by Shalimar
Essays on rhe Transgendered Condition
An Essay From the Heart About what It Means to Be Transgendered.
Tom, a co-worker, asked me if being gay, lesbian, or transsexual is genetic or learned. I told him that some of the scientific evidence shows that it is genetic.
"You mean to tell me that a person who grows up in a lesbian home won't be influenced to be like his 'parents'?"
"There maybe some," I replied. "But the genetic make up will tell more what that child would do than the 'parent's' sexual preference. By the way, I am what you call a transsexual. I've actively felt this way since I was twelve, but I have memories of this as far back as when I was five. And like your gay minister friend, until recently, I've been dealing with this for decades."
I explained to him a bit about my condition. I explained that even as a child the other kids treated me like a sissy. In other words the boys treated me like I was a girl. I still feel more like a woman than a man mentally and can envision myself as a woman.
I also told him that, if he wanted to know more, to read the story, "Not in Vain" by Samantha Michelle. It will show what we're up against. It is more normal than what we would like to believe. Recently, I read that half of all transsexuals commit suicide. We shouldn't give into that urge. The bullies can't win. We can't afford to bury another sister or brother because of this.
I told him here are other stories and essays that would also explain things from personal points of views, such as the two essays, "Missed, Have, Lost and Hope-an Essay" and "Detour-an Essay" by Joan Banks. I then mentioned that there is a more professional set of explanations by Dr. Anne Lawrence who also went through transitioning. These stories, I told him, would explain part of what it means to be what we are.
I was reminded of and first read other stories and essays while doing research for this essay. They include "Blister" by Alysa Amene Palin, "All I want for Christmas," by Alexandria Phaite, "I know" by Kim EM, and "Peter" by Samantha Jay. I know that even my list in the notes below is only a small sampling.
"If there was a cure," I said. "I would not want the one that I would be happily male. I'd want one that would make me female, completely, including the risk of pregnancy and all that details. All I really want is to be accepted as a 'normal' woman.
"One of the fantasies for many men is to have a harem of extremely beautiful women, each one better looking than the next, and to have a different one of those women in his bed every night. It is not my fantasy. The only part of that fantasy that I would think appropriate is the concept of an extended family that would be created. My fantasy would be to be cuddled and loved by one man. That man would be gentle and loving. He would be caring for me and ours. He would make love, not have sex. There is a difference, you know, and that sex would be sensual. I would be proud to be at his side."
I realized later that that is not all there is to being a woman. It is the deeper caring feeling for others that most men never come close to achieving. It is the sharing my hopes, dreams, and experiences with other women, and they share the same with me. I'm beginning to do that with a few women that I've known for years.
I let him go back to work, and I did the same. However, I couldn't get our conversation out of my mind, even though it was short.
I thought about what we spoke about. I would not go through the pain and fear. I would not risk humiliation and being attacked by those who thought themselves as "real men" if my "condition" was learned. It is not worth the risk of losing family and friends. It is much simpler to be what society says is normal. Some say I could go on living as a "normal" man and be happy, but I tried that. Living as a man was incomplete. I even had a wife, and we have had a child through our marriage. My transitioning did not cause the divorce. That is a fact. It happened many years before I decided to finally make that change, but I believe my condition was probably a factor in our split. She never knew about this aspect of me. We are still friends and have, for the most part, the same group of friends.
There are those who say my transitioning would be a lie. They say that a model on the runway is still a man even if she had the operation. However, to me, being a male is the lie. The shell shows the lie and the mind, with its thoughts, are the truth. The shell would finally agree with who I really am. So I have finally begun the transitioning period. I feel that the hormones in me are what I need in order to feel "normal." There is also the sanity factor. I am more calm, although I never realized how hyper I was. I notice that I hum and sing more. I notice that I also smile more. Life seems better.
I act differently, though not much. There is often no male or female way to do things, just the human way. Besides, I don't do it just because it is the female way. I do it and then realize that I did it the way a woman would have probably done, not the way a man would.
The other day, for example, I was walking into the building where I work and saw this man. He was tall. I had to close my eyes a second. When I opened them I noticed how tall he was again. A few days later, I passed a man that looked liked Tom Selleck when he first appeared in the "Magnum" series. I smiled at him and said 'hello.' I guess I wanted to be picked up. Wow, now there was a difference in my thought patterns. It doesn't happen much, I treat people as people, but a female reaction happens just because it can now. Probably some of the more feminine thoughts and actions that were hidden from my male self.
I looked in the mirror, today, as my hair was almost dry. It fell down to my neck in curls. It helped me look pretty. How I wish that those curls could stay that way. Even hair spray doesn't keep that look long enough.
