Trans Like Me

[Guest NatashaJade]

(It's been a while since I have posted here...I thought I might reintroduce myself)

So we’re friends, you and I.

I have to tell you something and I hope that won’t upset you, but it might.

You see, you will never be trans like me. Never.

You’ll never come to understand yourself the way I did.

I knew early on that I wasn’t like my older brothers. There are two of them and these days they are really great men and when they were my older brothers when I was a child they were really cruel boys. So when I speak of them in memory, they are not the same people, the people I now love and admire. In memory, they are the ones I feared.

And I was different from them. My parents…my mother made my difference about my intellect, my higher level of scholarship and I was divided as the smart child. But I knew I was not like them because what they did and how they acted did not fit in with what I wanted to do and how I acted. It happened early on that they discovered me acting out this difference, playing with my mothers things because there were no other girl things in the house and they made me keenly aware that what I was doing was dangerous. Dangerous. It’s a horrible word. Just the sound of it. But the feeling, the knowing that to be myself as I knew myself to be was to be in danger …I knew that the only path to safety was to mimic them. To be like them enough that they would write off the difference as part of my being “the smart one” or just a weird little kid and that was enough to keep me safe.

I understood that. Safety. I learned that safety came from not sticking out too much, from acting like others enough…from acting like other boys and men even after I knew that I was not like other boys and men and would never be. I knew the word transsexual when I was 11 and knew that it fit me better than anything else had to that point.

You’ll never have the same angst and depression and suicide attempts.

I know what you’re saying because you’ve had angst and depression and suicide attempts, or at least some reasonably large percentage of you have based on statistics. But mine was compounded by having bi-coastal parents who played transcontinental ping-pong with me for almost a decade. Mine was mitigated by my removal from my chief tormentors for large portions of the year. Mine was devastating because knowing I was a transsexual girl made puberty all the worse as I studied (years of study when I was a teenager sneaking into university stacks and knowing where the important books were shelved…pre-internet, darlings) what I would have to do to counter the horrible mess my genetics were making of my body on a daily basis. It wasn’t just knowing what was wrong but knowing all I would have to do if I were ever to counter it…and hating every last book because it seemed that everyone who ever went through gender transition was forced to be part of some horrible study where neck down pictures were a common part of the treatment. I believed that if I were ever going to transition I would have to sacrifice anything like dignity and self-respect in exchange for something like a half-life which really still felt like more than what I had.

And so suicide.

And so not. The will to live stronger than the desire to die, I suppose.

You’ll never have the same balked attempt at transition and then total sublimation as a defense mechanism.

Not being able to live without trying to really live, I ran away to be me in another town where no one knew me or of me. A city with a local trans center that I visited immediately and learned that life would be nothing like I ever wanted for myself. I would be poor and possibly need to do sex work to pay for electrolysis and hormones and I would be outside of the world in a way that frightened me beyond measure. I would mostly be alone and never know those people in my life who I loved and missed and who mostly believed me to be dead already.

I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd as a teenager. I knew what The Wall was and I started building one in earnest, walling myself into a little cell with almost no light and trying so hard to forget that she was there that all that was left was the ache and the horrific depressions and terrible rage. I had all the pain, but I blocked out the cause of it…or rather blocked it in so tightly that it should have never escaped.

And then I went home.

You’ll never have the same reawakening.

Years later. A lifetime later. A marriage and two kids later. A happiness that existed along with the pain, that competed with it and made life worth living a bearable and sometimes even wonderful. A real career and satisfaction and achievement…

And the mortar that held the stones in place rotting away and I felt it again and this time so much stronger than before and the pain was so much greater that it began to eclipse everything else…the depression had a reason and the rage a label…transsexual. love me! love me because I knew that this time I couldn’t shove it into that little cell and I tried. I tried every moment of every day and I thought

If I did it once, I can do it again!

But I was wrong and the more I fought against it, the more present it was and I hated it because it was going to destroy my life, destroy my family and their lives. It was so dangerous and I knew the stories because now I had the internet and knew that I would probably never see my friends of family…my children. Because that is how the stories went. I would lose my career and my self-respect and I thought of my life insurance policy and how that would help my family…that I would be worth more as a dead man than a living trans woman and I planned accidental deaths for myself…and I finally sought a therapist and began to come to terms with what I needed to do.

You’ll never have the same relationship successes and failures.

