: Two-year anniversary :
Ahhh, the first weekend. I slept until 9:30, which is four hours later than I normally do. Damn, I miss the days I could sleep until 2 p.m., and often did.
Things are going well at work, and I enjoy meeting new people every day. It's always a little difficult, because I have to be so cagey about my past. I don't talk about my ex or my son, and of course I don't talk about my transition. Generally, people like talking about themselves more than hearing about me, so I just let them do the talking.
My friend Nexy recently posted how she felt transition was something that never really ends. I'd agree with that to a point. My feeling is that transition "ends" once you have reasonably established your new identity, are living full-time, and don't have any more major transition-related events ahead of you. To me, transition is not a state of being - it's a process that has a fairly definite beginning and ending. While I have had trans thoughts my entire life, thinking about transition and even planning for it doesn't qualify as the beginning for me. The beginning is when you take some kind of action with the intent to transition. And for me, the second anniversary of that date is today - July 15 - when I took my first tiny blue estradiol pill with the intention to continue for the rest of my life.
To me, this is a milestone apart from losing weight, growing hair out, getting nails done or even experimenting with herbal hormones, all of which I did prior to July 15, 2004. Those things could all be reversed quite easily, and even though the herbals had an immediate effect on me, my intent in taking them was to experiment, not to continue on them indefinitely. For me, the end of my transition will be once I get my SRS in January. At that point, there are no more meaningful milestones to mark my forward progress. I will already have my corrected passport, social security card and driver's license by that point (hopefully!) and the only legal document left to correct would be my birth certificate and that's hardly a commonly used document. That's not to say there won't be plenty of little milestones after that, but they will be milestones primarily of a woman starting a new life, not of a man turning into a woman - first time having intercourse, first mammogram, first trip to the gynocologist, etc.
I agree with Nexy that I will never be a "normal" woman in every sense of the word. I will always be a trans-woman with a unique perspective and special needs on many things. But I knew going into transition that it would be like that. Would I choose to be a "normal" woman if given the hypothetical choice? I used to say yes unequivocably but now I'm not sure I would. The biggest difference between me and most women (the ability to bear children) isn't important to me, so that's a wash. The ongoing physical differences have pros and cons on both sides (dealing with menstruation and cramps vs. dilation, for example) and I'll admit I'd love to have a more feminine shape than I already have (which is pretty darn feminine - I'm just greedy). But who's to say if I'd been born female I wouldn't now have a butt the size of Texas or be equally dissatisfied with my looks but for other reasons (as most women are!)
Plus, a lot of who I am and my own personal sense of contentment is derived from overcoming the obstacles I've faced to get where I am. If I'd not had to go through transition, if I'd been physically a girl all my life, I'd probably take my mind/body congruence for granted, and who knows what kind of person I'd have turned out to be? Part of what makes me smile every day is appreciating the life that I've worked so hard and endured so much to build. The other part comes from being with the people I love and who care about me, and I'm luckier than most that I've found people in this world who truly love me.
Things are going well at work, and I enjoy meeting new people every day. It's always a little difficult, because I have to be so cagey about my past. I don't talk about my ex or my son, and of course I don't talk about my transition. Generally, people like talking about themselves more than hearing about me, so I just let them do the talking.
My friend Nexy recently posted how she felt transition was something that never really ends. I'd agree with that to a point. My feeling is that transition "ends" once you have reasonably established your new identity, are living full-time, and don't have any more major transition-related events ahead of you. To me, transition is not a state of being - it's a process that has a fairly definite beginning and ending. While I have had trans thoughts my entire life, thinking about transition and even planning for it doesn't qualify as the beginning for me. The beginning is when you take some kind of action with the intent to transition. And for me, the second anniversary of that date is today - July 15 - when I took my first tiny blue estradiol pill with the intention to continue for the rest of my life.
To me, this is a milestone apart from losing weight, growing hair out, getting nails done or even experimenting with herbal hormones, all of which I did prior to July 15, 2004. Those things could all be reversed quite easily, and even though the herbals had an immediate effect on me, my intent in taking them was to experiment, not to continue on them indefinitely. For me, the end of my transition will be once I get my SRS in January. At that point, there are no more meaningful milestones to mark my forward progress. I will already have my corrected passport, social security card and driver's license by that point (hopefully!) and the only legal document left to correct would be my birth certificate and that's hardly a commonly used document. That's not to say there won't be plenty of little milestones after that, but they will be milestones primarily of a woman starting a new life, not of a man turning into a woman - first time having intercourse, first mammogram, first trip to the gynocologist, etc.
I agree with Nexy that I will never be a "normal" woman in every sense of the word. I will always be a trans-woman with a unique perspective and special needs on many things. But I knew going into transition that it would be like that. Would I choose to be a "normal" woman if given the hypothetical choice? I used to say yes unequivocably but now I'm not sure I would. The biggest difference between me and most women (the ability to bear children) isn't important to me, so that's a wash. The ongoing physical differences have pros and cons on both sides (dealing with menstruation and cramps vs. dilation, for example) and I'll admit I'd love to have a more feminine shape than I already have (which is pretty darn feminine - I'm just greedy). But who's to say if I'd been born female I wouldn't now have a butt the size of Texas or be equally dissatisfied with my looks but for other reasons (as most women are!)
Plus, a lot of who I am and my own personal sense of contentment is derived from overcoming the obstacles I've faced to get where I am. If I'd not had to go through transition, if I'd been physically a girl all my life, I'd probably take my mind/body congruence for granted, and who knows what kind of person I'd have turned out to be? Part of what makes me smile every day is appreciating the life that I've worked so hard and endured so much to build. The other part comes from being with the people I love and who care about me, and I'm luckier than most that I've found people in this world who truly love me.
