual’ coming from a ‘boy’ and could even be dangerous depending on the situation, so I began to filter everything according to what I believed was ‘acceptable’ for a male. That is how I would describe ‘the pressure’. I have to spend so much of my energy monitoring and filtering everything that I have stayed away from people and relationships for the most part because it is so exhausting! You can only imagine the relief I feel when people perceive and accept me as female. Every filter comes off (except for the ‘civil society’ filter of course!) and I experience a sense of freedom and empowerment that I haven’t known since I was a little girl - since before I learned that I couldn’t be what I felt inside.

That’s how I know that when I go full-time everything will either fall into place or it wasn’t very solid to begin with. The ‘pressure’ will be gone. I won’t have to expend so much energy censoring myself anymore. I will finally be able to devote all my energy to being myself, being a good daughter, being a supportive partner (if she’ll let me stay), being a true friend, being a productive employee and being an upstanding citizen. If the sole justification for me being in any of those relationships was that I was good at pretending to be male, then I will be happy that the association and the pretense is finally over.

I guess I always knew how much better I felt when I was able to be authentically myself in ‘safe’ situations, I just never realized how good it might feel to be myself everywhere I go - even if it is just to get my electrolysis done! And now I can’t wait to go full-time as soon as possible so that I don’t have to experience that feeling in ‘instalments’.

Once again I will state my extreme envy for all those non-gender dysphoric people out there who never questioned their gender and were able to fully express themselves from day one.

<Green-Eyed Glare of Envy!!!>

When I got poison ivy and then burned myself I never thought that these two annoying and somewhat painful events would lead me to the conclusion that the sooner I transition the better. When I went to my laser electrolysis appointment yesterday (an experience I don’t look forward too believe me…) I never imagined how good I would feel after revealing to them that I was transitioning.

I wish that it didn’t take the pain of those three events to make me realize the very real mental and physical consequences of remaining in the illusory safety of my male facade. I now realize that the limitations I manufactured for myself to stay ‘safe’ only served to prolong my suffering.

I know that I can no longer sacrifice my health just so I can ‘fit in’.

‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom’
- Anaïs Nin

The painful lessons of the past month have led me to the wondrous, but in retrospect somewhat obvious, revelation that I need to be what I know I am inside to be healthy - mentally, physically and spiritually.

‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.’
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have to overcome my fears and my self defeating limitations, I know that if I don’t go full time I won’t really be living.

‘Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.’
- Anaïs Nin

I just need to be honestly, authentically, .me. !!!

Love,

Marybeth Allison

ps If you made it this far thank-you, I was kind of long-winded today but it felt right somehow.

Sunday, May 25th 6:03 am

Good morning everyone! It is a fresh seven degrees outside under the bug tent this morning, the sun is just peaking over the tops of the trees to the east and it looks like it will be another glorious beautiful day!

First some good news, it looks like my poison ivy is finally clearing up. It still has a ways to go in some places but in others it is almost done. In other words, I am almost ready to get back to the garden - only this time I won’t try to subdue any more poison ivy plants…(leaves of three, leave them be…leaves of three, leave them be…leaves of three, leave them be…).

On the transition front I think I am finally getting to the estrogen/anti-androgen mix that works best for me. Either that or finally after seven months on hormones, my body is happily becoming accustomed to an estrogen-centred hormonal balance rather than a testosterone-based one. It is like I was barely able to breathe for forty years (or to be fair, thirty or so given that the real testosterone blast didn’t hit until puberty) and now I have finally tasted pure oxygen and breathing has become effortless. It is almost like I was an alien living on a different planet all that time, barely able to breathe because the atmosphere was essentially poisonous to me, now that I have the right hormonal balance my body is gradually being cleansed and reinvigorated. I feel like I am finally coming home, I am no longer a foreigner in my own body!

It really does seem like a whole new world has opened up - so much to do, so much to see, so much to feel. I can finally be who I was before the world closed in on the little girl that felt she couldn’t be.

