When I reflect on ruminating about adjusting to life once
the mechanical aspects of transition are over, the healing of surgery and
such behind us, I am reminded of a passage Martha Stout's The Myth of
Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness. Dr. Stout
discusses dissociative identity disorder (DID) but surprisingly, much of what
she writes is relevant to growing up with, and finding a way to cope with
finding one's self being told they belong to one gender, yet identifying internally
with the other (which is what I think of when I read GID (gender identity
disorder), and the resultant intense dysphoria. Perhaps the relevance of DID
to GID is not remarkable considering most men and women who grow up grappling
with transsexualism exist internally as one person, and externally as another,
at least until transition. Even if this passage is not entirely germane, I
find it thought provoking and worth including nonetheless. Paraphrasing and
modifying slightly what she writes:
"People [surviving transsexualism] have usually survived
the unsurvivable whether recognized or not. They did not fail to thrive
and so perish in childhood, as one might reasonably have expected, nor did
they commit suicide in adolescence, another bitterly common result. No,
they divided themselves, and they survived; and the fact that they survived,
and in many cases survived well, probably means that as a group they tend
to be, by their original nature, people who have exceptional gifts. Typically
they possess intellectual, interpersonal, or creative abilities that might
have set them apart from the crowd even if (especially if) their histories
had been different. They are superadpaters, mind boggling really.
But there is inestimable waste, the waste of a very bright
candle at which tragic circumstance has for too long blown a heavy, near
extinguishing mist. The flame may hiss and flash large at time, in impossibly
displays of protest and vitality that are compelling to witness, but it
is always in danger of fading to black.
The talents I refer to are inborn; trauma does not bestow
them. Trauma is merely the cruel taskmaster. It rivets our attention but
is no giver of gifts.
More generally there is the issue whether or not psychological
pain bestows or perhaps enhances creativity, an old debate. It is the question
of, for example, "Would a happy Charles Dickens have written A
Tale Of Two Cities?" In working for many years with a great many
traumatized people, artists, musicians and writers among them, I have answered
this question to my own satisfaction, and my answer is this: I do not think
a happy Charles Dickens would have done less brilliant work, particularly
if he were happy because he has recovered from being unhappy. On the contrary,
I think the natural genius of Charles Dickens would have expressed itself
even more luminously, and also that the people around him would have led
far more comfortable lives.
Happiness is not a mixed blessing.
I tell this opinion to those of my patients who fear they
will lose a certain creative edge should they be "cured." One
does not lose one's edge. If anything, it becomes a finer blade, and (the
best part) one does not have to bleed for it nearly so much. A talented
person is not talented because of her or his pain. She or he is talented
despite it. The pain is like a gauzy gray mist that has wrapped itself several
times around a priceless clear light."
Speaking for myself, the first great challenge in adjusting
to life once the obvious and formidable physical goals were reached was to
learn how to trust myself and my authenticity as a woman. This involved mastering
fears, most of which spring from not having been validated as a woman growing
up. I may have enviously observed other women from childhood on, and even
vicariously experienced certain aspects of womanhood through my friendship
with other women, but I had no personal cultural frame of reference through
which to define and measure what it means for me to be a woman. Until I could
do this, I was plagued with fears I would not assimilate and enjoy a normal
life as just another woman.
I found online and through local support groups helpful information
while planning then carrying out my transition. Ultimately, however, these
were for me way stations on the longer journey towards self acceptance and
actualization as a woman. When young girls approach puberty, they start to
engage in assuming the role of a young woman. They experiment with dress,
make-up and personality in an effort to try on various "ways of being"
that change and evolve throughout young adulthood until a sense of their selves
as women crystallizes. For me this experience was carried out online and through
support groups, and of course graduating and then venturing out into the world
on my own, making mistakes and learning from them. At some point you glean
all you can, if anything, from those online and support groups and for better
or worse strike out on your own. You
cannot define yourself as a woman in society through online and real world
support groups, though some make a home of what for most is a way station
to happier vistas.
My greatest joy and most useful healing occurred after I stopped
spending time in these way stations and began forming relationships with men
and woman in the world around me. In making friendships, some deep, most superficial,
with other women in particular I find great peace. I've come to understand
that my former sense of what it meant to be a woman was narrow, almost a caricature,
though the mistake was innocent and easy to make looking from the outside
in as I did so much of my life growing up. In the locker room I have seen
body shapes so many and varied that I finally shed the self consciousness
of my own body, and with it, a heavy yoke of fear I'd been carrying. In the
spectrum of women I've met as friends and acquaintances, I've come to understand
how (in this day and age at least) so much of my past, which I feared might
be seen as contrary to being a woman, is not incongruous. As a result I can
speak freely of skills and interests which make up an important part of who
I am, which is to say I need omit little of my life, or fabricate some false
history, cloaking for example my love and interest of mathematics, or my familiarity
and comfort with matters mechanical. I understand now, reflecting on my past
and life growing up, that like all women I fought battles to define myself,
the only difference is mine was on unconventional fronts. Peer to peer relationships
with other women provide me with a healthier, confident lens through which
to see the entirety of my life.
What I am trying not very successfully to say is that my relationship
with other women, as a woman, helped me to find my place in the tribe of women,
to feel comfortable about who I am and where I fit in to the fabric of society.
In the context of an online discussion or real world support group (or specialty
club, et cetera), I could not find that solace and surety. I found in these
places acceptance, something crucial initially before and as we move through
transition, but afterwards it felt like the blind leading the blind, or worse,
self-appointed "experts" on womanhood who in fact rarely left their
dark caves and ventured out in to the wide world of women themselves, judging
harshly and filling with doubt those who want only to heal and assimilate.
My relationships with men are rewarding as well, though in
the context of overcoming fear they were most useful when I craved validation
as a woman like one emerging from a desert wants water. It is scary and difficult
to find yourself starting your thirties and going on your first date. But
those leaps into the unknown, and the numerous mistakes I made that now make
me blush with nostalgic embarrassment, were vital in quenching the white hot
anxiety that pierced my heart and flamed doubt in myself brightly. I personally
dated men and women, mostly because I had no clear sense of what I wanted
and I needed to try all avenues once my body was in line with my spirit. I
know now that while my experience with certain men are more recent than some
of my female friends, we all share memories with men while we were finding
ourselves as women that make our eyes roll now, or that we can laugh about
over drinks. And just like many women I know, the journey to find myself sexually
and as a woman is ongoing, something else I find comforting to see in others
my own age.
Shifting gears, I want to speak for a moment about another
aspect of my adjustment to life after surgery, something that other women
don't experience. I gave myself permission with my closest friends, those
who knew how difficult my journey to self was, to share and speak of the joy
and wonder I felt once the gauzy gray mist wrapped around my own piercing
light as a woman had been removed. Opening myself up to this private happiness
was important, and I am fortunate to have a few in my life with whom I could
share my innocent delight. Happiness is always healing, and I urge all to
find it wherever they may, regardless of the form, or what others may think.
This is your own journey-- listen if you like and digest what others have
to say, but do with it what you will and never be afraid to be an iconoclast.
