I have a friend who's a doctor in New York and we write to each other pretty regularly. I talk to him a lot about my dysphoria and why I feel the way I do. This is something I wrote to him a few days ago and it seems to fit with this thread. So here goes ...
"I was lying in bed last night and an image came to my mind which seemed to provide quite a handy metaphor. Imagine a beach. When the tide is in, it looks like there is nothing but sand and water. But then, when the tide goes out, the wreck of an old ship is revealed, and suddenly becomes the single most arresting sight on the beach. That wreck is like my dysphoria. There will be long stretches when my psychological/emotional tide is high and the dysphoria is invisible. But then the tide goes out and suddenly the dysphoria dominates everything and is absolutely inescapable.
Now, the question arises: is that wreck real, or just some kind of a mirage? In the immortal words of Freddie Mercury: 'Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?' I've agonised over that for decades, wondering whether my dysphoria is essentially just a delusion - an escapist dream of a better life that could only turn out to be a disastrous disappointment - or whether it has some basis in my actual nature: whether it's in some sense essential. I guess that's impossible to know for sure without actually transitioning (more of a risk than I've dared to take thus far). But I can say a few things for sure ..
1. These feelings, whatever their status, have been present in me since my earliest adolescence and possibly longer.
2. They are not susceptible to any kind of psychiatric or pharmaceutical 'cure'. I know because I've tried.
3. I do not personally identify with the trope of 'a woman trapped in a man's body', but I can easily imagine myself as a woman FREED FROM a man's body. My perception of that feeling is one of relaxation, homecoming, rightness and congruity ... that it would have to be achieved by entirely artificial means is, of course, a powerful irony. But that's what I feel.
4. Insofar as I have ever experimented, my experiences match that perception. I am not a ->-bleeped-<-. I get no erotic thrill at all from wearing women's clothes, nor do I want to pretend to be female when I am not. On the very, very rare occasions I have dressed, what I actually feel is normal, entirely relaxed and - as far as my current body allows - comfortable. I love clothes and fashion, always have done, so I would take great pleasure in dressing nicely and I know exactly what my style would be. But this is not a fetishistic issue for me. When I was at my most gender-bending and flamboyant, in my late-teens/early-20s, regularly wearing make-up and even drag, that only served to highlight the gap that still loomed between what I was pretending to be and what I wanted to be. It actually made the dysphoria worse, not better."
Three decades on, the fundamental truth remains. I long to be female. It's a profound, unchanging instinct that is as much a part of me as the colour of my eyes. It has nothing to do with any rational calculation ... tho rational calculations have been what kept me male (fear of losing the family, the money, the work, the status etc) ... It just IS.
Oh, and with every week, month and year that goes by I feel myself being pulled ever-closer to the point where I finally accept myself fully and begin that long-delayed transition ...