I can still remember the dark clouds that appeared on the horizon when I felt the pressures to fit in and only do boy things. Still, I thought, I could handle these hardships, after all I could still breathe and dream. When puberty hit I realized it that it wasn’t just a passing storm after all, it was getting darker and darker because the sun was going down. A bright beautiful day slowly turned into a cold, suffocating night. It happened so slowly, I thought (again) that I could cope - it was only darkness after all and even though I might bump into a few things here and there if I try really really hard, I can adapt. While real boys (and later men) worked adeptly in the brightness of their testosterone-fueled masculinity, I stumbled in the bleak darkness and utter confusion of mine. The older I got, the darker it got and the more confused I became. I began to lose hope that I would ever see sunlight again.

Then one day the little girl in me finally found the strength to stand up for herself and remind the pretend ‘man’ I had forced myself to become that I didn’t have to live in darkness and confusion. Memories of my life, of the life I lived before the clouds closed in and the long night fell, of the life I lived before I caved into society’s demands to conform to the false destiny of my physical sex and ignore what I knew to be true in both mind and soul, came back in a flood of glorious light. I knew then that I had listen to her to survive. I knew then that my long dark night was about to end.

As the hormones and the anti-androgens have worked diligently to clear the poisonous testosterone from my system and inject it with the life giving mana of estrogen, the darkness has begun to lift and the air has become fresh and clean again.

I can finally love who I am.

I don’t have to hide my feelings or mask my intuitive reactions to life anymore.

I can smile, I can giggle, I can cry.

I can see.

I can breath.

I can be…

.ME.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, May 18th 5:20 am

Good morning everyone! It is a cool six degrees Celsius, overcast and very humid here in the Gatineau hills this fine morn. So humid in fact that I am sitting inside to write because the coolness with the help of the humidity cuts right to the bone and even my piping hot mug of mint tea couldn’t keep me warm outside!

I am being a wimp - I know.

I can’t think of what I really want to write about today so I will discuss the most obvious thing about this past week. The energetic gardening that I described in my post last week has netted me an intense case of poison ivy. Luckily I have been able to go to work but it seems I have been ‘blessed’ with a ‘systemic’ reaction to the stuff and it is essentially all over my body at this point. I know that it will eventually all go away (in two to three weeks) but after a week of putting up with it I will probably visit a doctor next week just to be on the safe side.

My bout with poison ivy annoys me because I was really starting to feel the momentum of my transition beginning to kick in. I was getting more and more confident with presenting as an androgynous female (purse, female clothes, etc…) and I was planning to get my ears pierced this weekend but then the poison ivy happened. I feel like I will lose three weeks of progress towards my transition as I wait out this ‘plague’ that has been visited upon me. If I see the doctor and he suggests prednisone to treat the poison ivy inflammations I will probably give in and take the treatment even though I cringe at the thought of a steroid entering my body at this point.

C’est la vie.

And that is really what I think I can learn from my third encounter with that vile weed. I look at the dug out garden - I got rid of all of the poison ivy in it!! - and I look at how happy my wife is because she finally has her garden back and I think - the sacrifice was worth it. Tough to believe as yet another grouping of blisters breaks out on my body and I am forced to just let the gross body hair on my hands, arms, chest and legs grow out unimpeded but I see my wife smiling and I think it was worth it.

The enforced break from moving forward on my transition has given me some time to look after other things in my life and around the house. I was planning on going out shopping this weekend as my female wardrobe is sadly lacking and my semi-female appearance makes shopping in the ladies section much easier now - what freedom! - but I am stuck at home so I have decided to do some ‘spring cleaning’.

My apartment is much smaller than ‘my share’ of the space at my wife’s place so I need to ‘unencumber’ myself by going through all my old clothes, my old stuff, my old papers - my old life - and keep only what is necessary to my continued life as Marybeth Allison. I won’t throw everything out but I will throw out a great deal of the ‘baggage’ and the accumulated detritus of the past twenty years - the stuff the I have carried around ‘just in case’ since I finished university.

It is almost like fate intervened and pulled back on my reins before I got too far ahead of myself. I really do have some things that I have to look after before I careen headlong into my transition. The downtime that I will have been ‘blessed’ with while I recover from the poison ivy should give me enough space to put to rights many of the unsettled and unresolved bundles of issues that I need to deal with so that I can start my existence as Marybeth Allison unencumbered.

