Empowered through dance

Dance not only gave me an outlet for self-expression, it empowered me to transition in several ways: by helping me connect with my body, by helping me connect with and giving me and outlet to express my emotions, by challenging and enabling me to take risk and by offering me an outstanding support community.

Most of my life I never really liked my body. I’m sure part of this was the effect of gender dysphoria, the feeling of not fitting in my skin. But it went beyond that. I don’t recall my parents ever body-shaming me, but body-shaming exists even among young males. I can recall an incident in the third grade in which I was mocked in the boy’s restroom because of how I used the urinal (which, strictly speaking, isn’t body-shaming, but yet had the effect of making me all the more self-conscious of my body.) As I played sports I always felt awkward and clumsy. When I played soccer in high school I hated the locker room. Not only did I despise the hyper-masculinity of that environment, I also was so uncomfortable with my body that I wanted to hide it from all eyes. Over the years I grew to accept the basic form but I cannot say that I ever truly felt happy with my body, much less that I thought I could celebrate it. Dancing changed all that. When I first started dancing I hated observing myself in the mirror. It made me uncomfortable, awkward, embarrassed. But the more I danced, the more I became aware of the amazing body I possessed. I saw it grow in form and in strength, and I came to realize that the body is not something to be ashamed of. It’s not something sinful or evil (as often ends up being communicated in religious settings that emphasis the sinfulness of the “flesh.”) The body is something to celebrate, and dance gives me the tools to do so in a way that is powerful, expressive and beautiful. As my body changes shape to match my identity now I feel more and more comfortable with it. Even as I embrace my inner identity, I can also embrace the outward form that is me as well, with all its flaws and beautiful imperfections.

In my childhood and youth I learned not to express emotion. I love my family, don’t get me wrong. But I did not see emotion expressed in a healthy way in it. We generally avoided too much emotional expression altogether. Anger was about the only emotion that saw expression, and even that usually simmered until it exploded. I internalized this and carried it into my marriage. I tried to express my love and other emotions, but it was like trying to write a novel with a vocabulary of only a couple hundred words. In the months of my transition I have become more conscious of my emotions and have begun to feel them more deeply. I don’t have to hide them or be embarrassed by them. I’m sure the hormones help in this process. As I have come to connect more fully with my emotional side, I have thankfully also found the ability and environment to express them through dance. Dance class is often a cathartic time as I pour my sometimes overwhelming emotions into bodily motion. Sometimes it is joy just bursting out. At other times grief and sorrow find expression. The vocabulary of dance is a vast and varied as the range of human emotion.

Prior to taking up dancing I generally avoided risk. This is not an absolute statement, as taking my family to Russia, among other steps in my life, was certainly a risky venture. However, in general I have always chosen to play it safe, to not push too far beyond my comfort zone, to avoid risk. Because with risk comes the possibility of failure, and I did not want to fail. If I fail, then I am a failure (more on that in a later post). I am also a perfectionist (or, as I prefer to say now, I’m a recovering perfectionist.) I never liked to try something unless I felt fairly confident that I could be successful at it. Needless to say, that seriously limited my activities and choices. When I first decided to take ballet class it was a HUGE step for me, because I was consciously choosing to try something in which I had no prior experience and no confidence in my talent for. I had to choose to set aside my perfectionism and allow myself to try, and fail, and then keep trying, knowing that I’d probably never “nail it” because perfection is an unattainable and unrealistic ideal. I also dread the possibility of looking stupid in front of others, of feeling ashamed of myself, of being laughed at or mocked. Dance has empowered me by setting me progressively free of these chains. I am still learning, but I take risks much more confidently and boldly now. I still feel very anxious when I start something new. My stomach was in knots earlier this summer as I drove to the studio to try a new class in a dance form I’d never tried before. But once I got out on the floor, I loved it! Recently in one of my classes the teacher offered each student the opportunity to perform the choreography solo before the rest of the class. With much trepidation I chose to do so (there was no requirement or pressure to do so) and as I danced I set aside all my self-consciousness and fear of what others might think. I poured myself and my emotions into the dance and I LOVED it. For a moment I soared in the freedom of expressing myself in motion. By building my confidence in the studio, I have increasingly gained confidence to be myself outside of the studio as well. I can walk with my head held tall, with assurance in my step and in my gaze because I know who I am and no matter how much I may mess up (and I will), no one can take those things from me.

All of these aspects of empowerment through dance were made possible because of the amazing dance studio I am part of. It is a truly magical place called BreakOut Studios, and the name couldn’t be more appropriate. BreakOut cultivates in everyone who comes there the confidence to step out of their limitations, to push their boundaries, to find themselves in new and deeper ways. Everyone is welcomed, not matter how much or how little they have danced. And in every class I have attended (and I’ve attended a lot of them!) I have experienced nothing but support and encouragement from the instructors and between the students. There’s no catty, petty rivalries; no need to one-up another dancer. We’re all there for each other. When I completed the solo I wrote about earlier, my fellow classmates and the instructor exploded with applause and words of encouragement. What a feeling!

