My business is helping transgender people transition. I want to share some history, and my viewpoint and opinion on being transgender in this century. I’ve experienced the fear, shame, and life imposed on me by society for decades, hiding who I was. I knew from childhood I was a girl and told my parents which didn’t go well. Society and our socialization has made transgender people fearful of revealing our true natures. Over the years of helping people transition, one thing stands out to me and it is my core belief. Self-acceptance is the key to transition and being authentic. We need to take back our personal power and truly accept who we are. It’s the difference between being scared and struggling. Or joyfully transitioning and thriving. Without true in depth self-acceptance a person in transition is going to struggle with high anxiety, doubts, fears, and rationalize excuses to stay stuck and hidden. I know because I’ve lived it for decades, and now help others get through it.
While transgender is now a topic for political and social division, you are delusional if you think being transgender is new and a liberal sacrilegious plot. We have always existed as part of society for centuries. And we have politely remained hidden in fear from society until this century. There are far more of us still in hiding, not only from society, but also our families, friends and work. I know from personal experience it is a traumatic and seriously disabling way to live. Perpetually hiding your core being is exhausting and never goes away.
Through my work and exposure with the community around the country, I am convinced the “T” in LGBT is as large as the gay community. And just to clarify, the “LGB” is sexual orientation. The “T” is gender identity and has nothing to do with a person’s sexual orientation. Once a person transitions, they can then truly find their sexual orientation, which can be heterosexual, gay or bi, like anyone else. A concept which I find a lot of cisgender straight people find hard to grasp. I frequently have conversations with people who are totally closeted. I feel so badly for them and it pains me to see how they are hurting inside. I know from personal experience it’s possible to transition and finally be free. Survey says we are 1.4 million. That’s just the people who are willing to take a public survey. It is only the tip of the iceberg. We who are out are never going back.
I had tried to transition in the 1970’s and was told by an MD psychiatrist in NY, I was a freak and should move to NYC and turn tricks like the rest. In NY State at that time I could be arrested and fined for appearing in public as female. For me at that time it was a fate worse than death. I was crushed and went into hiding living with my secret until 2014.
Until in this century, being transgender was considered a psychological condition with no treatment and no cure. But recently, the medical community changed the definition of being transgender to a medical condition treatable with therapy, hormones, and surgeries. It’s becoming big business for hospital profit centers and a new challenge for doctors, performing necessary medical treatment and surgeries. Before the 2010’s, transgender had no access to medical treatments or insurance coverage like we do today. By contrast the gay community psychological condition status changed in the 1970’s. It took us in the transgender community until this century to see positive changes. Once I saw this change, I transitioned and couldn’t do it fast enough.
There’s also medical evidence being transgender is real and not our imaginations. We didn’t wake up one day and decide to be girls or boys. It doesn’t work that way contrary to what many in politics and religion would have you believe. Simply explained, we all start out the same in the first trimester of birth. Differences begin in the second trimester with physical sex development. But the brain also begins to develop an area unique to the female brain. And sometimes the signals get scrambled and the brain continues to develop the female area in a body that is developing male. Or the opposite. It happens far more frequently than you might imagine. People who transition may choose to do, or not to do, any of the medical treatments and procedures they need to feel comfortable in their own skin. So for me it was simple. I had my birth defect fixed.
The messages transgender people receive from parents, school, and society about who they are, how they should live, and their social roles, don’t go away easily on their own. I know that with self-acceptance you can deconstruct the gender you were assigned, raised to be, and lived, no matter how long it was imposed on you. Achieving this on your own can be particularly difficult without someone to guide you. With self-acceptance, your authentic gender presentation becomes more natural and easier and even becomes second nature. We in the transgender community need to claim our true identity and simply be who we are.
