He's Still Here
Filed By Guest Blogger | June 05, 2012 12:30 PM
Editors' note: Monica F. Helms is the president of the Transgender Americans Veterans Association.
http://www.bilerico.com/2012/06/hes_still_here.phpAt the end of June, I will have been living as Monica for 15 years. It is not as much of a milestone as I thought it would be, because the world is a different place, and I am indeed a different person today than I was 15 years ago.
The biggest issue I faced just before starting my transition and in the early years was, "What to do with 'Him'?"
I had 46 years of being that other person, and it wasn't all bad. I did everything I could do to suppress "His" existence - my past - moving far into the fem aspect of life. Embracing the fem life felt the best way to distance me from "Him." It worked for just a few years before I decided that it was a lot of work to hide those 46 years of life experience.
