Ok, so first off, I don't want this to be taken the wrong way. I know everyone's different and different things work for everybody and some people have health complications or other circumstances that prevent them from taking HRT,etc. So, I wrote probably. Mainly, I'm speaking to people who are on the fence because of relationships, family, etc. or plain fear and with the huge caveat that I can only speak from my own experience. Also, you'll have to pardon the fact that this inadvertently turned into an autobiography, but I feel I need to tell my story to make my point.
It honestly hurts to see people much older than me in the same place I was not long ago. It hurts just remembering what all that T in my body felt like. Being trans is not a choice, but doing something about it is, and in my opinion, the sooner, the better. For most of my life, I was obsessed by nihilism and self-destruction, I ate in a way that clearly voiced disrespect for my own body, I often binge-drank, basically until I passed out, I rarely ever asserted myself, I was crazy sexually repressed, every social interaction was a minefield of anxiety, and I deeply hated myself for reasons I couldn't even articulate to myself.
Things finally started to turn around for me when I began using cannabis and revisiting the God I had abandoned in childhood. Spirituality and psychedelic drugs forced me to take a deeper look at who I was and the world around me. I started actually paying attention to what I ate and exercising, I removed myself from an abusive situation and came to terms with the extent of the abuse, I started trying harder to make a positive impact in daily life, I found purpose in my art, began a fulfilling lifelong relationship with Christ ... and still I found that no matter how much I worked to improve myself, I unplaceably hated who I was. I disgusted myself.
What was it? So I continued my attempts at self-improvement and as I undertook a personal art project focused on the divine feminine, a life-long pattern started to become apparent to me: I had started shaving my body-hair as soon as I hit puberty with no real concept of why, I reflexively rejected so many things as macho-- many things I'm fully able to enjoy now, like heavy metal -- without realizing that to a large degree it was my own masculinity that I actually resented, I was even resentful in my relationships-- I hated the set of expectations that came with being a man, I couldn't relate to them. I identified more with submissiveness, both sexually and inter-personally and I often felt walked on with my male friends and at odds with their thoughts about women. A passing comment a friend made about my taste in music-- that I "like a lot of music about wearing women's clothing" (which is true, I dug a lot of glam rock)-- seemed to spell out an underlying preoccupation. And "Candy Says" had always made me cry though I didn't know what it was about.
And then suddenly, I stopped trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I made the small step of coming out to my friend as a ->-bleeped-<-/crossdresser and buying some feminine clothing. Not all that long afterward, I made the larger step of coming out as a woman to my friend and soon began presenting female and using my new name. I became much more confident; fully capable of singing on stage when before I couldn't even sing at practice and I started dating someone I had always had a crush on. It was like the fetters had finally been removed and a whole personality-- a whole person really-- had stop being suppressed and started making itself known. I hated my name and now one actually belonged to me.
Things kept progressing, though there was some missteps. When I finally started HRT, even though it immediately felt like something I had been missing my whole life, I got cold feet because of the skepticism of others and my partner voicing he wasn't really attracted to women. So I stopped and started backpedaling, even regrettably taking a testosterone booster. I tried the "compromise" of keeping up two different gender presentations, but quickly found that the male persona was groundless, a hodgepodge of stereotypes that I used to keep the world at a distance that ultimately pleased no one. I fell into a pretty deep depression and came to an ultimatum of suicide or HRT. At first, I started taking an AA on particularly bad days just to "feel better", I thought maybe getting some electrolysis would be enough-- again going back to denial and not naming the problem, but before long I knew what I had to do.
And thank God, thank God, thank God, I got on HRT again and never looked back. My confidence before was nothing. I have become so much more outspoken and sure of who I am. I'm in probably the best shape of my life and what's more it actually feels like my body. I use to have this disconcerting feeling of not being able to be naked. Like even without clothes I was still in a disguise, a pretense--one that I couldn't remove. Now I actually enjoy being nude like a normal person and like I did before puberty. I'm not nearly so repressed, sex seems like a beautiful expression rather than this sort of "necessary evil" of relationships that I had built up in my head. I resented my sexuality because I felt so inadequate as a man even when I was doing it right. As a woman, I feel powerful. I love being maternal, I love being so in touch with my emotions, and God, I love my breasts. I feel like I can just be myself like I never have in my life. I'm much more capable as a person and everyone in my life has noticed I'm a lot happier.
But let me tell you: things are far from perfect. Plenty of the time, I don't pass. I get sir'd plenty. I've done very little electrolysis, can't afford more right now, and I have to shave every day. In some embarrassing spots too. I can still feel ugly and misbegotten at times. That relationship I mentioned earlier basically disintegrated. I'm alienated from much of my family: even though some are supportive, some are quite the opposite. I live in Bum->-bleeped-<-, IL, where I face plenty of job discrimination and am barely employed, far below minimum wage, at a job I had before transition. And since I already said I'm in the midwest I guess I need scarcely mention the general attitude towards anyone deviating from the norm is well, less than stellar. Not to mention I think I'm the only trans person in town. Dating opportunities aren't exactly overflowing. I still struggle immensely with the combination of an undiagnosed personality disorder (bipolar? borderline? aspergers?), probable fibromyalgia, definite PTSD, migraines, and nausea, that has me contemplating suicide on a nearly regular basis and I have to live with an abusive family member, who won't even listen to me talk long enough to know I'm trans and is perhaps too senile/->-bleeped-<-ing stupid to even notice I've changed, because of my socioeconomic situation.
In short, my life's no cakewalk. But never for a second do I regret transitioning. Never for a second do I regret finally becoming myself. If anything, I really wish I had done it earlier. Living life on your own terms is priceless. I use to disgust me, now I would not give up who I am for anything. My point is this: transition didn't make my life easy, but it made it worth living. Having everything in the world is meaningless if you can't be you. I don't want to tell anyone to do anything. This is just to say from someone on the other side that even if it feels like you might lose everything, even if you actually do, it can be so worth it. So see a gender therapist at the very least if you have those feelings. Anyway, I hope this might help somebody.
much love,
Patti
