Category: The Present

My self-imposed prison of gender

“I do not believe that one requires justification to live and identify as one chooses. When I decided to start hormone therapy, I did not do it because I hated my body. I did it so the world would see my gender closer to the way I do. I did it because I loved myself, because my body is mine, and because I am the one who decides how to navigate it through this complicated and violent world.”
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I rediscovered this article tonight when a friend mentioned the author’s name in a post and I went poking around. I read it at one point last year and found a lot of truth in it. The old trope of being born in the wrong body, all the justifications and stories we had to tell to get what we needed from the establishment, thankfully those are falling away. I didn’t consider transition for years because I didn’t think I was SUFFICIENTLY miserable in my body and identity, I wasn’t a REAL transexual.
 
I thought I didn’t feel” trapped in the wrong body”…which is bizarre because actually I was imprisoned for years in a painfully obese, and grotesquely male body…and then I was freed and I put myself in a healthy and healing masculine body which was such a miracle I refused to question if it was the “right” body. 
Body is the wrong word anyway. Gender is the word. The whole mess of social behaviors you have to adopt because of the body you have. I was in MY body, it just wasn’t expressing how I really felt.
Honestly, I didn’t realize HOW unhappy I had been until I finally allowed myself to step across to the other side and I found such a shocking sense of rightness and comfort. I HAD been very unhappy and I really DIDN’T like who I saw in the mirror,….but I didn’t think it was gender dysphoria, I just thought it was just really bad low self-esteem. It wasn’t until I stripped the hair off of it that I realized how disgusted I as by the hairy man in the mirror. The feminine aspects of my body were no longer flaws, they were gifts.
 
Every single day now, even the very hard ones, I love myself….and I never had that before.
 

Amma

I went to see Amma this weekend. The Indian guru, the hugging saint. Look her up if you don’t know. My wife had taken us to see her a few times, but this time I went of my own volition. I needed to be there. After this last month…this year..this life…I needed that hug.

I sat in the crowd for hours waiting for my turn as the music and mantras played on a loop, chatting with an Indian American woman and her teenage daughter about how they’d come to Amma for years, asking them questions about growing up in America and how they practice their spirituality. An older Indian man sat next to me and told me all about Krishna and the cosmic mysteries and a bunch of stuff I couldn’t begin to follow but that delighted me to no end. Everywhere I was greeted warmly. I picked up a book called the 1000 Names of the Divine Mother. Seems like it’s time to get serious about some goddess energy, you know?

At various points I felt very emotional. It’s an emotional time for me, (and I am, frankly, very hormonal…). I watched and I wept. Just because. Who I am and what I’m doing. What I’m gaining and…what I’m losing. How hard and it is to change so much in body and soul. How big it is. How good it feels. How strange it is that it feels so good. How the amazing things I love about myself horrify some people and breaks their hearts.

I cried about my Mom. She can’t deal with this, with me.

I understand. I forgive. But it hurts and it makes me angry.

You shouldn’t go through something like this without your mother, if it can be helped.

How can you become a woman without your Mom’s help?

I hadn’t ever thought about wanting her to call me daughter, I couldn’t imagine making such a request. But now the idea that she might never give me that name, the gift of that name, seemed unimaginably unjust.

I didn’t get up to Amma until the end of the night. After midnight. I knelt down and she embraced me. That scent of roses fills your senses.

She always mumbles something when she gives her hug. I can’t always understand it, but this time I did.

She said, “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter, my daughter.”

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Beverly Hills

Today I am in Beverly Hills visiting family. This is an interesting place to be a newly transitioning trans-woman. Even the loveliest cisgendered women can feel intimidated here in comparison with it’s flawless, high-priced examples of conventional beauty that populate the place. I noticed I got “clocked” here faster and more openly than at home. I noticed several people blatantly look me up and down, head to toe, a few smirks, and I caught one dude laughing to his friend before he noticed me looking at him.
 
You know what’s remarkable about this? How little I care.
 
It’s one of the things I feared most. How would I handle the self-consciousness and the awareness that others might be judging me? Would I be able to feel those feelings without giving in to it and attacking myself with self-loathing. I’ve had my moments, to be sure, but to my surprise…I’m mostly cool.
 
