As my surgery date draws closer, I am drawn to reflect on the psychological and philosophical aspects of this process. Many women who have SRS, including myself, decide to do so in order to feel "complete", to be made whole. Maybe it seems paradoxical that removing something would be required for wholeness, but I just think of it as the ultimate expression of "Less Is More". I think both male and female trans people understand this better than anyone. After all, the great sculptures of Michelangelo were not complete until the last grains of marble were chipped away. Completeness is the reason I'm doing this in the first place and the reason is a noble one; It is absolutely and perfectly right for me, and I wouldn't do it for anything less. We only get to do this once, it had better be right.
It's been a long road to get here, but the light shines brightly at the end of the tunnel. I remember those days when, as a child, I would be with my female friends and feel such kinship of spirit, feel so like them, and ache so much on the inside if only to be like them on the outside. No matter what I could do, that always separated me and set me apart from them, and from everyone else. I didn't understand how I could have been so cruelly regarded by God to be cursed in this way, thrown to the bottom of a hole, frightened and alone with no way out. And so throughout my life I fought against myself in so many ways, until circumstances brought me to the realization that the only way I would ever be fulfilled was to heal that lifelong rift in my soul. My early life was quite traumatic and there were so many wounds to heal; it wasn't even about transition at first. But it was the path I had needed to be on all along, which led me inevitably to that moment of clarity one night in the woods, by the whispering creek under the Gracious Moon, when in tears I pledged to Her and myself that I would do whatever it takes to become real once and for all. And so with dedication, determination, and a lot of help from the faeries, I set forth upon this path of transition, this major step in the greater process of knitting broken body and soul together as one. From there, it all came as naturally as the rain falls from the sky, and so here I am.
And day by day my resolve only strengthens. I really don't care who has a problem with it, or what others may think at all. Their disapproval of my very being is of no consequence, and changes nothing. I know that having SRS does not make one female any more than being born with a penis makes one male, nor can surgeries endow us with gender. Anyone who thinks otherwise will be sadly disappointed. The only thing surgeries can do is affirm who we already know ourselves to be, and help to complete this alignment of our bodies and our lives with the gender we already know we are inside. It is not only a great physical step, but a symbolic one as well. SRS will not make me a woman; I'm already a woman, and SRS is simply, yet profoundly, my rite of passage into completeness. It is, in the most significant and irrevocable way, the end of one journey and the beginning of my new life, body and spirit whole at last. This changes everything.
Chloe