I mentioned yesterday how this community has accepted and affirmed me as they have watched, and upheld, me in my transition. They are my second family, the place where I feel so connected. I love being there and wish everyone could have such an amazing community. I wish especially that everyone who is struggling with themselves, whether it be their gender identity or just personal self-confidence, could come experience this amazing place. I cannot imagine going through this transition journey without them and am thankful I don’t have to.

I shared this song that captures so well how I feel about my life. When my friend shared it with me, she shared the lyrical version I posted earlier. But later I discovered the “full” version and when I did I had a second aha moment. Watch it again and I think you’ll understand why.

Finding myself through ballet

I made some mention in the story of my journey about my dance studio and how friends from that studio have been a part of my transition. But the role of dance in finding and accepting myself goes far beyond what I have indicated so far. Today I want to begin to share some of the ways in which it has influenced me.

I came to dance late in life. I did not dance as a youth or teen, or in a college, or pretty much ever. Neither did dance start me on my journey of self-discovery. That began a couple years before I began dancing. But once I did start, the two became very much intertwined. About three years ago, in the midst of my personal journey, I recognized that I was not getting any younger and that I needed to get active if I was going to maintain my health. Initially I tried mixed martial arts (MMA) with my son and my wife. We learned relatively quickly that none of us enjoyed it. For me the atmosphere was very contrary to my personality and to who I wanted to be. Hitting things, or people, to get in shape was not my path. Next to the MMA studio was a studio that offered pilates, yoga, dance and other similar activities. One day as I left MMA the yoga studio’s sign caught my attention and I noticed that they listed ballet as well. The crazy idea planted itself in my head that it would be interesting and challenging to try ballet. But being a person who still presented as male and was well past 40 at that point, I really questioned whether I could do it. So I called the studio to inquire. The person answering the phone that day also happened to be the ballet teacher and she enthusiastically affirmed that I would be welcome and that it was never too late to start learning. With an enormous amount of anxiety and trepidation I attended my first class. It stretched me beyond all my physical boundaries. I awoke the next morning aware of muscles that I either didn’t know or had forgotten that I had! But I also loved it. The warmth and friendliness of the teacher created an atmosphere where I felt comfortable challenging and stretching myself and I began to attend regularly. I was hooked.

At this point I was still very much hidden in my personal journey, so I took classes as a male, which as most ballet studios are painfully aware is a rarity in itself. For me this was, in fact, part of the attraction, because it gave me an opportunity to be in a world dominated by women but in which men still could fit. Most of the time I would be the only man in class. I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know the other women in the classes and even though I was still presenting as a male they welcomed me and incorporated me into their world.

I was drawn to ballet for several reasons. While living in Russia I had the opportunity to attend several performances by one of the great Russian ballet companies, which had opened my eyes to the beauty of this art form. (In my only prior experience with it as a young man I had not found it nearly so inspiring, to be honest.) Ballet also attracted me because it would take me well outside of my comfort zone, and I had reached a point in life where I wanted to challenge and stretch myself and not just stay in the realm of the safe and familiar. Though I had not yet reached that point in my personal expression, choosing to embrace the opportunity to go beyond my boundaries by taking ballet was a key first step in that process.

Ballet also interested me precisely because it is perceived as a “feminine” art. I have since come to learn that it is so much more than that, but its quintessential perception as something for women was in fact part of what drew me to explore it. As I mentioned previously, it was an environment in which men could (and do!) play an important role, but one in which the focus really is on women, so it gave me the opportunity to connect with the world of women even as I explored whether that was, in fact, my world as well. The more I took ballet, the more I could establish friendships with women in a way and environment that was not inherently sexualized (at least not at the studios I have danced at.) I didn’t look at my fellow dancers as potential intimate relationship material, but as potential new friends. And I have found many wonderful ones along the way.

Being in the dance studio also gave me an outlet for self-expression. At first I presented strictly as male. I was in no way going to give any hint of my internal struggle in that public of a forum. But when I switched to a different studio and slowly became comfortable there, I could begin to push the boundaries of my self-expression bit by bit.  My fellow adult dancers accepted and affirmed me for who I was at every step of the journey, from before I came out to my first timid investigations of self-expression and through the full transition over the past few months. One incident stands out in my mind among many positive experiences. I had purchased a pair of hot pink tights for use in dance but had hesitated to actually wear them to class. Too bold? What would others think? (I still thought very much in such terms at that time.) But while talking with one friend and fellow dancer, she encouraged me to go for it, so I did to a very positive response. Such an environment is so helpful to someone who is figuring out who they are.