There is a close male friend that I like. I wish I were his wife so we can share our lives together. I've told him that occasionally. I have told him that both directly and indirectly. I often dream that he holds me close as I feel his strength. I dream we make love as a normal heterosexual couple. I dream we do things together. I know he is a very caring and loving individual. I have a need to be with him. It is a new concept for me, but it feels right. My love for him is one reason I would get the surgery, but just one of the reasons. I really AM a woman inside. He could be the added bonus. Nice bonus, though.
He has confided in me that occasionally he imagines himself to be female. It is not an all-consuming thing for him like it was for me before I finally made the decision to change. But I'm afraid that, like he once said, "the dam may break." If that happens I'll be there for him when the pronoun becomes "her." That may hurt me, but I do love him, so what he needs will come first.
Over the last year or so I have met others like me and have begun friendships. One of these friends helped me work through some anger to find the love. I thank her for that debt that I could never repay. I have been guided by that love concept since.
I have found courage lately, through a friend of mine that has become close enough that we call each other sisters. She has challenged me to make those tough decisions. She says that I should tell my parents that I am their daughter. She says that I should tell my synagogue that I am transitioning, and let my friends know. I know she is right, but I am still afraid. Fear is a tremendous emotion.
Maybe I should let my friends and family know. I have noticed that some of my friends have subconsciously started treating me like a woman. There are not major things, but little things like being asked to play Ma Jong with the other ladies. It is trying to work out a real way for me to be part of sisterhood at my synagogue. It is one the women at work who talked about her daughter starting to develop breasts and called them "bumpers" while I was there. She realized I wasn't exactly a woman got embarrassed and laughed. I showed her my painted nails and said, "Don't worry about it." Part of the rest of that workday I was explaining. Perhaps these are ways to welcome me into the sisterhood. It has gained me insights to my soul. I hope to get more.
Another insight was gained when a sister author suggested to me during a time of writer's block that I go to a mall and follow some people and listen to what they say. Among the groups of people that I listened to were two husband and wife pairs. I noticed that both men dominated the conversations. I asked her later if this was normal. She told me that it was.
Later I thought back fifteen years ago to the first time I tried transitioning. I was a real estate agent then and I was invited to sell a waterfront house. The owner was proud of the Italian marble that he had installed that I would rip out as soon as I could if I owned the place. He kept dominating the conversation. He hardly let me speak and didn't let his wife speak at all even though I tried to get her into the conversation. I guess men really do that. I still do that often to, but it is from fear of being alone. That also scares me.
I stopped the first time partially because of money, and partially because I didn't like the "homosexual" feelings that I was having. I eventually came to terms with those feelings because I realized that it is normal and natural for a girl.
I am a chicken. I used to fear that others would find out. I used to fear what others would do if they did. I feared possible social ostracizing and as a result I was standoffish. I feared physical and verbal abuse like I had when I was a child. I used to fear the loss of friends and family. I used to fear what would happen. Now whether anyone else knows or not is unimportant because I am me.
There has been occasion to talk about being female with my friends, family and acquaintances. I talk about it as frankly and openly as I can. So far everyone I've talked to about it has accepted me this way. I hope that it continues, but I still fear that someone I need to accept me will reject me. Yet being a woman is part of that I am. Accepting that fact makes it easier to talk about it when the time arises.
In the last year I have been pushing education at my synagogue. I also took the time to reward those who have learned their studies. Those who have taken advantage of this learning have learned that learning is its own reward. I couldn't have given them a better gift. Their knowledge is my reward. It is a Jewish thing to improve education especially in the synagogue, but it is also a woman's thing.
For the most part I still wear some male clothes. There are female clothes that are gradually taking their place. It is almost one item in, so there is one item out. I would be better with that, except that I am a pack rat. I would wear more feminine clothes except that I am afraid. I don't wear a bra, yet. My breasts are too small. Why can't I be better endowed? Soon I hope.
I was dressed more feminine recently at a major mall near my home. I was standing near the food court when a young man told his child to watch out for the woman, meaning me. I smiled. It made my evening.
Others are beginning to see me closer to the way I see myself. People open doors for me now. I find other courtesies from strange men that are reserved for women, like offering a hand. It is interesting when I encounter it. I am not used to reacting like a woman, and at times, have to remind myself what to do. I say to myself "I'm not an invalid." I am beginning to relax with this and accept what others do for me because of my new sex, and realize that it is their kindness that I am accepting. In the end, though, I am changing and have found myself calmer, more at peace with myself, and I like myself better. In some ways this change has freed me. This is right. This is not the lie. I am more me.