It is funny but I now see my poison ivy affliction not as a curse but as a blessing.

I certainly wouldn’t have felt this way prior to hormones…

Transition is a wondrous process indeed!!

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, May 11th 6:23 am

Good morning everyone! It is another cool spring morning here in the Gatineau hills where my wife lives. I am outside on the back deck under the bug net because yes, the bugs are back. The black flies, the mosquitos and the no-see-ums have returned for another frenzied season of feeding on the unwary. Every time I get upset at the bugs though I just quiet my mind and listen to the lyrical birdsong and remember that they need something to eat too!!

Even though I wrote my weekly entry yesterday I can’t forget that my post of two weeks ago was, well, weak. An apology about a busy two weeks and that was it - so this post is a do-over or make-up entry so that I can keep my uninterrupted weekly blogging streak alive (weekly (or more) since November 2006!!). Hopefully this post won’t be require a do-over as well…

One of the things that has struck me the most over my seven months on hormones has been how I have begun to renegotiate my relationships and my interactions with the world. The hormones have affected my appearance of course, giving me an ambiguous more female than male presentation, but perhaps most significantly they have also altered my attitudes and expectations.

I find that I am more patient, less aggressive, more at peace (a recurring theme I know…) and in general a happier less volatile person than I was before. I realize that these attributes may be seen as stereotypes but I am just reporting how I feel I have changed since I entered e-world (‘e’strogen-world). In daily interactions people seem to be more willing to help me and I am more willing to be helped - even to seek it out if I am having some difficulty - and that would never have happened before! I am also finding that I have the patience to engage in activities that would have seemed to mundane or boring before - such as my current preoccupation with gardening that I have recently discovered.

I think that what is happening is that the more female hormonally I become the more comfortable socially I am becoming. I used to be so awkward socially, for example I would never have willingly initiated a conversation with a stranger but now it seems I am able - truly amazing considering the ambiguity I present (small stature, receding hairline, relatively broad shoulder, small breasts, gym bag (purse) over my shoulder and androgynous but female clothing). It is just so wonderful that I am finally becoming me!

As euphoric as I often feel about my transition I cannot ignore the fact that despite society seemingly becoming more open and accepting of trans-people in general, there is also an under-current of intolerance that makes me wary of becoming too open and trusting of people. The news over the past few months has been peppered with stories of how far society in general yet needs to come in respecting the rights of those whose motivations they too blithely attribute to weakness, perversion or sin.

It all comes down to the basic fact that if you are not trans, if you have not taken adequate time to educate yourself about trans-people or spent time with a transperson, have a special theory theory you want preach or have closed your mind to anything outside of your ‘preferred view’ of the world then you won’t listen to or accept that trans people have a condition that only requires one thing from you - respect for our experience and decisions regarding our lives.

I don’t want to generalize too much but I think I can safely say that every transperson I have met has agonized over every second of their decision to cross-dress, take hormones, or to transition. I think I can safely say that most transpeople are willing to take huge risks to satisfy a yearning that they have gone to great lengths to rationalize or escape but in the end can’t. I think I can safely say that many transpeople don’t truly understand why they are the way they are but they have accepted themselves because it doesn’t go away and hating yourself is no way to go through life. I think I can safely say that all we really want is for society in general to accept our struggles and our decisions and to let us live our lives in peace the best way we know how to.

I realize that makes many people in society a little uncomfortable. Transpeople are born questioning the one thing that most people take for granted from day one - their gender. However there are some people who don’t, can’t and won’t understand transpeople and justify their prejudices with theories based on pseudo-science and religion. The unfortunate part is that the purveyors of these opinions affect the perceptions of those people who might be ‘on the fence’ regarding transpeople and willing to be open minded about our plight. The consistent theme throughout their works is that they don’t listen to the experiences and testimonies of transpeople (see Julia Serano’s excellent book ‘Whipping Girl’ for a more detailed discussion of this topic). I will overly simplify a few of the more popular ones for your convenience.

Some theorists think that transpeople are weak-willed individuals looking to hormones for an easy solution to their many deep-seated psychological problems. Dr. Zucker and others believe that we were all born men or women so we should just put up and shut up. It is safe to say that Zucker’s reparative therapy techniques have damaged the lives of many transpeople.