I came out to my spouse and to my very young children and it was a hard year when it was just us who knew. Not for my kids so much. They were very young and just knew that their parents were sad. But my spouse…she lost her husband the day I came out to her. She lost the man she was married to and had to relearn how to be with the woman who stood in his place and watch as this woman slowly erased so much of what she loved about the man. But she also learned that this new woman was in some ways a happier and healthier version of the person she had always loved and began to accept that this was the best way forward…that the man was not going to survive in any form, but the woman would really live.

And then others were let in, a trickle first of very good friends and then, soon, everyone who was not a part of work and then some who were. And perhaps because I am not one to travel in very conservative or religious circles, there were very few who objected in the least and most of the concerns were for my spouse and the relative health of our marriage. If not for her, I would have lost so much more, but because she accepted me, most of them did as well.

And then my family. In parts accepting, but very strange about the affair and I will try not to say too much because I hate to say anything to make them feel bad should they read this, but it took them a while to really believe that this was a real and true thing. But they have and I love them.

We lost my brother-in-law. But we never really had him. He believes there are demons in pictures and hides himself and his family away from the world. Literally. His walls are built out of religious texts and self-serving doctrine. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to seeing them come down one day and hope for his kids that the day is sooner than later.

Your body will not react the same way to HRT.

And you know this. Genetics, right? To this day, people think I had a breast augmentation. Not that I wouldn’t mind a little more size to match my frame, but what I’ve got is mine from the chest up. I fight with body hair and the fact is I have had good, if not great results physically and I really have nothing to complain about and I could give you a timeline of what happened and when but it’s not going to match what happens and when for you. Deal with it. Some girls start growing boobs earlier than others. Some girls get bigger boobs than others. Everyone complains that what they have is not as good as what someone else has. Women and men, both.

You won’t get the same reaction from your employer.

I’m a high school teacher. I teach Theatre Arts and English and work in close quarters with my students and I thought for certain that this career was over and I mentally prepared myself for it. At the same time, I did due diligence and explored every option and discovered that the people I worked for were more progressive than expected and protective of their dual-certified staff and I went from Mr. to Mrs. in the space of the week before the school year began and it was crazy and wonderful and weird and nothing like I imagined.

And except in few cases, I am rarely, if ever misgendered and hardly noticed except that I am some how seen as slightly less competent than before but that has nothing to do with being trans and everything to do with being a woman.

You won’t experience GRS as I did or recover in the same way.

Yes, I have had the surgery. In Montreal by Dr. Brassard (I recommend him). I still dilate and and have had amazing orgasms and this may be too much information, but I will always provide too much information about this when asked because rather than act as if it is none of someone’s business, I’ll go to the other extreme and tell them more than they ever wanted to hear. I am an educator, after all.

But what I now have is still unique to me and my experience. I cannot speak to anyone else’s. Some folks weren’t as happy with Dr. Brassard as I have been. Very few of them from what I know. But they are there. Some folks don’t see GRS as being the end all and be all of transition, that it is somehow overrated.

And I don’t get that at all. Yes, living full time was a dream made real. Living authentically is a brilliant revelation. So has the fact that I have never been confronted by anyone in a public restroom or about anything at all…that I have enjoyed living as a woman in the world unquestioned. All prior to my surgery. And that was awesome, I assure you but every time I used the restroom and showered and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror…it was a cruel reminder of the fact that no matter what outward social successes I enjoyed, my body was still not right and would not be until I had it fixed.

And so there is no denial from me that the surgery was not the icing on the cake, but the cake itself. Everything, every part of this has been important but being rid of the dysphoria was what I needed more than anything else.

Please don’t mistake this for me saying that living as a woman is not important to me, because it is. I’ll write more about this another time.

But I have heard some say that GRS has not has that big of an impact all things considered. This is why I say that your surgery will not be like mine. I cannot tell you how you will feel when all is said and done.

Your life will not be like mine.

I am an award winning playwright, a professional screenwriter (I’ve been paid!), a published novelist, a public school teacher. I hold two Masters degrees and am working on a third. I’ve worked in the theatre and on films and rode on the back of a garbage truck and was a hotel maid for a time. I’ve slept in the one of the biggest mansions in L.A. and played pool with an NBA star… and with my cat in a half-constructed balcony of a theatre in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco where I would go out late at night to smoke cigarettes and chat with prostitutes. I’ve been very rich and very poor and everywhere in between and my life has been nothing if not interesting and unique and it is mine.

Being a post-op trans woman is just one of the many things that I am, but it is a really big part and I own that and do not dismiss it. It is my unique life as I’m sure you have your own.

