Hi EveryoneThis post is in response to the following thread: Re:
When I Learned What I Am I thought it would be more appropriate to place it here as another part of my life. I have been thinking about this thread for awhile and what to write. I have pretty much said it all in Sarah B's Story, except for the actual race to have surgery. Yet when I think about the stories they are just details but not reflections. So here goes.
DiscoveryEarlier on in my childhood there was something undefinable in my thoughts, an emptiness or a void, well at least on one occasion, as if I was trying to figure out something or maybe who I was. I did not have the words to describe that emptiness. Looking back I can see that there were two words that would elude me for a long time, one that only turned up in my twenties and the other that did not truly land until my early fifties, plus a third word everyone uses now that I never did.
These days everyone talks about transition. Back then I did not hear that word. It was not part of my language and it certainly was not how I thought about myself. When I say I changed my life around that is the phrase that fitted my experience. I was changing how I lived, how I dressed, what my documents said then getting on with things, not embarking on a transition project.
In my twenties the first word finally turned up. I was reading a Penthouse magazine article that described a man turning into a female. Somewhere in that story the word transsexual appeared. The article explained what it meant, it laid out that this was something real that people did. I did not grab that word for myself at the time. I left it sitting on the page as a description of someone else, the word was parked in the back of my mind.
Decades later in my early fifties the second word finally clicked, even though I had already been living as a female for twenty one years. The word was female. I had used it in my day to day life, I had ticked the female box on countless forms, yet I had never turned it back toward myself as a simple statement of who I am. It was only after reading on Susan's that the meaning sank in, more specifically that I was a female.
I had been living my life for nigh on twenty one years as a female. I did not know I was a female during that time and after I changed my life around I never thought about longing or wanting to be a female ever again. I filled in forms with my name and ticked the correct sex or gender box with joy. When I got a new form the first thing I did was to hunt for that box. I was just living my life as a female and there was no need to express that part of me because people saw me as a female. Those two words were not earth shattering, yet each one gave another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of who I was.
At different stages of my life I wanted to be a girl then a female. There was that difference between wanting and knowing. That was my life until I changed my life around and there has never been that longing or that undefinable something in my thoughts ever again. In my early childhood there was the rummaging through a pile of clothes incident, me looking for girl or female clothes and just wanting to find some. I was a female from that point in time, not realizing that was the case until just recently or to put it another way, in hindsight that I have always been a female.
My discovery? I had always been me, the words were just late.
ThrivingIn the early days there were still practical situations where I was not presenting as Sarah yet I was not distressed by that. I had my teeth seen to while my health care cards still showed my previous name and there was no way I was going to present as Sarah until I had the new cards in my hand. There were similar moments with accommodation or paperwork for changing my name. In those few cases I did what I had to do then I could not wait to get back to being Sarah. That eagerness to return to my real life tells me that even so early on I was already settled as her, not just experimenting.
Those first steps changing my name, fixing my drivers licence then updating my two health care cards were not dramatic on the outside yet they quietly built a foundation. My life was starting to match who I was inside so I moved through those practical tasks with a quiet determination. Looking back I can see that I was not just coping, I was building a life that suited me even if I did not think of it that way at the time.
Then came the first doctor's visit, full HRT, the psychiatrist, my first job as Sarah. When I changed my life around I wanted to go to university yet that part did not happen straight away. I wanted my real name on my degree. When I say I changed my life around in February 1989 that is exactly what it felt like. I did not think of myself as transitioning because that word was not in my vocabulary. I changed my clothes, applied makeup and did my hair, updated my documents, went back to work inside three months, sought medical help then later had surgery. Other people were changing jobs, moving house, getting married, having surgery. They were not called transitions. This was simply me changing my life as well.
I never really planned anything in a grand way, it was more a case of "oh I guess this needs to be done" then I would do it. I walked into those appointments as myself, decisions flowed, my second visit to the psychiatrist left me with confidence overflowing. By then I already had a job so no wonder my confidence was so high. I was just being myself without putting any special name on who I was. I did not plan years ahead, planning was ongoing depending on what I was doing at the time. I did not realize that I was building a life that suited me, I was just doing what I liked or wanted to do. My identity was not a project, it was the quiet fact underneath everything.