Over time I have moved on to try other forms of dance and love a variety of forms, but ballet is still my foundation. I have grown in my abilities, but still have so much to learn. For someone who started in her forties though, I feel pretty good about myself! Tomorrow I want to share some more of the ways in which dance helped me come to find and accept myself.

Am I happy?

Fairly often people ask me "Are you happy?" The simple answer is yes. I have found myself. I feel whole and at harmony with myself. I'm no longer ashamed of myself. All of which makes me very happy.

But the question implies that there are only two states we can be in as humans: happy and unhappy. We are much more complex than that. So while I am happy on the whole, that happiness often mingles with a host of other emotions. Grief and sorrow are frequently among them. It is not an easy thing to make a decision to radically transform your life, especially in the middle of one's life journey. In fact, I experience emotion much more fully than I used to, the whole range of them. It's wonderful, and yet it's also really difficult at times. Would I rather go back to the emotionally-stunted person I was? Would that make me happier? Absolutely not.

Sarah McBride, a leader in the national movement for transgender equality, shared this talk at a TED event. She expresses it so succinctly:  "I didn't transition to be happy, I transitioned to be me."

She makes so many other valid points in this video. I hope you'll take the time the view the whole thing.

My story: Embracing my identity

Up to the point I have shared about in my journey I had never, ever, not once, told anyone about my questions, struggles, explorations, whatever you want to call it, related to my identity. The shame culture which I had fully imbibed growing up and living as a conservative American evangelical Christian kept me from speaking to anyone about this. I simply could not imagine that someone could accept me if they knew this deep, hidden secret, and I feared the possibility of rejection too much to take the risk.

Until one day last October when, for reasons I still don’t understand, I took that risk. While chatting with a friend from my dance studio, I responded to something that she had shared with a comment that hinted at my secret without revealing anything specific. I wrote that I had come to accept some things about myself that had changed my perspective on a number of issues. It was enough of a hint that she could choose to ask more, but nothing too strong so if she passed over it it wouldn’t matter. She did notice it though and asked what I meant by what I had said. I faced a moment of decision. I could blow it off and bypass the issue, or I could open myself for the very first time in my life. I chose the latter, and literally trembled with fear as I waited for her response. I could not imagine that this would be viewed as acceptable or anything positive. Her open, positive response blew me away, and her willingness to support me in my exploration surpassed anything I could have imagined. I cannot express strongly enough how radically freeing it was at that moment to open the door just the smallest crack and find that instead of hatred and rejection there was acceptance and affirmation; that at least some people in this world saw no problem with me being myself.

As I talked further with this friend about my identity, I quickly recognized that the next step had to be to open up to my wife, and this I dreaded more than death itself. Despite my friend’s acceptance, I was terrified to admit to my wife such a profoundly life-altering truth about myself. I valued my relationship with her greatly and feared that telling her would mean the end of that relationship, but I had reached a point in the journey where I could no longer keep it hidden and I could no longer deny it to myself. I started seeing a therapist to help me work through my struggles in accepting myself and dealing with all the issues of guilt and shame that came from my past. I found a local transgender support group and attended my first meeting. (I was terrified because it meant being out among a bunch of strangers.) At the same time I wrestled with when and how to talk to my wife. It took me an entire month to reach the point of raising the issue.

I’m not going to revisit here the actual conversations that occurred with my wife. They are between her and myself, but I will say it was a very painful time for both of us. We faced the choice of one or both of us not being true to ourselves so we could stay together, or separating so that we could both be true to ourselves. It was a terrible choice. We chose the latter. The thing I had feared most had come to pass. Accepting myself had cost me the most important relationship in my life.

Once that dreadful bridge had been crossed, I began to express myself increasingly openly. I began by sharing with the rest of my family, then opening up to trusted friends in my dance community. I started being more out in what I wore to dance class, and slowly became bolder in being out in public. I will write more in future posts about what it’s like to go public as a transgender person, so I won’t dwell on that for the moment. I started painting my nails. I got my ears pierced (which I had long wanted to do!) I found that the people around me, especially those in my dance studio, totally accepted and supported me. They had no problem with me being who I was. They watched and affirmed me as a transitioned. Their unwavering support has been life-giving. The thing I had most feared to reveal about myself proved to be no problem. I am extremely fortunate to have such a supportive community.

Earlier this year I began hormone replacement therapy (HRT), about which I will write more in the future. When summer arrived I found myself legally single, independent and ready to move forward in my transition. I went to court and legally changed my name, so that my identity documents would align with who I am. After the shootings in Orlando in June I realized that I needed to end the last vestiges of hiding in my life and opened my online profile to reveal my true self. That was another scary moment, but by that point I was confident in who I was and able to face and conquer that fear. I wanted people to know who I am because I wanted them to know that I was one of “those people” who had been targeted in Orlando. If you have problems with LBGTQ people, you have problems with me, because I am one of them. I will not stay hidden and I will not stay silent any longer. Shame has lost its hold on me, and I cannot overstate how freeing that has been.

