…a reconciliation…finding .me.

Sunday, October 5th 5:57 am

Good morning everyone! It is a cool four degrees Celsius outside here this morning at my apartment. The differences between my apartment and my wife’s place are too numerous to mention but suffice to say, one is a cozy little wilderness nook, the other is a high-rise eyrie that gives an osprey eye’s view of the Ottawa River, from the clock-tower of the Parliament Buildings in East to the majestic Gatineau Hills in the North and Aylmer to the West. The sounds are different too, insects, birds and silence compared to traffic and the occasional movement of people far below. Each location is unique but each is inspirational in its’ own exceptional ways.

One thing that I was thinking about this week as I get closer and closer to the day that I go full-time (still about six to eight months off but I am sure that it will fly by in an instant) and as I continue to live a schizophrenic dual existence, was the best way to explain to others what I have gone through and what I am going through in the process of transition.

It isn’t an easy subject to approach as it is full of emotion and primal instinct. I think the main reason it isn’t easy for most people to understand is that people don’t usually think about their gender – ever and when they do it often involves sex. Most people know they have more in common with one gender than the other and know that gender is a central factor in who they are attracted to. Comfort and attraction aren’t things that can be explained rationally, they are emotional and instinctual – just like gender.

This is the nub of the problem for most people in understanding transgender people. They can’t get over the attraction aspect of gender. The terminology used to describe how I will eventually resolve my gender dysphoria, a sex change, doesn’t help the situation very much either. So is it any wonder that when I tell people that I am transitioning they immediately fixate on my genitals? Every guy I tell can’t even stomach the thought of ‘cutting them off’ – both straights and gays. Most women don’t see the sense in it either, though, for the most part, they don’t seem as fixated on the sex part as most men are. Their reaction is sometimes ‘Why would you trade something that functions perfectly well for something that might not?’ or ‘I can’t understand why it matters so much to you.’.

Each of those reactions are perfectly understandable for someone who has never questioned their gender. The only way I can describe my relationship to my body is that I always knew my parts weren’t right and that I never developed a close relationship to my genitals so I won’t particularly miss them when they are gone. Right now my genitals get in the way of the clothes I want to wear and make me uncomfortable – thankfully the hormones have reduced them to a more manageable size and response. At the same time other parts of my body are adjusting to a more feminine form and my curves are slowly developing.

For the first time in my life I am beginning to feel comfortable in my body.

Perhaps the best way to explain why I decided to take female hormones and why I eventually will correct my genitalia through surgery is to explain that my physical transition isn’t a ‘change’ at all. It is the last step in the long process of reconciliation that I have been going through ever since a doctor incorrectly determined my gender was male. It began with confusion, led to denial, developed into depression, then acceptance, affirmation, and finally confirmation of my essential feminine nature.

There are three aspects to every being – a body, a mind and a soul. My transition just reconciles my body with my mind and soul.

I was born with the soul of a woman – I can’t empirically prove that, but my instincts right from the earliest time I can remember were feminine. I wanted to play with baby dolls, I dressed in my mom’s clothes whenever I could, I knew that I would have breasts one day and I played with girls doing girlish things (playing house, dress-up, etc…) until I was told I couldn’t anymore. This led to confusion because every instinct I had told me I was female and society said I wasn’t allowed to be.

My mind has always been female too, I never understood why I wasn’t allowed to dress like a girl and, until I found out differently, I always thought that all girls had the same genitalia that I had. I wasn’t an idiot but I hoped fervently that I would grow breasts at puberty like the other girls and was very uncomfortable with what actually happened. This led to denial. I decided that my mind must be wrong – society said that I was male so I tried to be the most male person I could be.

Everything I tried – body building, joining the military, doing risky things, drinking heavily and getting married couldn’t change an instinctual feeling and mental understanding that I was female. Even though I was doing very male things in public, I was buying and wearing female clothing, playing female avatars in computer games and learning about transsexuals on the internet. I periodically got disgusted with myself, purged every piece of clothing, every game and every bookmark and resolved that I was stronger than my soul and mind – and tried even harder to be male. This led to isolation and depression.

My wife suggested that I seek counselling for my depression and I sought out a gender therapist because I knew that was what I was running away from. My counsellor agreed that I was transsexual and I gave myself permission to accept my authentic self.

My counsellor suggested that I begin taking anti-androgens (spironolactone) to see if that would make me happier. I took the spironolactone for a whole year and affirmed to her that lower testosterone levels gave me a sense of peace and ease with myself that I had been missing ever since the onset of puberty.

The year on spironolactone gave me peace but something was still missing. My mind was no longer being antagonized by the testosterone but my body still felt wrong so I asked her if I could begin taking estrogen to see if that would help. Since I began taking estrogen in small doses a year ago this month and larger doses beginning in April this year, I have noticed an increased sense of serenity and comfort as my body slowly changes becomes what my soul and my mind always expected it to be.

The estrogen nourishes my mind and body while the testosterone slowly poisoned them. I know now that without the estrogen my depression and my estrangement from the world would have kept getting worse and I would have eventually lost my wife, my job and my will to live. Instead, my wife and I have a better relationship than ever (except for the fact that she isn’t a lesbian and I am not quite sure what I am yet… so our marriage will likely end), my job performance has increased because I am more engaged with life now and I am more productive in my personal life than I ever have been – I don’t drink, I don’t play escapist computer games (maybe one day I will again but my motivation will be much different). These positive results from hormone therapy are all the confirmation I need to know that transitioning was the right choice for me.

My soul and my mind have always been female but my body was physically male so society expected me to act male. It was tearing me apart. I reacted to this physical disconnect by building an emotional and social wall between my essential femininity and the rest of the world. A wall that I am only now, with the help of counselling, anti-androgens and female hormones, beginning to dismantle.

The surgery I will have is just the last step in a long process of reconciliation that will correct a doctor’s mistaken evaluation of my gender at birth.

So you see, it isn’t all about sex.

It is about the reconciliation of my body with my mind and my soul.

So for all the people who don’t understand why transsexual people transition perhaps seeing beyond the physical will help.

It is about body, mind and soul being in sync with each other. An engine with all the right parts being fed the right fuel.

A male engine (body, mind and soul) wouldn’t run too well on estrogen but a female engine does.

Perfectly.

Transition isn’t changing sex, it is gender reconciliation.

It isn’t sex change surgery, it is gender confirmation surgery.

Love,

Marybeth

PS As I finished up this piece I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between Catholic confirmation and gender confirmation. Just think of all the pain and suffering that would be alleviated for transsexuals if, at the same time you are asked to confirm yourself as Catholic (ie. just before puberty), you are also asked to confirm your gender? I knew I was a girl way before puberty, my life might not have been easier if I transitioned way back then but it certainly would have been much more honest and fewer people would have been hurt (ie. my beautiful and long suffering wife).