From there I shaped the formal side of my life as Sarah. I changed my transcripts so my new name appeared on what I had achieved. I had surgery so that I could function like any other female in society, that surgery also aligned my body with how I was living. I became an Australian citizen then gained my English passport. The English GRC never arrived yet it did not matter because the rest of my life was already in place. Each document in my new name, each official recognition, was another sign that my life as Sarah was not fragile or temporary. I was creating a legal and social footing that let me get on with ordinary living.
Around this time I settled into relationships and study. I had a boyfriend, we built a life together in the ordinary ways couples do. I gained a certificate in Office Administration, later moved on to a computer systems degree. None of that would have been possible if my life as Sarah had been constantly on edge. I was choosing courses, thinking about jobs, making decisions about work and love. Often it did not feel like planning, more like taking the next step that presented itself, yet those steps added up.
The relationship ended. Instead of collapsing I chose a new direction. I went back to university for a graduate diploma in teaching. That decision grew out of who I had already become, not from trying to fix anything about my life. I did not wonder whether I could do it as Sarah, I simply enrolled as her, turned up as her, lived as her. My gender had never really been a problem that everything revolved around, it was simply part of me while I made the same choices anyone else might make about their career or lives. My identity was never a problem, even after I changed my life around I was still me and my past will always be a part of me.
After twenty one years of living as a female I finally realized that I was a female, talk about being naïve. The word shifted from something out there in the world to something I could quietly apply to myself. I never expressed my gender as an announcement, I simply lived my life as a female without realizing that was exactly what I was doing. My life had not revolved around my gender, it revolved around study, work, relationships and everyday living. That realization did not start my thriving, it gave me language for what had already been true for years.
Teaching in schools grounded me even more. I was responsible for students, part of a staff room, involved in the everyday rhythm of lessons and playground duty. Parents trusted me, colleagues worked alongside me, I belonged. Later I added teaching swimming and working as a lifeguard. Children in the water depended on me, so did the adults on supervising their children. My days were full of ordinary tasks which is what thriving looked like for me. My life as Sarah was so ordinary that I did not walk around thinking of myself as female, I simply was. The forms reminded me when I filled them in, I hunted for the sex or gender box with quiet joy, ticked the correct one then got on with my day.
When I look along the years I can see that thriving for me was not about dramatic declarations. It was about changing documents so they finally matched me, saying yes to medical treatment that supported the life I was already living, building relationships, ending them when they had run their course, gaining qualifications, changing career paths, teaching in classrooms, watching over children in the pool, taking responsibility for others, enjoying the quiet contentment of being seen as who I am. I was not just coping with being Sarah, I have spent nearly forty years building, living and enjoying my life as her. For most of that time I would simply have said that I was getting on with my life.
My success? An ordinary life that suited me.
Incognito, Stealth, PassingPick your poison, me I never picked any of those.
Even from that early childhood memory of looking through the pile of clothing I stayed tight lipped. I kept my thoughts to myself. Wanting to play with other girls was not something I said out loud. That habit of keeping this part of me private started very young. I did not have the words yet the silence was already there. In a strange way that silence became part of my safety later on and who I am today.
When people talk about all this today there are so many words. Trans this, trans that, gender identity, dysphoria, incongruence and gender identity disorder from the DSM books. Transition sits in that group as well. It belongs to how people speak now, not to the time when I changed my life around. I never heard it used for what I was doing so it never became my word. I still do not use it for myself. I say, "I changed my life around". If I am talking to someone who does not know my history I might say I had family problems and left. To anyone listening that could mean anything, a change of job, a move, a clean break from the past. I know what it means for me without having to spell it out.
None of those terms were part of my language when I changed my life around. If they existed on paper they were not sitting in my mind. I did not see myself as a trans anything, I saw myself as someone who wanted to live as a female then went ahead and did exactly that. Even now I only really use those words on Susan's sparingly. I never use them in my daily life.
From my perspective a lot of the community seems to want to talk openly about being trans, to come out, to be visible, sometimes with therapists encouraging disclosure. I am totally opposed to that for myself because I know I am not trans, I am simply female. My life has never been about building a trans identity, it has been about living as a woman and keeping my history private.
