Category: Movin’ on out of that Closet

The sweet taste of joy

I don’t even know how to title this post. I want to take a chance to talk about mixed feelings. Transitioning has been in many ways very difficult and scary, and in other ways one of the mot rewarding and fulfilling things I’ve ever done.

What I need to do a better job of expressing, especially to myself, is the joy and contentment I feel by feeling like myself. It’s odd how the better I feel the more obvious the bad feelings are. When I was miserable and in the closet I was fairly even keeled. Now I’m all over the place emotionally, and I couldn’t be happier about that fact.

It’s become difficult to be a moderate person, to feel moderately, live moderately. Sometimes I feel like a kid with incredible swings in mood, though I know they’re not very big to most people.

I never thought sadness could make me happy. I had never experienced happy crying, I had never been happy to cry. Yet, I have learned to embrace and love the lows as much as the highs. As winters chill makes summers warmth so enticing, so too does sadness’ cold embrace make the warmth of laughter and joy all the richer.

I have a brain that likes to think and I let it run away from me sometimes (all the time) but in my heart when my head is quiet, I can hear the gentle song of joy hanging in the air.

The subtlety of trans unacceptance

My Wife and I are in the process of becoming foster parents. This process hit a rather unfortunate roadblock the other day. My wife started her own business a month ago, it’s a busy time, she is working more then ever. She’s enjoying her work and its been a really positive experience.

The social worker doing our assessment tried to explain it wasn’t entirely because of my transition that she wasn’t ready to accept our application. She was great about it, I can tell she cares, and I’m curious how much of her misgivings are from her supervisor. I can not help but think that if my wife was my husband, they would forgive a busy father. That I am seen as too unstable because of my transition, I need the support of a ‘real’ mother for those kids.

I’m pretty devastated, my wife and I aren’t in a position to have kids of our own obviously, and we’re not sure about adoption yet, but fostering was a way for us to do some good, we have a huge empty house, we both have had rough childhoods and want to try and give some warmth and safety to a kid that really needs it. I know we’ll be good at it.

I’ve talked about how I don’t hate being trans, how its a defining part of me and has shaped me into the person I am. I wouldn’t change it if I could. I do so wish that it didn’t make my life so difficult. I find myself feeling tired, not physically tired, but emotionally. Having to justify transness, and explain it, and put it into a box it doesn’t fit in is exhausting.

I am a person, I am a human being, I am a woman who happens to be trans. I want nothing more then the dignity afforded others. I wish only to be treated like a person with a name that explains who I am, not who my parents thought I was before I was born. I wish that my sum total experiences were cherished and celebrated for what they are not as a contradiction of what is ‘normal’ (which just means straight and cisgender.) I long for a world in which transness is an experience that can be shared with others to enrich them, not to justify why others are ‘coerced’ into being uncomfortable.

Every culture is enriched by the variety of experiences and stories that are allowed to enliven it. Let us culturally accept that transness does not fit into any other context then itself and give it the room and space to breathe life into the lives of those who don’t experience it. Let trans people be people, let them give you strength as their experiences have given them, let their stories give your life greater meaning, let their struggles help you understand your own. We are not monsters, we are not to be feared, we are not looking to upset any natural order, we are but people whose place in history has long been blotted out, and whose stories have not been allowed to pass to others. That no more makes us new, or frightening then any other group who have existed outside of ‘proper society.’

Trans stories and lives matter, we have a role in society, we have a place in the hearts of those around us. We have a right to do good around us. Just let us.

Under pressure

I’ve been listening to a lot of Queen lately. I’m more and more feeling in a pressure cooker, as I transition from coming out to living out the tension just keeps building. I by no means can assume to know the inner workings of anyone’s mind. I do find some solace in Freddie Mercury’s voice. The twinge of pain stitched into the music is resonating with me.

I’ve talked before about how this process has been very dehumanizing. Well I’ve never felt more human, more vulnerable, more emotional, and most importantly more alive.

I just wish being alive didn’t scare the b’jesus out of me right now. I always knew this would be a difficult process. But I’ve never felt how difficult it would be. My days are wall to wall excitement, anticipation, tension, and stress.

At times I want to yell it from the mountain tops, others I want to curl into a ball and roll back into the closet. For the pain and derision its causing me I must say there’s part of me reveling in the primal vitality of it all.

Each step moves me forward, each thought entertains more possibilities. I want to talk about more about this later. But the quality and depth of relationships I’ve built because of this is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

As much as I may not appreciate the current of pain threaded throughout this journey. I’m ready to bear it for the sake of the primal vitality, living on the very bleeding edge of human experience. My heart is open, my mind is ready, my body is primed. I am living as much life as I possibly can, while I can.

Each step is exciting

I got a package in the mail today, inside are some new clothes. Those clothes are decidedly, pretty androgynous. The big thing is that they are for me, and they are for public wearing.

I don’t know about everyone but I’ve grown a bit of stack of clothes that fit me and I like, but they were never purchased with the intention of being seen by anyone. Some are fun, some are racy, and some are boring and dull. I’ve stopped buying clothes for me to escape to a feeling of normal. In the last few months I’ve started buying clothes normally. It’s a big step and I’m already a lot more comfortable.

I bought new work clothes. Awkwardly, men’s clothes don’t fit as well anymore, I’ve started to take on a more feminine shape and on top of being bigger means that there’s just not a lot of room extra space in these shirts around my midsection, while simultaneously there’s an awkward amount of fabric loosely hanging off my back.

I didn’t really know that there was that much of a difference.

A big part of this process is discovering yourself, I’ve never really had cause to figure out what kinds of colours I like to wear because men’s clothes are boring and come in unappealing colours and patterns, the trouble was usually finding something interesting.

There’s a whole new world out there for me now and Each step forward is a another in which I feel like I have a place in it.

Revel in the small victories

I’ve been on estrogen for about six months at this point. and though day to day its hard to notice any particular changes, the overall effect is beginning to become quite pronounced.

That would be good news enough but I took a big step. I bought some new work clothes last week, and I’ve been wearing them all of this week, the kicker being that they’re women’s clothing, not only do they fit better then my old clothes, I haven’t created some huge uproar or destabilized the universe.

A pair of pants might not seem huge but I was pretty concerned the first day I wore them, the pockets look different, they’re a different cut, I could think of a thousand ways people would notice. I just focused on the fact that people generally don’t notice things. and lo and behold, they didn’t.

Now I’m more comfortable at work, I feel like more confident that I can be out at work and most importantly I’ve taken a tangible step toward transitioning at work. Sometimes the victories are small but much like a fresh strawberry, the smallest ones are generally the sweetest.