What I Wish I Had Known About Transition When I Was Younger
August 19th, 2009 RSS
Calpernia
http://www.calpernia.com/what-i-wish-i-had-known-about-transition-when-i-was-younger/ (http://www.calpernia.com/what-i-wish-i-had-known-about-transition-when-i-was-younger/)
Transition is never perfect, never easy and never finished. But it does get better, it does easier and it does recede into the background as time goes by.
I started my transition in my early twenties, after escaping from a completely unaccepting home situation in suburban Tennessee by joining the Navy. My family's fundamentalist religion made me feel terrible about myself, and I was the last person anyone would have ever expected to join the military. But in the Navy I was promised a ticket out of Nashville and a medical job that would allow me to take care of people and be compassionate, as long as I kept up physically and maintained a strong will to survive. I did my best in the military, taking full advantage of the training and learning self confidence that would later serve me well when I began the most difficult journey of my life: the journey from living a lie as a boy to living truthfully as a girl.