There was no internet as we know it today when I changed my life around. Not even in 1994 when I went to university. There was Lynx which was text based and bulletin boards. No social media, no endless forums, no wave of gender language washing through everything. I had my own thoughts, my own decisions, my own life. I never expressed my gender, it was never something I stood up to announce. I just lived my life as a female without realizing that I was doing exactly that. Twenty one years later I found out I was a female, talk about being naïve.
I never really associated with any community. I thought about it once or twice yet every time I looked at the idea there was nothing they could offer me that I had not already achieved in the early years. I had changed my life around, I had surgery so that I could function like any other female in society, I had my documents, I was working, I was living. My safety was paramount. It was bad enough at the time that women were being discriminated against in the nineties.
Let alone standing up and saying you had a sex change. If I had outed myself it would have been like being branded "trans" on the forehead. People would have treated me differently, I have no doubt about that. Stories I heard about others in the community did nothing to encourage me to talk. They confirmed that staying silent about my history was the right choice for me.
There was also simple fear. Being arrested was something that sat in the back of my mind before surgery. I did not know how the law might be used against me. Passing quietly, keeping my history to myself, blending in as just another woman felt safer than risking some official taking an interest. Once I had surgery that fear eased yet the habit of stealth remained. It had kept me safe, why would I drop it?
When I left my family and friends to live as a female I never told them what I was going to do. My uncle, who already knew, eventually spilled the beans. I did not leave to hurt them. I left because I wanted to protect them from the repercussions of me doing what I wanted to do, even though leaving could hurt them in a different way. At that time I did not sit down and explain to anyone in my family what I had done, although years later I have talked to individual family members about it.
Even my first psychiatrist wanted me to tell a family member. I remember saying that they were the black sheep of the family, that it did not really matter, that I was not going to tell him, my family already knew about me. I was adamant in my mind that I was not going to tell anyone about this part of my life. I wanted my life, I wanted their safety, I did not want attention.
That pattern never really changed. I never tell doctors about my past unless I absolutely have to, even then I will think twice about doing so. I will avoid questions on forms like "have you been known by any other name or alias?". My answer is an emphatic no or left blank. I have sat there thinking to myself, what is the worst thing that they could do to me? Put me in jail? Not likely, if they did a background check they would find nothing, except that I lived.
Keeping it secret has never stressed me, worried me or caused me any problems. It has not affected me psychologically in the slightest, I do not feel like I am living two lives or pretending to be someone else or feel the burden of keeping it a secret, I just feel like myself. I know some people who live stealth talk about feeling trapped or wanting to come out, I do not feel that way at all. Yes, if you want I lie about my past, I am not going to apologise for doing so. My safety and well being are important to me, I will not compromise on that issue. My identity was never a problem, even after I changed my life around I was still me. My past will always be a part of me and I embrace it totally except for tiny changes like when I talk about my past, boy quietly becomes girl.
Yes, it is ironic that I have basically spilled my guts on Susan's. Then again at this point in my life if someone wants to dig deep enough they can go right ahead. If push comes to shove then I will just pack my swag and move on as I once did before.
That inner core feeling of keeping this part of my personality private has remained essential to who I am. I am not trans in my own mind, I am female. I live in a binary world of male and female. I do not have to express myself as a female, it is taken for granted as to who I am in daily life. So stealth for me is not a political stance, it is the ultimate safety feature of my life. It protects me from other people's reactions, from prejudice, from my life being turned into a spectacle.
It protects my family, it protects my work, it protects the quiet ordinary life that I have spent all those years building. People see the woman in front of them. That is who I am. The rest stays where it belongs, inside me, in my memories, written down occasionally on Susan's. Stealth is not a burden to me and never has been a part of my life. My life is like anyone else's with the freedom to live my life on my own terms.
My poison? Life.
In the end my story is simple, I changed my life around, lived it quietly as myself, then many years later I finally found the words to describe me.
Best Wishes AlwaysSarah BGlobal Moderator@Susan @Northern Star Girl @Lori Dee @Sephirah @Lilis @Dances With Trees
