Dilemmas

Writing Bike enables me to explore the realities of being transgender/transsexual as well as flights of fancy from time to time. While a shorter form would also enable some of this, it doesn't allow the depth of exploration, my soapy serial does. In the most recent story arc, we have a new transgender staff member who doesn't know Cathy's history, but who latches on to her like a younger sister or even daughter to learn the skills she doesn't have as a woman - things as diverse as homemaking and dealing with male attention.

Cathy is very fortunate being AIS, so appears as an attractive female, she is also married with oodles of adopted children, has a high prestige job - Professor of a university faculty, the wife of an aristocrat and director of a fast growing commercial bank. She is also some years post op and is rarely seen by all except as she appears, a successful and attractive woman.

Now, the dilemma is, does she come clean to her new colleague who appears to be holding her up as a paragon or does she remain in stealth? It's a dilemma I've faced myself at times when dealing with clients/patients who were transgender but didn't seem to spot it in me and I felt no need to inform them. I also get occasional reports from patients, who don't know my status, of people or family they know who have changed their gender. Again I feel no need to inform them, having transitioned 30 years ago this summer, as my history is of no consequence to the relationship between us as a health professional and patient.

Cathy's reasoning for not having told her colleague is simply that it's no longer relevant, she's moved on and doesn't have to justify herself to anyone, having agonised over her past for several years, she really does appear to have achieved it. Does she have a moral obligation to come clean or is she right to maintain what might be seen by some as a deception?

This raises the question of, do we ever really move on to actually be what we aspire to or are we always just an illusion or deception, prisoners of our histories?