My visit to the doctor for a particularly viscious bout of insomnia crystallised the problem facing all MtF transgendered people who seek help even if they don't see it as a problem, all he had to offer me was a path to transition. For a brief moment I stood transfixed like a five-year-old, eyes fixed on the sweeties being dangled above me, beginning to salivate. Then the mental slap, "You're a damn giant ferchrissakes, you look like a badgers arse even with makeup on, you can't even find decent girl shoes in your size and you're married to a total babe! You'd throw all that away for what infinitesimally small hope you've got of making it a success? Don't be a [village on Orkney]!".
On the web I sometimes feel as if we see only the success stories of transition. A lovely group of beautiful girls skipping together hand in hand through the sunlit pastures into their new lives. And the best of luck to them for being able to do it, they damn well deserve it! Envious I may be but it's not a poisoned envy.
No, we never see the failures. I know from a lifetime of reading and digesting all the info that has come my way on the subject that there are people who've fallen hard in the transition process and I'm smart enough to know the chances of my becoming one of them are extremely high. I've referred in the past to begeting a twisted giantess, well I think I'd do well to hold onto her bogwood club just to remind me of her before I do anything stupid. I've beaten clinical depression once before and I'm not going back.
So here I am in my groundhog day moment of perpetual girl envy, occasional transition temptation, periodic insomnia and casual cross-dressing. It chose me, nobody would be crazy enough to pick this condition for themselves. At least I have fun at it, who knows by the time I perfect my cross-dressing skills to the extent that I look like women my age, I might not yet be at the age at which the wrinkles lessen the differences. Maybe I should spend time in chav (Translation for non-Brits: trailer trash) country, a few shell-suited blobs hoving into view might cure the girl envy pretty quickly. Shame my town's full of stylish and beautiful twenty-something students.<sigh/>
If I have learned one thing though it is that I am not alone. There are others like me who for whatever reason acknowledge themselves as transgendered yet choose not to take the path towards transition. None of us wish to force our path on others and we're all envious of the girls who make a success of transitioning, we just realise it's not our chosen way forward. Some of us may in the future even change our minds and go for it anyway, but that's our decision alone. If we can do anything for our transgendered sisters meanwhile though it is to make the world aware of ourselves, in case there's a bogwood club waiting to be avoided in someone else's path.
Even through the wonderfully wry humor and the dense colloquialisms, I can tell that this is not an easy road for you, Jen. I know the path well. The best we can do is try to lean on one another in the down times. It might take two of us to support a twisted giantess, so I'll get aid from Calie. Stay strong and try to get some sleep, girl.
ReplyDeleteBeing trans isn't a choice. What we do about it is, and that will depend on a hundred different factors. It's your call. I wish I were thirty years younger, because I feel I've wasted those years, but I'm still grateful to be here right now, because I think it's a pivotal point in trans history. In a generation, we'll be boringly ordinary.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, the friends you'll make in the tgirl world will be some of the most honest, intelligent, funny, supportive and genuinely loving people you can find. It's an amazing place to be.
What they both said...
ReplyDeleteYou have the email address if you want to bend my ear.
Stace
One day I will craft a post so mired in impenetrable colloquialisms that only someone born and bred in my part of these isles will stand a chance of reading it. It will contain directions to hidden treasure. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks all. The idea for the above post was born in a moment of waking up from one of those transition dreams. For once at a half-way sensible time of the morning, too. It served then as a way for me to enunciate my path in black and white and put the moment of angst behind me and reading it again will no doubt do so in the future too. Please don't concern yourselves, I may be prone to the occasional bout of transition envy but I've got a gorgeous Kaliko silk party dress from the sales at home for just these circumstances and I'm not afraid to use it.
The friends I've made so far in the t-girl world have been fantastic. You know who you all are, thank you!
I'm still grateful to be here right now, because I think it's a pivotal point in trans history. In a generation, we'll be boringly ordinary.
ReplyDeleteThe Big Scary Menace becomes the Girl Next Door. I hope so.
Honey. I would say that 99% of the people that identify themselves at transgender DO NOT transition, for one reason or another.
ReplyDeleteThe ones that do are but the smallest tip of the iceberg. And not all of them succeed.
You may not be in good company, but you are far from alone.
That's good to hear. Trouble is, if they're in the closet like I have been for most of these last nearly four decades then they're invisible. Meanwhile all the advice and peer pressure you get, well over here at least, assumes that transition is your only way forward. The flip-side of the NHS. It's partly why I stayed in the closet so long.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend with a sweet tooth who is unfortunate enough to have developed diabetes. Everywhere they go, sweeties! (candy to you!)
Hi Jenny
ReplyDeleteSorry not to have visited your site recently - things have been very busy.
This is beautifully written. Funny and courageous and honest. What you said in a comment on my blog comes to mind - perhaps there is a third way, one that allows you to look after the masculine and feminine sides to your being, a trickier path to follow but one with a greater chance of happiness.
Many biological woman live their lives in envy wishing they could be like the models we see on every page of every magazine, on every billboard and every television channel. It's not just us poor bewildered transgendered types who wish our bodies could be other than they were!
I have no answers but all I can say is keep sharing and never lose that sense of humour :)
I hope in the darkest moments you know that you are not alone and that there is a community out here loosely connected through the internet of fellow travellers.
Take good care of yourself
Hugs
Julia
xxx
Thanks Julia,it's always nice to hear from you. If there's one thing my brush with depression taught me it is that the third way is to have as much fun as possible.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that!
ReplyDeleteI love you and everything about you!
ReplyDeleteI Love myself the same way.To each her own path,Difficult choices are what life is.I am with you always
Marilyn