Other thinkers simply equate a transperson’s desire to experience the opposite sex or to change their sex to a motivation to fulfill sexual fantasies. They feel that there can be no other explanation other than transpeople are just perverts looking for a scientific justification for their carnal desires. Blanchard, Bailey and Dreger have called this theory autogynephilia and made their careers type-casting transsexuals as perverts and trans behaviour as a ‘lifestyle choice’. Their recommended solution which I will call ‘lifestyle conditioning’ offers comfort to some people but, in my opinion, just delays the inevitable for others.

Finally there are those who reject transpeople because in their religious education they were taught that God created Adam and Eve not Adam (but conceivably Eve) and Eve (but potentially Adam). People in this camp say that a transperson’s desire to experience the opposite sex or to change their sex conflicts with God’s will. Transpeople were born male or female and we should stay that way - all the time. A decision to stray from God’s will represents our succumbing to the temptations of the devil and thus it is a sin. The solution for adherents to this theory is something called restorative therapy where they suggest that our lack of faith is what has caused us to stray from God and we need to pray more to find our way back to God. Quite apart from the blatant arrogance of their presumption that they know God’s will and thus judge transpeople this way, restorative therapy has also caused much grief to many transpeople.

I think what I am trying to get at here with these examples from a personal point of view is that despite the clear evidence in the eyes and experience of those who know me as to the difference that accepting and dealing with my gender dysphoria has made to my life, there are still many who would reject my hard won experience out of hand. The fact that I am much happier and more at peace than I have ever been in my life doesn’t seem to mean a thing to them because in their view I am obviously a weak-willed, perverted sinner (or any combination of those). Another motivation is that American Psychiatric Association (the APA) is in the process of rewriting their Diagnostic Service Manual (the DSM) which will effectively redefine the treatment of my condition. A panel they appointed to review the current version, the DSM-IV, for the new version, the DSM-V, includes Doctors Zucker (Reparative Therapy) and Zucker (Autogynephilia) so will likely include some of the prejudices that I just described. Other blogs especially A.E. Brain (http://aebrain.blogspot.com/) and Dented Blue Mercedes (http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/) get into this debate more fully than I ever could.

I think the real solution to this predominantly Western misunderstanding of gender, of an adherence to ‘gender orthodoxy’, is that we need to accept and recognize the importance of mind and spirit in the determination of gender behaviour. My body is male, but increasingly female, hormonally I am female, my mind has always insisted I am female and spiritually I know I am female. The only aspect of mind, body and spirit we can verify conclusively (without a post mortem autoposy or expensive CAT scan) is the body. We have to take the word of the transperson that they have always felt in their minds they are, to some degree, the opposite sex. Most scientists reject spirit out of hand but I am sure that those of us transpeople who have delved into spirituality to some extent know implicitly that our souls are representative of our true gender as well.

Nature has such wide diversity that it seems obvious we must look beyond physical markers and be skeptical of any attempts to restrict or regulate gender expression in any way - to do so would be to limit the human experience and understanding. We are only beginning to know how our physical body works (and there many huge gaps in our knowledge here), we are many decades away from understanding how our minds work and spiritually we can learn much more than we acknowledge from traditions far older than the Western faiths but we often choose to ignore them in favour of the strict dichotomy favoured by the Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions. We need to keep our minds open to new understanding and experience or we are doomed to stagnation.

Society simply needs to acknowledge and respect the lives and experiences of transpeople throughout the ages to understand the transgender condition - not just write off a whole segment of society off as weak-willed, perverts and sinners.

I know that it has taken far more fortitude, sincerity and faith to accept myself as transsexual than it ever did to conform to society’s expectations and pretend I was male.

I know that I am a woman and no amount of reparative, Blanchard inspired ‘lifestyle conditioning’ or restorative therapy will change that.

I am woman in mind and spirit - my body just needs to catch up.

Don’t reject me because you don’t understand why.

I don’t either.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Saturday, May 10th 6:12 am

Good morning everyone! It is a fresh spring morning outside at my wife’s house today. Only 8 degrees Celsius and expected to go to up to a warmish 19 degrees. It is shaping up to be a perfectly wonderful day, made all the more special by the honking geese, the singing birds and the slight breeze in the freshly leafed trees.

