If you'd asked me three years ago I would have told you I was done with the transition thing, but really I was just fooling myself. All I'd done was paint myself into a corner by trying to make myself fit into being female. I was largely stealth, but only because I'd chosen to present myself as a woman of faith who wore old fashioned style modest clothing and wore a tichel headscarf. My faith was genuine enough, only my mode of dress was in actual fact a form of armor against the world. It said keep away from me, keep your filthy lusts to yourself, stay away I don't want to be hurt again. And by and large it worked.
But like all lies you tell yourself doing that didn't actually solve anything. All it did was make me crushingly lonely, but as I was lying to myself about that too it's taken me a while to notice that, yes, all I was successfully doing was hurting myself. It took a few trigger events to shove me out of my uncomfortable corner. The Catholic Church essentially denying that gender transition was valid in their eyes; Discovering beyond all doubt that I was a DES child; Being forced by the sudden landslide of once well hidden memories in my head into looking hard at my childhood.......
As a result I suffered through distress, tears, rage, anger, hate...... etc etc. Recognising the time bomb I'd become I went to my very sensible GP and she organised a therapist for me. Thrashing mouthy bigots on the street with my walking stick was not something I particularly wanted to get into and if that sounds funny let you remind you that I've studied the sword arts so I really could do some unsuspecting mouthy idiot some real damage once the adrenaline bit.
When I was still working as a social worker I belonged to a women's motorcycle group. I don't ride motorcycles now because this illness I live with put a stop to that, but back then I did the angry biker chick thing really well. Gas station clerks would always address me as 'ma'm' in a slightly nervous manner and that was when I still had my full face motorcycle helmet on so life was good. A little attitude and anger when advocating on behalf of a client with government agencies didn't do any harm either so my job and life style really worked for me.
The one problem was though I was still trying to force myself to be a woman/trans-woman which wasn't working and often made me feel sad because once again I wasn't fitting in with the gender to which I thought I belonged.
Fortunately for me, - and I know this is unusual, - my biggest ally is my daughter who is also intersex. In her case though she has always embraced her difference. T is really toxic for her, so HRT has been in the picture for her ever since she was 18. Truth be told T was toxic for me too, but in my daughter's case the effects were really much more serious. So with my daughter's help I've been learning to accept the real me who is neither male or female.
Another fortunate circumstance was that I'd kept most of 'angry biker chick's' clothing despite heavy wardrobe clearouts in pursuit of old fashioned plain modest clothing styles. I didn't want to be 'angry biker chick' again, but I do like her sense of androgyny in her clothing choices. The tichel headscarves have gone and I'm now brushing my hair out and letting it grow again.
After being religiously chaste for so long I'm finding I'm starting to think about the possibility of being in a relationship again. I really don't know where that will go as I continue to explore being non-binary. For a long time I've considered myself to be asexual, - though that could well prove to be a form of political asexuality and I'm trying to be open to that possibility. The whole question of sex is a complete unknown too as I'm having to re-evaluate what I used to call 'dysphoria' in the traditional transgender sense of the word.
What I know I'm going to do though is stop hiding away from the world and start getting involved again in things that I like to do. Vintage cyclecars for one thing, human powered vehicles for another. This illness I live with will be a nuisance like it always is, but if I'm sensible I'll be able to work around that. I'm also starting to understand the triggers that cause my narcolepsy episodes too which makes me feel a little more in control of my life.
I'd like to go back to studying Tai Chi again as well. Other more vigorous martial arts I've studied in the past will be out of course, but the Hapkido Walking Stick form might be fun.
The nice thing about having to transition again though is that I don't need to worry about gatekeepers this time around as I've already had surgery (orchi) and I'm already on HRT. I get on well with my therapist and my GP has always been supportive. Now it's just the hard bit of looking really hard at myself and being completely honest with myself so I don't paint myself into anymore uncomfortable corners where I don't fit.
Anne.
