In Between Days

Life equals change. If you don't spend some moment each day pondering a new idea, ingesting some morsel of fresh knowledge, plotting a different course, even just dancing to an unfamiliar beat, well... then we stagnate, we grey, we cease to exist in a way that really matters. In the almost two years since my last post on this little blog of mine, my life has become a tremendous place for change, for reflection, for growth, for renewal, for reinvention, for personal truth. I am happy in a way I have never known. I feel alive in the knowledge of who I am. But I am also terrified. Terrified about facing rejection, terrified in knowing the resistance that comes with going against the grain in life, and maybe a bit terrified that acceptance will be a daily struggle.

When we are born our parents and our place in this society provide us an identity, and we are each groomed to understand what we need to play this role. But not all of us can take this part and make it work for us. There's problems with the script, we act out and push the boundaries of the role, conflicts arise with other members of the cast, or we have a disagreement with wardrobe. But that's the stuff of good drama, right? That's the stuff that makes people sit up in their chairs and pay attention!  It's what makes us rethink what we've been told about everyone's role in this production we call "Life." I know I like to think I have tried to push the script since the beginning, but the truth is I have only ever been so brave.

But what was my role? Was it really so bad? Well, no... but yes! But what can I do about it? I didn't ask for this role, you just gave me this part:

• Firstborn son of a married heterosexual couple
• Two siblings, a brother and a sister
• Attendance at a local Protestant church
• Grew up in a rural farming community
• Limited exposure to life outside the "traditional white American experience"

There's times that I think that I wish I could have just gone along with all of it, and just became the person I was expected to be. Instead, I felt very deeply inside, even early on that that wasn't going to happen. I did not feel carefree or content about many aspects of this character I was set to play. My parents are truly and genuinely goodhearted people, so I will say right now that I am grateful for that. As far as me being the oldest, no objections there, and I love my siblings even despite some hurt feelings and misgivings along the way. As for being a son, well... I was cast in this boy body immediately upon joining this cast, so making that my identifying gender placed titles and pronouns and a world of expectations upon me immediately. And that is the place my problems truly began, for as I came into an understanding of what "boy" meant, what "he/his" meant, what "someday you'll be a man" required -I started to feel I didn't want that. But then what did I want? That is a decision that has taken me a lifetime to discover, and hasn't been an easy conclusion until now.  I knew as a kid that I just felt off compared to other boys. Situations like being in locker rooms were really tense for me. The dysphoric dread and terror of which team I could end up on in a soccer practice game of "shirts versus skins", was a horror I will never forget! I didn't want to take my shirt off! I remember begging Coach Nailor to "please, please let me be shirts!" I just wasn't like these "boys". These feelings were just overwhelming! Inside I thought it was wrong, but I felt like I should be a girl. So in 1992, at the age of 17 and after so many years of hurt feelings, I shared this with a few friends who did what I should have probably expected - they laughed.  So I laughed. I had to play it off, "I don't know what I'm saying, forgive me." But the feelings were true, and it has never ever waned. No matter who I dated, or that I finally got to go to art school, and especially impulsively getting married did nothing to lift this burden!

It would take twenty-three years to find the courage to sit down with a friend and tell her that inside I feel like a woman. So here I was in 2015, after years of learning a term called "transgender", after years of learning about options for medically transitioning, after countless nights spent reading others' accounts of all they did to try to be who everyone thought they should be and the courage they found to finally be who they really are... after all of that, all of these years, I have decided to finally be that person too.

I began coming out in May of last year, and on June 2nd, I had my first appointment with a gender therapist. I can genuinely say that I got so much out of this experience of therapy. It was reaffirming to my perception of my identity. We worked through the years of inner turmoil of internalising this struggle, and I was able to develop a way out of the corner I had painted myself into by developing a path to transition. I have to admit I had some initial misgivings about therapy, but it is a state required gender confirmation process that has to be done. I couldn't even talk to a doctor to begin gender transitioning without fulfilling this requirement. But the therapy really gave me a way to understand all of the challenges and necessities I would encounter and helped me develop a better road map for my transition. As I proceeded in therapy, I also did the work each week of setting goals for myself -come out to friends, find support in the community, foster relationships with allies, make financial considerations, find a health support clinic. From guidance in how to live and function as a woman, to understanding the changes in wardrobe, makeup, as well as managing the anxiety over personal image and "passing" which is an acceptance that most trans women struggle with their entire lives. I set goals every week, like I will come out to my parents by this date, I will find health services by this time, I will go to Pride in Lancaster and Harrisburg, I will go out and buy women's clothes at this time, I will secure my letter of gender confirmation by this date, and ideally begin HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy).

I got my letter from my therapist on October 19th, and that was a very special night for me! After four and a half months of weekly therapy, I was so ready for that moment. My first doctor's appointment was the next morning at the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, and I don't even know how I got any sleep the night before! I had two appointments that morning. The first one was to be assessed by their on staff psychologist, and review my letter. After that initial hour, I had a small break and met with my endochrinologist for the first time! We discussed my hopes for transitioning, what I could expect from HRT and that it carries health risks too. After that, it was time to draw some blood. And that was kind of that until next month, when we would go over my labs in a follow up appointment.

That follow up came on November 18th, and I was quite pleased with the feedback on my health, especially that my natural testosterone level was already quite below low normal. I got my first HRT prescriptions for Estradiol (Estrogen) and Spironolactone, which is taken to lower the testosterone levels even further so that the estrogen can do its thing on me!

I took my first set of pills on November 19th, and taking three pills has never carried so many emotions ever before in my life! But this was it! It was really happening! This thing that I had really come to think would never, ever be possible for me in this life... the door opened and I chose to enter! Sometimes, I think about how I wish I could have arrived here sooner. I wish that I was younger in doing this, that I had taken better care of myself along the way, that this or that about my life might have gone differently. But all that really matters to me is that I am here now. This is real. I was finally ready, and the world is just a little better in its regard for the acceptance and humane treatment of transgender people. There's still so far to go -especially when it comes to protections for basic rights, access to affordable healthcare, and the overwhelming spectre of violence that exists in this world against transgender people.

But I am here, and this is happening -my transition is not even a year old, but it's been a time I will always remember! I still have a lot to learn and so far to go in this experience, but the support and encouragement I have found so far has been so good for my heart and my sense of my self worth! I got here later in life. But again I'm here, and it's time to focus on what's ahead of me!