I had a really good, though at times intense, week! My parents visited from British Columbia and I took some needed time away from work to try to get myself centred a bit before contemplating transitioning at work. We ate and drank well and often, we talked about life in general and the challenges they, my wife and I are going through. The discussions we had went beyond the tribulations of my transition to the bigger picture - about getting older, looking after aging parents (my grandparents), and trying to get the best out of ourselves and our lives.

The more we talked the more I realized that it is the big picture that is the most important aspect of our lives but perversely we tend to focus most of our limited time and energy on resolving the often trivial crisis du jour. We get distracted from our goals by the many small annoyances that clutter our lives. The larger perspective is what matters most because it is the sum of all of our reactions to those smaller troubles. If we live our lives making mountains out of molehills then we shouldn’t be surprised if, at the end of our lives, all we have to show for our efforts is a meager collection of conquered molehills (but they seemed so important at the time - they really did!).

We need to focus on our own North Stars if we are ever to arrive at our destinies. Or, to use a hockey analogy (I am from Canada after all), we need to keep our eyes on the goal, protect the puck and always keep our heads up so we can avoid and not be distracted by the unwelcome ‘love taps’ from adversity.

To ensure that we don’t end up fighting the wrong battles for too long and to avoid getting mired neck-deep in trivial complications we sometimes need to take the time to climb to the top of the trees to look at the forest and off to the horizon.

That is what I tried to do this week.

Spending time with both my parents and my wife together was a wonderful experience. We put many things out into the open and I think I am finally beginning to see my parents as the complex people they are. I am finally seeing them as individuals, not as the idealized and demonized protectors and constrainers of my youth. I also feel that I got their real opinions about my transition and most importantly, they said they loved me and that they would support me unconditionally. To sum up their reactions, my Dad is still very skeptical but my mom sees an unhappy and troubled boy blossoming into a loving, happy and peaceful girl.

And that really is the bigger picture.

I am happy and peaceful. I look in the mirror and (despite the receding hairline) I smile!!!!

The receding hairline, the reaction of those who don’t, won’t and can’t understand are the trivial bits - the big picture is about finally being able to love myself and being able to love others more fully. I love my softened body, I love my long hair, I love wearing pretty clothes, I love that I don’t have to filter out my smiles, my giggles, my empathy, my tears.

I love finally being me. Unrestrained. For the first time in my life.

I know that there will be bumps and bruises along the way. I know that I may be laughed at and threatened. I know that I may yet lose everything. I know that it won’t be easy.

But life never is.

Erma Bombeck wrote a bestseller in the eighties with a title that pretty much sums up what I am trying to get at here. It was called ‘If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?’.

Life is a bowl of cherries and even knowing that there are just as many pits as there are cherries won’t stop me from savouring each sweet juicy morsel.

In the end, it won’t be the pits I remember, it will be that wonderful never-ending bowl of cherries.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Friday, May 2nd 10:48 pm

Good evening everyone! It is late on a Friday night and I am finally finding the time to set down my thoughts of the past two weeks.

I really don’t know where to begin.

Life happened.

I was very busy at work, I saw my therapist, I had a really good coffee/tea with a trans friend of mine, my older brother whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas and my two cousins whom I hadn’t seen in many, many years visited my wife and I, I had lunch with some work-related friends who haven’t seen me for a year or more and I had a really empowering trans-discussion group meeting. So many things, so many issues, so many emotions…so much!

After a little over seven months on hormones my body has changed perceptibly if you know what to look for (and even if you don’t I guess…). I look decidedly less male but my receding hairline prevents anyone from jumping over to the feminine pronouns immediately, no matter how much my chest and soft feminine facial feature proclaim it these days.

My therapist says that I am ready to go full-time.

My brother couldn’t believe the physical changes I have gone through since Christmas.

My cousins were cool about my transition and one said that he had never seen me so happy and peaceful as I am now.

My work friends looked at me strangely (one of the friends I had lunch with is female and she studied my face for a while wondering whether she should say something or not…) but accepted me since I was smiling more and wasn’t so distant as before.

