The Path Untrod
My wife wants to know how to understand what I’m feeling regarding my transsexuality. I don’t think anyone who is comfortable with their gender could really understand, because I don’t think words can adequately capture the all-encompassing continuous desire to be the other sex that’s with me from morning ‘till night every single day of my life. Still, I’ve had some more thoughts regarding it, so I thought I’d give it another try.
I’ve taken a look on the internet and haven’t found a prefab answer to this question. There are so many trans-people on the internet; I would have thought people would have this bundled up into a clear and concise nugget of wisdom that would transfer the information nearly seamlessly to a non-trans person. I was wrong.
From my first memories, my sense of self has been defined as female, despite my own genitals and hormones plus decades worth of ‘nurture’ telling me otherwise. Overall, I had a good life as a kid. There was no abuse or anything along those lines by my parents, peers, or anyone else. And yet I’m transgender. How does that make sense?
It doesn’t. But what does it mean to be transgender? Can you tell me in plain English?
“I hate the person I have to be every day.”
“I look in the mirror to see a façade instead of a face.”
Okay, maybe that’s not so useful. How about using some type of fancy English? I’m not talking about medical stuff from DSM4, but perhaps something more poetic…
I think a good metaphor might be acting. It’s invigorating to play something different, for a while, but sometimes you get a role that you hate playing. So when you go to your job as an actor, you hate going into work, you hate portraying the character, and are relieved to head home from work. For me, the male persona that I’ve created is the character I hate to be. Every day I suffer inside a person I hate.
Addiction may also be a decent metaphor for the all-encompassing desire. I haven’t been addicted to anything in my life, but I have addicts in my family and I continue to see the impact it can have. I feel like the desire is similar to an addict who is quitting their drug of choice. Let’s say it’s crack. They want the crack - it’s the only thing that will make them feel better. If it was like being transgender, everyone else would be smoking crack-pipes all the time. You just want relief, and relief for this addict would come in the form of crack. Relief for me would be transforming into a woman.
So, I think that hard-core addicts can actually have sympathy for the depth and pervasiveness of a desire that excruciatingly tears at every fiber of your soul endlessly each and every second of the day. Heck, this sentence is a good description of how it ‘feels’ to be transsexual. That’s why I put it in bold. It’s just missing the gender dimension.
More and more I hate myself when I act masculine. I’m lying to everyone I’m interacting with by misrepresenting myself. What type of person does that make me? Being masculine just feels wrong. When I act masculine I’m also lying to myself, which is even worse. This constant lying has a psychological impact. I can’t quantify it though. I hate psychology. It’s too much of a soft science for my tastes.
So when I act ‘like a man’, it makes me sick inside. I see my own masculinity that I’ve created, and it disgusts me. But it’s what I have to do in order to survive - I’m not one of those people who sees suicide as a viable option. I have four children who I want to see grow up and have children of their own. Heck, it wasn’t even an option before kids. No matter how crappy my life is, there’s always something to enjoy.
Also, it’s not personality - my personality would be largely the same, I believe., if I fully transitioned. A big part is the perception. Every single time I hear ‘sir’ or ‘him’ or any other gender-typed word in reference to me, it hurts a lot, because the person they’re describing isn’t really me. Of course, the only person to blame is me. If you’re a good observer, you’ll see my eyes drop, my face fall, or slightly sigh almost every time there are gender references about me.
I also hate comparisons between men and women. It hurts because it reminds me of all constructs I’ve put together, such as trying to watch football all the time and purchasing all the football channels so I can ‘keep up.’ Yet I rarely did despite the costs. I did it to follow stereotype in some degree. I did it so I could have something masculine to talk about at the office or at parties. I did it because I had to survive.
Yet these days I’m changing. It’s gradual. It’s hard to let go of the conventions I’ve grasped onto for safety, like a drowning person frantically grasping at a life preserver. All to stay afloat and successful in society. I’m growing my hair out. I’m trying to pry at the minute cracks in my masculine personality. How much will these changes help? Will I feel incrementally happier as I do it? People will still perceive me as male, and interact with my male persona, so I don’t think it will help much in the end.
On the internet, I saw it suggested that people who are attracted to femininity are trans. I’m not trans because I’m attracted to femininity. I have a girly-girl daughter, and that doesn’t fit my conception of me. That doesn’t mean I’m disengaged from femininity, but it does mean that I would have to find out what I like and don’t like. I may well be interested in some crafts - I’ve noticed cracks in my male persona regarding that. But I definitely don’t want to be a ballerina or a cheerleader.
So if it’s not an attraction to femininity, then what is it? It’s about feeling right and natural. It’s about physically being female and being perceived as such - at least as much as possible. To become myself, I’d gladly take on menstruation, lower wages, glass ceilings, and all the other frustrations of being female. That doesn’t mean I’d like those frustrations, I’d hate them just as much as any other woman does. But then I’d be a woman.
By the same token, I’d take chemicals for the rest of my life, painfully eliminated by body and facial hair, and get multiple painful surgeries. I don’t think anyone would go through such ordeals if they just enjoyed some feminine feelings.
Slow Drive put it well in this forum thread, “SRS isn't just how I act, it isn't just how others perceive me and it isn't just how I feel about myself, what bathroom I use, what my genitals look like. It's a culmination of a lot of details, perhaps each small and livable by itself but all together having a serious toll on my mental health. If merely changing my attitude about my gender helped, I would have done it by now.”
So if I fulfill the desire, if I magically or scientifically became a woman or approximation of a woman, what happens? Serenity. My mind craves peace, but I it’s elusive. I can catch only fleeting moments, but they are usually moments when I’m engrossed in something else. It can be a really good video game, role-playing game, movie or book.
Heck, I think I owe part of my degree in mathematics due to my transsexuality. For a while, I could loose myself in the abstract thoughts of mathematics, and if I totally eliminated myself out of the equation, then I could feel serene.
At that point, I could focus my thoughts and goals on something more worthwhile. I hate the consumption of my thoughts like some mental leech sucking out 50% of my intellect.
But what is that worth? I live with my best friend in a relationship that has constantly grown each and every year. I have four children - I want to help them as they grow up and leave the nest. Is it worth that future?
In finance, this would be known as the “opportunity cost” of transition. The actual cash cost of the transition is manageable, but the opportunity cost is astronomically high. It’s not like other marriages, where I constantly argue with my wife. Heck, we’re incredibly similar. If it was our choice, we’d be with each other all the time, every day. You might not believe it, but it’s true! The happiness of our relationship is epic. If we weren’t so deep in love and friendship, the choice would be obvious for both of us.
She’s not a lesbian, and if I transitioned and asked her to stay with me, I’d be putting her in nearly the same position that I started off in. How can I put my best friend in such a position? She wasn’t born to it, acclimatized in the forge of childhood and puberty. It’s a deal-breaker, and I can understand that.
No, I don’t think there is any real way we can share this burden. Yes, we talk about it now, but this situation has given her a burden of her own. She’s all alone. There’s no one she feels comfortable talking about this with, even on the internet. She’s done considerably more research and reading about transgenderism than I have over the past year, which is just one indication of the burden she carries.
So that’s what I’ve done to our relationship. All this, and yet, we are steadfast in our love, our friendship, and commitment to one another. Truly the stuff of legend.
So I choose to shoulder the burden, and continue down the path together with my wife. I may stumble, and our path together will probably change to some degree, adapting to the terrain. That’s okay. We’re together, and together we still have happiness.