Number 83

Both Sides Now

I belong to a number of Facebook groups for transgendered folks. Recently, someone new to our community posted the following question: "How hard is it to transition?" Many of us responded with details about our own journeys, as well as words of advice and offers of encouragement. (By the way, the transgender community tends to be tremendously supportive of one another. It's a really cool fringe benefit of being trans.) My own response was fairly succinct: "It's the hardest thing I've ever done. But it's also the best thing I've ever done."

With this blog, I have tried very hard to explain that statement. Both the hardships I've had to face; as well as the reasons why it's so crucially important for me to transition. Hopefully I have succeeded in doing this. It's important to me that you understand how extraordinarily positive, in the long run, all of this has been for me. It has freed my soul from a prison it didn't even know it was locked up in.

There's another little gift that trans people get to experience that cis people never do. Living parts of our lives being 'bossed around' by two different hormonal realities is a fascinating experience. I've touched on this a few times - describing changing feelings and attitudes - in the past, but the point I want to stress today is the insights I have gained by living through this. Perhaps you'll accuse me of trafficking in gender stereotypes, and, I suppose, to a certain degree I am. But as the song and movie title suggest: "the girl can't help it."

Take aggression as an example. It's one thing to state factually that, generally, men are more aggressive than women. It's another thing entirely to live that reality. I've gone from a person who occasionally lost my temper to someone who rarely feels the need to get assertive. In the past, in those moments when I would lose my temper, I felt powerless to control myself. Now I wonder why it seemed so hard. Interestingly, when Rebecca and I would have a 'marital disagreement', I would feel myself losing control and wanting to shout and yell. She, on the other hand, would remain calm (angry, yes, but calm). It drove me nuts. "I'm very angry at you," she would say in this excruciatingly quiet voice. "Then shout and yell!" I'd want to scream back. I never understood how she was able to stay calm. Now I do.

Another example. I used to imagine myself as the Marlboro man, but without the cigarettes, horses or chaps. You know, a stoic dude who shows no emotion and doesn't need any friends. I thought that conveyed strength. Maybe it did. But now,  looking back, it just feels lonely, and gets to the heart of what I mean about "freeing my soul." A life lived on estrogen has me craving the intimacy of close friendships (with other women). The challenge here is that, at age 54, I've had much less practice/experience with the give and take of these types of relationships than most cis women. So I spend a lot of time, watching, observing, and in some cases mimicking. I'm particularly fond of hearing a group of women laughing. I delight when I am part of that group.

I have previously discussed how many more colors my emotional palette has acquired since starting on estrogen, so I'll only mention it in passing as another example of the yin and yang of hormonal change. Although the spikes of anxiety I have to deal with now are one of the few downsides of my transition.

The biggest change in my my life since beginning HRT is how it has enabled me to grow (slowly) into my identity as Nora. When I went public with my transition, I felt like an awkward pretender in the land of women. Now, almost two years later, I feel like I belong.

Let me use my "Pool Buddies" to explain this. I used to get together weekly with a three men to play pool (and eat a sublime greasy hamburger). They were among the first people I told about my transition, and they all accepted me without hesitation. In any event, we continued to play pool weekly, though I was now attending as my true self. At first this felt fine. But as my new life began to gain form - aided, no doubt, by my new hormonal makeup, I became more and more ambivalent about 'pool night.' As it happened, other circumstances came up which ended the weekly pool games before I had to tell my three male friends that I was going to bow out. I loved those guys (still do!), but our time together was no longer fulfilling a need for me. You need to understand it wasn't the activity that left me flat, it was being in the company of (three of the finest) men. Today, if three women asked me to play pool with them, I'd be there in a flash.

Of course, I'd probably still get one of those greasy hamburgers - not everything has changed.