You will never be trans like me.

And I’m happy for you about this and and I’m sad for you as well. Because my life is very good these days and even thought money is often tight and I’m still on the surface of the sun, life is very good and I am so happy to be able to live it that I never want to leave it… and I love myself.

I sincerely hope that even though you will never be trans like me, you find your best way of being trans (if that is what you are and only you can tell you that) or simply your best possible happiness. It is possible. I did not think it back in the time before, but I do now because I know now and it is.

[JenniferB]

It's nice to hear from you again. And you are correct in that all of us have our own path to follow. But again, that's what makes life special.

Your avatar looks so different than the last one. I take it the dysphoria is mostly gone, if not entirely. And for that I'm very happy for you.

{{{Hugs}}}

Jenny

[Guest NatashaJade]

Hi Jenny!

What dysphoria?

xoxo

[Guest miss kindheart]

Hi Jade,
<<< hug >>>
Welcome back to Laura's Playground.
Please feel free to come over and chat sometime.
The Chat room does require another registration that is separate from from your forums one.
Please read the chat room rules before coming in, and expect a short interview with one of the chat room moderators.
One of the things that they will ask you is if you read the rules.
We all look forward to seeing you.
vanna

[Guest NatashaJade]

Hi Jade,

<<< hug >>>

Welcome back to Laura's Playground.

Please feel free to come over and chat sometime.

The Chat room does require another registration that is separate from from your forums one.

Please read the chat room rules before coming in, and expect a short interview with one of the chat room moderators.

One of the things that they will ask you is if you read the rules.

We all look forward to seeing you.

vanna

Thanks, Vanna

[Guest angels wings]

Hello Jade nice to hear from you again thank you for sharing

Angel

[Cyndee]

Cool Tasha, you are a gifted writer, glad you have found the time to come on here, stay cool....

C Rae -

[Guest LizMarie]

Jade, that is beautiful. Thank you for sharing! And it's so true! We each walk a unique road. We may see similar vistas, even a few the same along the road, but each of us walks a very special road that only belongs to us.

[Guest terra23]

this is a weird place my name is michael ive wanted to be a girl a long time about 7 or 8 im 23 now ive never came out and tried to talk to someone this is the first time for me i still want to be a girl its just will my family be ashamed of me ive hide this from them all my life so far i dont know what to do

[Carolyn Marie]

Welcome to the Playground, Michael. Coming here and talking with us and learning all you can is a great place to start your exploration. I know how nerve wracking it can be to admit for the first time that you wanted to be a different gender. But please relax, you are among friends who understand you.

As far as what to do, I would start slow, read the forum threads, ask questions, and perhaps download or purchase some books and articles on the subject of transsexuality. It is a complicated subject. Then, when you feel ready, you can try to find a gender therapist who can answer more of your questions, and the two of you can explore who you are and where you go from here.

In the meantime, I encourage you to post an intro in the Introductions Forum, and tell us more about yourself.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[KathrynJulia]

Wonderful Tasha to see you back.

What you wrote about is so true. Each of us experiences a different pathway with different bumps and bruises along the way. For some the journey is relatively short in duration. But for others it can be decades long. Maybe someday society will learn a little more about us and not throw so many roadblocks into our path. You've experienced a particularly difficult transition and yet you've enjoyed success which all of us can learn from. I'm having FFS surgery in a month or so and if I can use my powers of persuasion and convince my employer to cover my GRS, I'll schedule my GRS in about a year.

I've dressed femininely for the past year, but waited until my divorce was final and I posted my coming out letter at work Friday. Tasha, my mailbox exploded with emails of support today. So our community has come a long way baby. Congratulations on the new job and the move home to California. You've worked hard, paid your dues, and it's great to see you back on Laura's. Kathryn

[Guest frida314]

Hi, I am a retired person, male by birth, but have never fit in with family and friends in all these decades. I may be male, but I am tired of role playing as "how a man should be". I do not like men, I have become more and more socially isolated over the years, with attendant increase in some anger to being alone which makes it even harder to meet people. It is getting so awkward with my wife, her family and church to get along. I have lost my individuality and regain it instead within myself in my head. It seems that we can talk about these things now that we could not way, way back in the '50s. I haven't used these "posts" before. I read though the first biography, and it rings true. By the way, I took the advice of using a name that I would respond as I wish I could, "Frida". Right now, I am she, and no other as I type this. I think may male name is in the registration.