Hi, Everybody!
There's currently a thread on the MTF forum on the topic of "The Social Transition", so I don't know if what I have to say merits a new thread on the subject. You can decide for yourself, but I did want to say something on this forum because this is a topic of interest to all of us—guys and girls alike.
The question is, why do we do it? Why do we want to transition socially, to get out in the world and live authentically as ourselves? Those who haven't yet done it but want to do it are quite often mortally afraid to do so. This is understandable. We all know what fear is. I myself felt it in bucketsful before I came out, and I still feel it from time to time. But seeing others getting out encouraged me to do likewise, and I have often reaped the reward of finding that courage needed to do so.
Like this morning: I was in a café with two women I see quite often, Emma and Rachel. Now Rachel's little girl had just experienced her first day of school, and naturally Rachel had taken a photo of her (in her school uniform) alongside her two older brothers. So Emma said to her, "Show her the photo." And straightaway I went rooting about in my purse to find my glasses so that I could actually see the thing when Rachel showed it to me.
That's when it hit me: Emma had said, "Show her," and automatically, without even thinking about it, I had understood that "her" meant me and that it was right and natural that it should mean me. What else could "me" possibly be? This is one way you measure your progress in your social transition: when you get so used to being treated as yourself that you don't even notice it at first, when you simply respond automatically.
Thinking about it on my way home, I almost started crying. (I'm a girl so it's OK for me to feel like crying.) It is so beautiful to be living as yourself, to be treated as yourself. All it takes is one little word and, "Hey! I'm a genuine, valid, flesh-and-blood human being with a heart and feelings and a recognized need and right to be!"
Our cisgender enemies have no idea what they're doing when they refuse to let us live as we need to live. They instinctively know, however, that misgendering us is a major assault on our soul, that it pulls the rug out from under our very being.
Neither do our cisgender friends and allies truly understand what they're doing for us when they treat us as we need to be treated. They're simply good-hearted people who instinctively treat others kindly and with respect. Bless them, and a pox on our enemies! May all their houseplants wither and die!
But this is why we do it. This is why we swallow our fears and find the spiritual wherewithal to get out in the world in order to be ourselves. It makes us real, it makes us valid, it makes us human. It gives us peace. Those who haven't got out yet are right to be afraid. There's no denying it will cost you a lot—and the rest of us hope and pray that it won't cost you too much. But if you can do it, hopefully you will find that the reward is a thing of beauty that you wouldn't want to miss out on.
Best wishes to all of you!
Foxglove