The new people I met at the trans discussion group were really cool and I left the meeting thinking - I am ready.

And I am ready.

Except…

My wife needs me and she won’t tolerate me living with her once I go full-time.

And (vanity strikes) my receding hairline makes me hesitate a bit too.

The second one is relatively minor (though passing is very important to me once I go full time) but the first one tears my heart in two. My wife has had so many disappointments in her life and it looks like now she can add me to the list. I feel so bad about how this has turned out. She is sick and she needs someone to look after her and keep her sane but it looks like she won’t let me be that person for her.

For my sanity I need to transition fully, being in-between is increasingly painful.

Losing her would be very painful.

If I transition I lose, if I stay with her I lose.

I lose.

I am so happy when I am with her and I am so happy when I am Marybeth Allison in the world.

By not transitioning I am delaying the inevitable and prolonging the pain.

By leaving my wife I am losing my true love and my best friend.

I am ready. I need to transition. I like being happy and when I am happy my wife is happy - just not when I dress and act appropriately for my gender.

“Be a man and have faith in God” she constantly implores.

But I have faith in God. I have prayed my whole life. I have watched for the signs.

The overwhelming crux of my life has been my dysphoria. With transition I am finally becoming whole. Every part of my being is discovering its voice and singing a harmony that is heartbreakingly beautiful to ears that have been deaf. My mind, my soul and my body - singing together in perfect harmony.

If that isn’t a sign then perhaps I am destined to be deaf and blind.

But to transition I will have to betray and abandon the love of my life.

It is a dilemma that will tear me apart whichever option I ‘choose’ so I will leave it unanswered for now and hope for the best - though, perhaps, a whisper of the resolution can be found in this famous verse:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-William Shakespeare

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Monday, April 28th 6:17 am

This past week has been very eventful (again) and I have much to write about but little time to.

I hope to find a quiet moment or two over the next few days to write about it all.

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday April 20th 7:15 am

Good morning everyone! It is a coolish 5 degrees Celsius outside here this morning - the birds are singing, the Canada geese are honking their progress overhead and, after a long hard winter, it finally feels like spring!

I think I have caught the spring ‘bug’ myself! As I look out across my wife’s front lawn and see the rapidly disappearing patches of snow and think about the warm temperatures we have been getting this past week it definitely seems to me we’ve turned the corner into spring. I think I have also finally turned the corner on the ugly flu that has haunted me these past six weeks so I am feeling more energetic and upbeat than I have in quite some time!

Transition-wise my body is slowly changing to be more feminine but there is much testosterone cleansing work still to be done. My skin is clearer and softer but my muscle mass has not dissolved as quickly as I would have liked. I am slowly dropping weight but I think that, now that I am ‘officially’ at 160 pounds, I will have to drop at least another 15 to 20 pounds to have the feminine proportions that I would be satisfied with. It seems like a monumental task but I know that with diet, exercise and discipline I can reach that goal by the fall and with any luck the estrogen will have softened my other features and I will be ready for my real life test / experience by mid fall.

I must admit that I overestimated the effects that the estrogen, at the doses I was taking, would have on me physically in the short term (six months now). I do feel much better mentally, I am smiling much more and strangely, my wife and I are getting along much better than we have ever. Our relationship has changed somewhat too, the friendship element is much more dominant and we seem to ‘take turns’ when it comes to making decisions. It used to be that she just looked to me when a decision needed to be made and now when a decision needs to be made, sometimes I look to her and sometimes she looks to me.

I have also found that in other areas of my life, even when I am doing something as straight-forward as walking to and from work, I am slowing down and ‘smelling the roses’. I am happier now when I am contributing to a discussion not dominating it. I actually get really uncomfortable when I talk too much or start sounding like I am ‘lecturing’. I speak in a softer voice and laugh more easily and less self-consciously than I used to.

When I am visiting friends that I haven’t seen in a while or interacting with people at work I have a much higher level of comfort with myself than I have ever had before. My old friends have noticed the changes and are wondering if something is up but, as the estrogen hasn’t yet worked many physical ‘miracles’ (which I am praying fervently for!) yet they are still a bit mystified by the new happy smiling me. My wife still adamantly rejects my physical transition but, I think, is over-joyed at my behavioural transition.

