Here I Am

Talk about leaving things in a cliffhanger. I mean, I post over five months ago about how I’m going to have THE surgery… about how I’m getting ready to take THE biggest and most profound step I’ve ever taken… and then I don’t write for almost half a year.

Well, you see, the thing is… it’s taken me that long to even BEGIN to know what to say about it.

I had surgery on December 27, 2017. It went fairly well. I mean, I’m still healing, so we won’t know final results for another few months or so, but at this point in the process and with what I’ve gone through so far, I’m pretty, amazingly happy.

There have been some complications, but nothing all too major as far as I can tell. Mostly it’s simply about dealing with the simmering frustration that comes with recovery. You finally reach a point where you almost feel back to normal, but you’re not quite there yet. You’re just on the wide periphery of healed, and the closer you get to the core of fully better, the more the impatience nags at you.

All that said, I still really don’t know what to write about. I don’t know how to sum any of it up. I have so much to say about it to the point where I can’t get anything out. It’s like a tidal wave of thoughts are trying to escape my brain through a keyhole, and it’s so excessive that it just gets dammed up.

What I do know is this…. I’m happy that I’ve had the surgery. In fact, I’m beyond ecstatic. I can’t even describe how much better, and clear-headed, and content, and giddy, and confident this has made me. Even with the complications. It’s like someone has been screaming at me for the past few decades and it’s finally stopped. Know that car alarm that goes off for WAY too long and it starts to drive you slowly insane? Imagine that going on for DECADES… then imagine it stopping. THAT is how I feel right now. A thought that constantly entered my mind in the first few weeks of this new experience was: I don’t know how to be this happy.

I truly didn't, and I'm still trying to figure out how to be.

This is all just SO very different, and even I have a difficult time wrapping my head around it. At times I don’t even think it’s real. It’s like I think I’ve somehow fooled myself and suddenly I’ll be reverted back to what I was. All my life I’d imagine SO intently what I SO desperately sought… I’d visualize it to SUCH a degree that I could almost fool myself into believing this blissful lie. Like if I concentrated hard enough, I could pretend I was already fixed.

But then, sooner or later, reality would come crashing in and destroy this illusion I so desperately tried to get lost in.

But… this time…. this time it is real. This time the illusion is that I’ll revert back to that painful feeling. This time the illusion is that I’ll ever have to feel that way again.

THIS is what this experience is like. It is SUCH a hard thing to encapsulate, and I try to even do it a modicum of justice with my description on this page.

Yet, with all of this said, there’s a bad side to it too. You see, I still very much and near unmistakably look like a man, even when I try to present as female. Now, I’m not the most girly of girls, and to be honest, I really prefer jeans and t-shrits over anything more fancy. I’ve always strived for comfort more than anything else. And what would be read as “comfort” on other women, gets read as “completely male” on me.

And even if I play it up… even if I throw on a dress and try my best to appear as “feminine” as possible to people who meet me, I still come across as male.

This makes me hide. Because it’s easier to hide than to deal with the disparity between my perception and the world’s. If I’m not trying, then it hurts less than if I try and still get the same treatment. It’s like my mind can justify it by saying, “Well, I’m not trying, so it’s not as bad.”

And so I hide. Both in the way that I dress, and in the fact that I barely leave my apartment and have become, for all intents and purposes, a shut-in.

My hiding has become even worse since surgery. Because when I’m here, alone, at home, I am INSANELY happy. When I’m not dealing with what the world reflects back at me, I am INSANELY happy. It’s like a drug, and all I want to do is feed that addiction and live in this altered state of reality, because the other version, the REAL version that lurks outside my door, is so very much more painful and biting.

Before surgery, I still had the pain of feeling wrong, so I would hide but still go out and do things to try to deal with and distract myself from this pain. Now that this pain doesn’t exist, it is VERY difficult for me to try to move in and around other people. I don’t even leave the house to go to work, because I can work from home pretty much any day I want to… and lately it’s been every single day. I haven’t been to the office in weeks. I’m telling myself that I’m going in tomorrow. I see even just telling myself this as a sign of progress toward eventually getting out into the world again… but we’ll see if I leave the house tomorrow morning.