I have, as the kids say, no more fucks to give.
 
I’m really glad to be myself today, I’m glad to be strolling through beautiful Beverly Hills with my son on a gorgeous sunny day. I’m glad to be having lunch with family that loves and supports me. And I’m very grateful for the surprisingly large number of people who were kind and gracious to me today, who went out of their way to call me ma’am and to correct their pronouns.

Coming out on Facebook

My coming out on Facebook went really well. A huge outpouring of love and support. A lot of attention, which in my case, was pretty fun. To finally be seen–really seen…No more assumptions based on who they thought they knew or what I was presenting. The real deal now.

It’s part of the coming out process now: How and when to deal with your social media neighborhood. Being in the closet was especially irritating when I used social media. You are participating in this whole world without sharing how you REALLY feel. Gay marriage comes along and at best you are an “ally”. Some big story is happening about trans people, some Caitlyn story or a bathroom bill. You might address it as a citizen, as an ally, as a liberal-minded person, but you can’t speak to it from your real authority. In my case, I didn’t speak it at all. I had to take a break from Facebook until my family and I were ready to come out because I couldn’t bear to censor myself anymore.

It’s awesome to be out for me. I’m lucky to have the community I do, in the place where I live, in the time we are in.

My Kid

People always ask how my son is doing with this transition. My wife and I have strong feelings that it’s not your place to ask. The implication that we are harming him is implicit in the question.

In general, experts say kids will be fine. They are more accepting than most. There is no reason to think that my transition damages him.

There is much more that could be said here, but for now, just know that we are a family that loves and cares for each other. My dedication to him has not changed one bit. To the contrary, I am called upon to be an even better parent now.

Coming out Week

I came out to my business networking group last week via email and today was my first meeting in person as Robyn. I went in face, natural hair and my heeled boots. New cute jacket that has a little of the Banana Republic flair I’ve always enjoyed.

It was a phenomenal experience. Everyone  was so happy for me. One of my dude friends, a sports loving beer drinking British tradesman, said it was wonderful to see me smiling like that.

I have not been smiling much at these meetings. Getting up and selling myself as a business person was never easy, and I think it was because I just wasn’t being myself. I didn’t like who I was selling.

Plus, the stress I had been under with my marriage crumbling and all of the fears about being openly trans and the consequences I might face….I was scared.

It felt nice to finally be here on the other side of all that and not feel scared.

I created a new business card and took them to the meeting. Wonderful to see my name in huge red letters. My previous card you actually had to work to find my name, I so wanted to not be seen.

I’m excited about being in business. I’m thrilled to be Robyn again and to take that energy and bring it to the world and my clients. I have an urgency, yes, because life is expensive and getting more so. I have responsibilities to fulfill and in some ways that’s going to be harder than ever.

In other ways it will be much easier now that I am happy and free to be myself.

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I went pretty subtle. Very light makeup. I’m not trying to look “like a woman”. This isn’t an act or a costume. I’m trying to look like me as I understand me. I think I will look increasingly more like a woman with time and practice and shopping, but I’m not stalling or hiding, waiting until my presentation is perfect to come out and live my life. It starts today. All of the surface stuff will work itself out. In the meantime I am visibly trans, or gender-queer or whatever. I am asking for female pronouns, I am using the name I want to use and I feel really good in what I am wearing.

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I just feel like Robyn again, and that is a glorious feeling for me. Carrying that into the world with spirit and confidence as way more important than the right dress or a stuffed bra. Be who you are and the world will follow.

January 2016: Returning from my trans group having met another trans-woman with young kids. Holy shit, I'm gonna be a "Mom".

January 2016: Feeling exceptionally happy and beautiful after returning from my trans support group having met another trans-woman with young kids. Holy shit, I’m gonna be a “Mom”. I am entering transition with a wife and child. We may not remian married, but we will always be a family. I am happy and excited to be myself and free to follow my truth, and I have people I love deeply for whom I am responsible. They are not mutually exclusive. Taking care of me allows me to take care of them. I believe I will thrive as Robyn, but it does scare me sometimes, what I am taking on.