While I am still quite envious of those whose physical transitions are progressing more quickly than my own, I have decided to focus on the many positive things that deciding to transition and start on hormones has brought me. I know that eventually, whether it is six months or even a year (or more) from now, everything else will catch up.

I have finally accepted that the physical changes will come when (and I guess, if,) they will. Eventually the estrogen, with the testosterone in my body virtually non-existent, will re-shape the physical characteristics of my feigned masculinity into a reflection of my inner femininity. A femininity that has been coaxed back into life by the proper hormone balance.

After the long winter, the return of spring has convinced me that, with patience, I too will blossom.

I guess you could say that I have finally accepted I am just ‘a late bloomer’!

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday April 13 6:46 AM

Good morning everyone! It is a cool minus one degree Celsius outside here this morning as I sift through my thoughts on this cloudy spring morning. It has been an eventful week life-wise - my wife had her birthday so I baked her a cake (a dark chocolate toasted hazelnut cake with dark chocolate mascarpone frosting - it is as delicious as it sounds - recipe here if you are interested: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/556374) and generally made sure that she had the best week I could possibly give her. On the transition front I don’t have much to report other than continued frustration at the obstinate inability of my wife to understand what I am going through.

The irony of my life is that I have spent so much of it trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be that I have a really tough time breaking that mould and being who I am. My parents wanted a perfect son - so I tried to fulfill their expectations. My wife wanted a perfect husband - so I tried to be that for her. My own needs and desires felt so freakish and wrong that I was more than happy to try and meet as many of their requirements as I could so that I could become what ever they most wanted me to be. I lived my life like a Boy Scout trying to earn merit badges. I never dared to consider what I wanted for myself and consider what my own requirements were to be the most perfect .me. I could be.

When I was growing up I remember watching the television mini-series ‘The Martian Chronicles’ and really identifying with one of the Martians the main character ‘Wilder’ meets in his adventures. Wilder encounters the Martian when he is out exploring the planet and she looks exactly like someone very near and dear to him. He realizes that she couldn’t be that person because the person he knew died some years ago. She runs away but he pursues her and eventually he catches up with her. Realizing she is caught, she immediately explains that she isn’t who he thinks she is but he doesn’t want to believe her even though he knows it must be true.

It turns out that she is a Martian that mimics the dearest person of whoever looks at her - for survival one must assume. She begs that he turn away so that she can escape and live her life as she really is. She explains that if she stays with him that she will gradually become more and more ‘stuck’ in the persona she has adopted based on the expectations that Wilder has about who he thinks she is.

The Martian character really hit home with me because I realized that I was behaving exactly like that she was. I was adjusting my mask to reflect back what everyone wanted me to be so that I could survive in the world. Whenever I met a new person, I would ascertain what they expected out of me and I would adjust my personality and my actions to meet their expectations.

The situation in ‘The Martian Chronicles’ is resolved when the main character after a prolonged internal struggle summons the will to understand that the Martian could not possibly be whom he thinks he sees and she then transforms into her authentic Martian self. The Martian thanks the enlightened main character who was somehow able to overcome his expectations and needs to let her be who she authentically was and she then disappears into the crowd.

I haven’t thought about that segment of ‘The Martian Chronicles’ in a very long time and I may be remembering it inaccurately (perhaps I will try to track down a copy of that 1980’s mini-series somewhere - or better yet read Ray Bradbury’s book) but I do recall thinking at the time that I was the Martian. In retrospect the characterization was accurate even in the portrayal of how the Martian, over the period of time that she is forced to meet the expectations of the main character, becomes more and more depressed and frustrated with Wilder’s inability to see past his own expectations of her to the reality of who and what she really is.

I have tried to be the person that everyone wanted me to be for as long as I can remember. I think that I am the proud wearer ‘the dutiful son’, ‘the supportive brother’ and ‘the loving and attentive husband’ merit badges (though I believe the last one is in doubt because my frustration and depression didn’t make me the nicest person to be around for a certain period of my marriage). I have now discovered that trying to be what everyone else wants me to be only leads to more frustration and depression. I have learned that I have to accept who and what I am to be happy. I am a transsexual woman - no matter what expectations everyone else has of me.

