Read this article earlier today and I'm not ashamed to admit... I liked it. Lots. It was nice to see my recent thoughts about my own life and my own future written out in this way.
So... I'll bet you're all asking what I'm doing here, eh?
This is how I can give back. I love helping people, I love assuring people of better tomorrows, and I especially love talking to others. I'm a people person! And I volunteer one afternoon a week (two if I can) at my local gender identity center. I enter some data for grant purposes, answer the phone when it rings (usually once or twice every few days), and I'm working on an annotated bibliography of journal articles related to transsexualism. It's an easy way to give my time, get some experience in a clinical setting (which is all that kept me out of grad school), keep my psychology skills up to date, and help people who need help!
But outside of that? I don't go to groups anymore. Part of the reason is that I feel like I'm no longer in that mindset, and the other part is that I don't have the money. I don't want to immerse myself in transsexualism.
Wait a minute, Zoë, aren't you the one who's been publicly flipping out lately about body issues?
Yes. I won't deny it. But really, I'm stressed out about my finances. I'm stressed out about my lack of a job. I'm stressed out because every day without a job is a day further from having the ultimate freedom that SRS will bring. Other trans issues? I'm not concerned about passing any more. I'm not concerned about coming out. I'm not concerned about going full time. I've done all that and I'm 100% confident in my identity as a woman. A woman who still needs a certain life-changing surgery, but a woman nonetheless.
I lost my sense of identifying as transsexual months ago. To me, transsexual is a description of a condition, as well as a journey. And once a journey ends, it's time to start a new one. Trans(anything) is not my identity and it's not a place where I want to live. When I finally make it to grad school to become a therapist, I plan to study personality, giftedness, or eating disorders. I have no ambition to become a gender therapist, despite what I hear from practicing therapists that I'd make a lot of money because many of their transsexual clients express interest in seeing someone who's been down that road. But once my journey is over, once I wake up in the body I should have had from day 1, I'm not sure I'd want to go back down that road.
You know, all of my life, I've had three male friends. Two of them I met in high school, the other is the husband of someone I was friends with before she even met him. Now that I've mentally transitioned, I'm having a hard time identifying or talking to two of my male friends, namely the two from high school. My other friend is so far off the gender spectrum that his mother still wonders if he's a closeted transsexual. Other than that, all of my friends have always been girls and women. Since transition, I've become incredibly close to all of them. They embraced me so fully and immediately wanted to teach me everything they've ever learned about the woman's world. I don't think I'd have come so far in such a short time if it weren't for them.
And yet, their company and their guidance made me fully realize how much happier I was living an ordinary woman's life, one where I completely shed the trappings of years spent hiding my true nature. The liberation I felt when I realized it was amazing, allowing myself to act on those feelings was priceless.
So does this make me some sort of elitist? I don't really care. And the reason I don't care is because I care so deeply for others. I know that people who want to brand me an elitist don't really know me. And yet I don't hate them because I think hate is a useless emotion. I feel pity for them that they lack inner peace and have to attack others to feel better.
These are my true feelings, put out in public for the first time because I don't feel like bottling them up anymore. Does it change what I do around these forums or how I treat others? Not one iota.