Maybe this is only a temporary thing, though. Maybe I just need to be with this and with my new self for a time and process it all. I’m not certain, but I know that I’m still planning for the future and trying to find a way I can move more easily in the world… so that’s good, because at least I’m still looking out there. Maybe someday soon I’ll be a part of it again.

Until then, I shall stay in my happy little bubble.

Things could most certainly be worse.

All the best to you. Always.

The Key

While there are many people out there who offer those in my position acceptance and support, there is still a significant undercurrent of people who find what I'm doing to be odd, horrible, and perverse. I don't think that these kinds of attitudes are a surprise to anyone.

What may be surprising, however, is that in spite of these perceptions, in spite of the ridicule and violence that is levied upon trans people in the world, I still ardently believe that at the core of everyone, there is good; that there is a desire to do right and to do right by other people. As illogical as this may sound coming from someone who's mired in their own personal gender catastrophe, I believe that those who vilify people like myself DO believe that what they're doing is "right".

Now one may argue, "How can inflicting pain on a group of people who are just out to live their lives (and who are not harming anyone) be right in any way?" Valid point. Personally, however, I feel that the motivation behind these people doing what they think is right is all a matter of not fully understanding what being trans is all about. (As an aside, I can't even contemplate how much animosity is generated in this world by sheer lack of understanding... but I digress.)

I've read all the arguments against people like myself:

• You can't change who you are... if you were born male (or female), you'll always be that way, no matter what you do to yourself.
• It's immoral.
• It's against the laws of nature.
• It's mutilation.
• etc.
• etc.
• etc.

If I could convey one thing to these people it is solely this:
Bring trans is not a choice.
That's it. That's all there is to it.
It's the key to everything when it comes to this.

No one chooses to be this way. Sure, we may choose to do something about the feelings that bombard us with misery on a daily basis, but no one chooses to have these feelings in the first place. They're just there. They exist... and they grow stronger with each passing year. The effect of this on someone's psyche seems to grow exponentially as the days pass by, and it's just crippling at times. I've seen this, not only in myself, but in many of the trans people who I've come across in my life.

An article from the BBC even states that Australian researchers have found a genetic link to transsexuality, which occurs in the womb. Here's another excellent (and very in-depth) page about it.

And just speaking from my own personal experience, which I've delved into in earlier posts, I fought these feelings for 15 years or so before even admitting to myself that this may be an issue. This was followed by visits to no less than four different therapists (some of whom I saw for years), all in an attempt to get them to tell me that this wasn't the case with me, and that it MUST be something else. ANYTHING but this.

Again, the point I'm really trying to deliver here is that this needs to be accepted as something that isn't chosen. This needs to be seen as something that someone just is. When one does that, they can better see the emotional and psychological misery that this produces in a person. They can better see how not being in concert with your own body is a truly searing trauma. They can better see the societal stigma attached to it, and see just how truly wrong these views are. They can, ultimately, better see that when you have to deal with the incongruence AND THEN have to deal with all the negativity and societal stigmas hurled at you, it wreaks horrible outcomes. (As I also stated in an earlier post, this is why 30% of trans people kill themselves. 3 out of 10. Sobering numbers... to say the least.)

If society at large could see that this is not a choice. If they could see that this is something that many, many people have to deal with that is causing them immeasurable pain. If they could just see that this is something that has been documented by scores of cultures throughout the course of history, and that this is purely a rare, yet natural, variation in a person, I really think that the good hearts that govern these people would be more apt to reach out and try to help than to shirk away in fear and revulsion.

This is what I hope for. This is what I hope is to come for people like myself. It's hard enough to have to deal with the trans feelings in and of themself. If the social stigma was alleviated, it would make SO many lives easier, and more productive, and more positive. Ultimately, the world would get better. The abatement of that kind of pain across a huge mass of people can only be for the good. Again... it can only be for the good. If you're one who wants to do good and who wants to do what's right, how can the easing of that much terrible pain be seen in any other light?

All the best, and warmest regards.