I would rather be a happy Martian than a frustrated and depressed facsimile of what everyone else expects me to be.

I am now hoping that the main character in my life, my wife, will have the strength of will to allow me to be who I really am so that I can be free.

I don’t intend to run away if she does though…

Love,

Marybeth Allison

Sunday, April 6th 5:12 am

Good morning everyone! It is a pleasant zero degrees Celsius outside my wife’s place this morning. The sky is crystal clear and, looking up, I can see the stars as they shimmer in their mysteries and hold bright Venus in tight embrace. I am hoping that I am sufficiently recovered from my flu that I can spend some time in the inspiration of the freshness and beauty of the emerging day, so I sip on my honey apple cinnamon tea and await my muse.

I think that I can honestly say that this is the week that reality set in. I had always known that given my situation I would not be as free as I would have liked to be in the setting and the implementation of my transition timetable but this week I have become more aware of just how true that is. I will have to adjust to the needs of others and have the patience to let my body and my too long repressed femininity adjust and emerge.

As I’ve written before, my wife hates the fact that I am transitioning but recently she seems to be more willing to accept some of the changes I am going through. I am much more optimistic than I have ever been before that being patient with her might save our marriage and our friendship so I have decided that I will be patient and hopeful, despite my impatience to transition. I will give her some more time and perhaps some space to adjust to my transition. I really want to help her recover from her illness and she is dependant upon me for that I help. I don’t want to abandon her but, at the same time, I won’t stop my transition because it continues to give me great joy. I hope against all hope that we can reach an understanding that will let us both be happy.

I also realized that, despite how much I would like to continue our marriage / friendship as before (I am still the same person after all), with my transition our partnership together changes at a very essential level. To save our relationship we both may need our own space to adjust to the reality of my transition. We may have to separate so that I can practice my femininity and become more comfortable with my female self both at home and outside of the home and she can adjust to the reconfigured me at her own pace. Right now I only dress and make-up when my wife isn’t around or is asleep and that makes me anxious and forced in my femininity not relaxed and at ease. I would really like to dress how I feel - a sunny skirt for a sunny day or a pretty blouse and slacks for going out shopping. My wife isn’t ready for that (and truthfully may never be) and I am so, as much as I hate to contemplate it, I may have to move out on my own (as opposed to being kicked out) so that I can .be. and she can adjust (if she wants to). That is a really hard reality.

I hope we stay together.

As for passing, the hormones help - I am much more relaxed and happy now but I realized that I need to work a lot more on my appearance, my voice, my deportment and my comfort level being out in public as female. I have also realized that despite maintaining an optimistic and patient approach to my hairline I will have to plan for something more drastic (a scalp advancement and/or a hair transplant) so that when I transition I will be recognized as female and not just as some middle-aged male living out a bizarre fantasy (I know sounds drastic but I know that is what some people think about transsexuals and I don’t want to encourage them). Programming this surgery in will mean that I might not be able to transition as soon as I would like to despite my growing impatience. I know that at some point you have to ‘just do it’ and I am doing small things everyday to build my confidence and my femininity (baby steps!) so that when I start my real life test / experience, I am as prepared as I can be.

I hope I can pass.

As I write these ‘harsh realities’ of mine down I realize that many of you out there are smirking a bit and thinking ‘welcome to being transsexual’. I know now that perhaps I was being too optimistic - I thought that I could beat the odds and manage to hold onto my wife / best friend and transition easily (without surgery) into a reasonable facsimile of an average middle-aged woman.

I guess the reality of my situation finally set in this week and I now realize that the hurdles so many others have faced will be part of my experience too. I know that in the end the rewards of transitioning will more than make up for any losses but looking at them from my current vantage point they seem quite daunting.

I know that there is much hard work and heart-ache ahead but I know I will meet and overcome these challenges.

Because I have always known that I’m a girl.

And that is reality.

The birds are waking up and their songs fill the morning air with their hopeful expectations for the new day just dawning. I take succour from their faith that no matter how long and dark the night may seem, a glorious new day will eventually dawn.

Love,

Marybeth Allison