This is dedicated to all of us who have transitioned, are transitioning, or thought about it. I would especially like to thank those people that I mentioned directly and indirectly in this essay. For more information by Anne Lawrence go to www.annelawrence.com/trw/
Partial list of stories and essays:
"Not in Vein" - Samantha Michelle
"Missed, Have, Lost and Hope-an Essay" - Joan Banks
"Detour-an Essay" - Joan Banks
"All I want for Christmas" - Alexandria Phithe
"Does G_d Make Mistakes?" - Terry L Sakel
"If Only" - Lorraine Davis
"A Kind of Love Story" - Serenissima
"Blister" - Alyssa Amene Palin
"I Know" - Kim EM
"The Letter: A True Story" - Terri Martin
"Dream Weaver 1: The Well" - Deanna Lea
"Peter" - Samantha Jay
"The Letter" - Janet Jean
“I Am Luka” — Heather Rose Brown
I know I missed some excellent stories and essays. Please forgive me.
shalimar
Again an essay from the heart about what it is like to be transgendered.
In many respects I am a lucky woman. In the net I have a number of virtual sisters, daughters and nieces that I love and love me. I give them my love and feel their love in return. They are in the center of my heart and I hope others will join them. In this environment I am my alter ego, The Evil Witch.
But in other respects I am not that lucky. Hugging my net sister when she is fifteen hundred miles away is not the same as hugging her in real life. Talking to her on the net is not the same as just walking to her home and being with her. Rocking a thirty-year-old that needs to be my five-year-old daughter on the net is not the same as her crying and fighting sleep in my arms. I need to put her to bed with her stuffed dolls around her so she won’t feel alone and kiss her. I need to read her a Dr. Susse, watch her play on the swings, help her with a puzzle, or have her help me make some cookies. Of course she could lick the bowl.
There are other issues as well. It is the fact that even with HRT and SRS it is only the best that modern medicine can do. Even then I am still not genetically female. There is no way I will ever give birth, to know that child is MY baby. The view in the mirror is still too masculine. I don’t know if I could ever get rid of my beard or the rug that covers my body. I am too tall. My voice is too deep. The hair where I need it is missing.
I need to put makeup and look pretty, not like someone who is trying to pass, but as a normal woman. And there are times I think that if I try to pass I might get beat up by someone who believes he is a “real” man, or I might just be lucky enough just to get a snide remark. I need to be with women as a woman, not a freak. And if I need to go to the restroom in a public place it is with a sister or a girlfriend. I need to be with a man as his woman and know that he is or will be the father of my babies.
I feel that hurt and anger. It is because I was born with that genetic defect that said I should be playing with guns and trucks instead of dolls and jewelry. Part of me needed to rebel and wear that dress but part of me said not to hurt anyone else so be what I appear to be even though that genetic defect eventually changed me in ways that was different from what I would have liked my body to change.
I also feel the hurt and anger of others. Some of us constantly lash out way out of proportion to the situation. Some of us want to do violence because of our pain. Their pain is my pain. I feel my sisters’ pain because my daughter lashed out at her inappropriately.
And most of society won’t let us get the peace that HRT and SRS would give us. We didn’t choose this way. Our bodies did. And when we do try for that peace others will insist that we do what they say. They may even go to court to enforce it. In reality we need the outer peace as much as we need the inner peace.
But I will love and continue the be the woman I’m becoming and will continue to share myself with others and I will continue to pray for that miracle that will allow me to heal myself and others. As my “five-year-old” told me a few days ago the song, “Somewhere” from “West Side Story,” which prayed for the end of the stupid prejudices of that generation, is really a theme for us:
Somewhere there’s a place for us,
A time and a place for us,
Hold my hand and we’re half way there,
Hold my hand and I’ll take you there,
Someday,
Somehow,
Someway.
shalimar
A third essay from the heart about what it means to be transgendered.
I talked with one of my former supervisor at work the other day. I let her know that I soon would be allowed to wear a skirt or a dress at work. This would happen after some meetings that would be occurring after my present supervisor returned from vacation.
I also told her that because I am feeling uncomfortable in the men’s bathroom I would be using the former women’s locker room on the second floor. This is despite the fact that I work on the first floor. I am still not allowed to use the women’s bathroom.
I told her that for me this compromise is temporary. I need to be treated just like every other woman in the place. She said that after a while I might be able to change to the normal use of the women’s bathroom, but I need to have patience because my decision effects others who may not be as tolerant with the situation as she is. I explained that as far as my needs are concerned I need to start using the women’s bathroom now, but I understand that I may be stepping on other people’s toes.
