: Living an honest life :
There are many challenges to transitioning from one sex to the other - physical, mental, social and professional. But transition isn't done for sport or for fun. True transsexuals undergo transition because they feel that they don't have a choice. Often, transition is what happens after the transsexual person has had serious thoughts of suicide or even attempted suicide. But it is just as valid a reason if the person feels that life simply isn't worth living if he or she has to pretend to be someone they are not.
Two years ago, most people would probably say I had a great life - a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, a cozy house in a very respectable neighborhood and a satisfying career at a terrific company. The problem was that there was a price to be paid for all that - my identity. In order to have all these luxuries, I had to subsume my true identity, the person I felt that I was inside. And it came to the point where all those other things didn't matter to me anymore if I couldn't express my inner identity. I realized that those things would never make me happy if they cost me the opportunity to be myself.
When I first came out to my family, a lot of people asked me why I "wanted" to be a girl. I could never really get them to understand that they were asking the wrong question. In my mind, I am already a girl psychologically - just not physically or socially. So my choice is not between being a girl versus being a boy - it's a choice between suffering in silence versus taking proactive action. What they should have asked is, "Is being a girl worth changing your whole life?" And my answer would have been yes, because I'd rather live an honest life full of hardship than a comfortable life full of deception.
Being a girl is not a turn-on or anything that makes me happy in and of itself. What makes me happy is seeing my progress every day and realizing that I'm closer to living a life where I never have to pretend to be something I'm not.
Two years ago, most people would probably say I had a great life - a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, a cozy house in a very respectable neighborhood and a satisfying career at a terrific company. The problem was that there was a price to be paid for all that - my identity. In order to have all these luxuries, I had to subsume my true identity, the person I felt that I was inside. And it came to the point where all those other things didn't matter to me anymore if I couldn't express my inner identity. I realized that those things would never make me happy if they cost me the opportunity to be myself.
When I first came out to my family, a lot of people asked me why I "wanted" to be a girl. I could never really get them to understand that they were asking the wrong question. In my mind, I am already a girl psychologically - just not physically or socially. So my choice is not between being a girl versus being a boy - it's a choice between suffering in silence versus taking proactive action. What they should have asked is, "Is being a girl worth changing your whole life?" And my answer would have been yes, because I'd rather live an honest life full of hardship than a comfortable life full of deception.
Being a girl is not a turn-on or anything that makes me happy in and of itself. What makes me happy is seeing my progress every day and realizing that I'm closer to living a life where I never have to pretend to be something I'm not.