Finally she asked me how long I have felt this way. I told her almost all of my life. I told her that at about five I was with mom in some department store while she was in the lingerie department and I felt like a girl while we were there. I explained that as a child it was difficult for me to cuddle a toy solder because that doll was toting a gun. I explained to her my disappointment when at the age of eleven, instead of getting puffy on my chest my voice was deepening.
I was also scared back then. Afraid of someone finding out. Afraid that someone who did find out would attack me or at least ridicule me. I was also afraid that I would be caught dressed in mom’s clothes. The strangest thing is that the others knew. For example, I came in third for best looking girl in my senior year. The one who won was intersexed or already transitioning.
I was actually attacked at the age of twelve by a boy who goosed me just because he wanted to find out if I was a boy or girl. When he found out he laughed. He laughed as I lay on the ground protecting myself. The physical pain of him grabbing my balls dissipated quickly, but the pain of the humiliation and my feeling violated lasted a long time.
I told my former supervisor about my feelings of the boy who lived next door to me how I played with him until some of my sexual feelings began to come out. He was a year older than me and also an inch or two taller. In my fantasy I needed him to hold me, to love me and cherish me. When he accidentally found out he teased me and told the other kids in the neighborhood. No one let me “defend” myself. The only good part is that it was soon “forgotten.” But I “marked” although I didn’t know it at the time.
With this fear came the anger and my distancing myself from others. The anger got me into trouble a few times. I am ashamed of what I have done. Over time, for the most part, I have learned to dissipate that anger and start to love. Since I’ve been on HRT that anger has been reduced dramatically. Even now in my anger I try to admonish instead of lashing out either physically or verbally.
The result of my fear and anger was that I was a lonely boy. My parents saw that and thought after consulting with others that seeing a psychiatrist might help. I couldn’t tell this grown up anything so in a sense I wasted their money. Now I could tell those shrinks how I feel, but as a kid I couldn’t. I was still afraid.
Part of my fear was that I was the only one who thought that way. In a sense that is true. According to statistics in the Netherlands about one child in eleven thousand births is a male to female transsexual and one child in twelve thousand is a female to male transsexual.
There are other things that bother me. I cannot now or ever give birth. When she was pregnant my now ex-wife told me about how the baby was moving in her. Her description of what she was feeling inside her included a smile on her face that told me of the joy she was experiencing. I was happy for her and happy for me who was becoming that child’s father, but I needed to experience that miracle from her perspective. Unless a miracle happens I will never experience the joy of knowing I am pregnant or feeling that baby kick or giving birth.
My former supervisor told me that what I missed was no big deal, but she had the choice and she gave birth. I never will. No one except a few that are like me that I have given love to and receive love back will ever call me mom. I have given some of them strength. I have given some of them the will to endure. I have given some of them the strength to, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it, to be instead of not to be.
Every night I ask G_d to do that miracle and allow them to really be my daughters like they deserve. That miracle would be for them as well as for me. At least G_d did answer my prayers in a way that He could under the rules He created. For in my heart and theirs I am their mother and they are my daughters. I thank Him for that even though we still need that final part.
In addition few will ever call me sis although I have two real life sisters and a few sisters that are in our hearts. I doubt that dad will ever consider me his daughter. Mom never did except near the end of her life when she was a bit “out of it.”
My change has been until recently one small step at a time. In addition to my work situation I recently pierced my ears and wore a skirt in front of my dad. Dad said that wearing a skirt is impractical. But not when the temperatures reach over ninety degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity is over ninety percent. He also said I don’t have any fashion sense, but other women have said I look pretty. At least now he knows the basics.
He asked me some tough questions such as “Why now?” All I could answer is that I am tired of the fear and tired of fighting with myself. He asked if I could live as a man. I told him I tried that. I told him that more male hormones would only make me unhappier. I told him that the first time I used female hormone the only resistance was fear including, at that time, fear of ‘homosexuality.” I also explained that I ran out of money then. It was the main reason I stopped at that time.
The next step has been the synagogue. I told the rabbi recently that I am transsexual. He told me some “Catch 22” good news. He told me that the ruling body of the Jewish Conservative movement said that a completely post-op transsexual is considered the new sex. Until then the person is considered the old sex. The “Catch 22” part involves the prohibition of cross-dressing in the Torah. How is a woman who is supposed to live 24/7 in her new sex for at least a year before surgery, as required by medical standards, and still follow Jewish law?
At least I would not be considered a homosexual. If I were considered one I would loose my seat on the synagogue’s board of directors, and formally as ritual chairperson, because a homosexual cannot speak for the Jewish people. I think the board would be better with me on it. I am not sure if loosing my seat would be a blessing in disguise for me.
As there are hundreds of people at work I expect someone to come to me and tell me that what I am doing will send me to Hell. If that is my fait so be it. I’ve already experienced it.