After fearing the loss of my marriage, my second greatest fear in coming out was that I would lose my job, because I worked for a conservative evangelical organization which I could not imagine accepting my transition. After I went fully public with my transition this fear came to pass earlier this month when I had to choose to walk away from something I have really enjoyed and was really good at. Embracing my identity has cost me dearly and I still grieve those losses, but I don’t regret finally accepting myself for who I am. I have found wholeness and harmony with myself that I had never known. I no longer carry a secret that feels so dark I cannot ever possibly share it. I’ve found freedom and life.

There’s much more to say, and I will continue to write about all sorts of aspects of transitioning and living as a transgender woman, but that’s my journey in (relatively) summary form. I do welcome questions and feedback, and if there are areas that you would like me to explore further, please ask. I will not promise that I will talk about everything. I’m very open about who I am, but not everything is for public consumption. 

My story: Beginning to find myself

I ended my last segment with the questions “What if those things I had wrestled with all my life were not an aberration? What if they are not something I must be ashamed of and hide? What if that is really who I am?” As I share the process by which I explored and came to affirm who I am, I’m going to be as candid as I am able. It scares me to do so, but I hope it will help you better understand not only me as an individual, but what it’s like to recognize oneself as a transgender person. Thank you to all of you who have expressed your appreciation and support for my writing. It really sustains me as I put this out there for you.

My journey to finding myself was not a straight line process. I didn’t sketch out a plan, set goals and measurable results along the way. I just started exploring. I began reading things online, usually linked to my growing engagement with feminism. I took my first step in self-expression by buying some undergarments in the women’s section, which is a very awkward experience when you are still presenting as a male. Don’t linger too long. Don’t look too closely, and if anyone questions you, indicate that you are looking for something for your spouse (whether you have one or not). Undergarments are a “safe” place to start because, of course, no one sees them, unless of course you are married, which presents a problem. So you start developing a routine to avoid being “caught.” As you start expressing yourself physically you often have to hide even more.

My former wife wonders to this day why I didn’t share this journey with her from that point (if not sooner). The best answer I can give is fear and shame. I was afraid of what she would think, afraid of her rejection and still feeling a lot of shame because of my background in conservative Christian culture. I did not have the courage to open up to her, and the result probably would have been painful even had I done so at that early point. But I wish I could go back and do it differently. My one real regret in embracing myself is that I wasn’t open with her from the beginning. I wish I could communicate to her, and to you, the terrible power of fear and shame when you are gender non-conforming or sexually non-conforming (LGBTQ).

I also hesitated to open to her in that early period of exploration because I was still trying to determine whether this is who I really am. If it’s not, why trouble her with something that proves very temporary? When she first discovered my clothing, which I had thought I had carefully hidden away, she confronted me about it and I broke down in tears and retreated, acknowledging that they were mine but begging forgiveness for my transgression (still being caught in the old mindset that this is wrong and sinful). It didn’t help that at the time I was at a meeting in Russia, suffering the side effects of a new medication that was giving me panic attacks and dealing with major jet lag. But I didn’t own my truth at that point.

Despite my mea culpa to her, I found that I returned to my exploration after a short hiatus, still drawn to understand who I was. My first purchase of outerwear was a skort, which I would wear when I went jogging (a short-lived and unpleasant phase I went through). I would go at 5 AM when it was still dark out and very few people were about, as it was the only time I felt comfortable to be myself in public. Eventually I added a couple tank tops, a black skort and a pink one. Because I worked at home and my wife and children were away during the day at school and work, I had a certain amount of freedom to be myself during the daytime, as long as I remembered to change before the first person came home. A couple times my wife nearly surprised me with an early return, sending me scrambling to change before she walked in on me. The fear of being open with her continued to dominate, even as I found freedom in being myself. The feelings of shame also continued. Though I was coming to understand that these were a legacy of a very narrow view of the world, they had deep roots in my mind and did not relinquish their hold easily.

Over time my wardrobe grew, though it never consisted of too much, as I didn’t have much opportunity to wear things. I would look at dresses in stores and online at times and longingly wish I could buy one and wear it, but didn’t want to invest the money when I had no idea what would fit me and when I knew that I could only wear it in secret at home. A couple of times my wife would find an item that I had failed to carefully hide away, like a pair of leggings I once left out but had thought I had put away. She would question me about them and the pattern of pleading my guilt and sorrow would recur, followed by some degree of purging myself of the offending items. Later, when I picked up a book about cross-dressers (men who occasionally like to dress like women but still identify as men, which is initially what I thought I might be), I learned that this is a common pattern of behavior, especially for those who are married. Surprisingly that first skort survived all the purges and is still in my wardrobe, which kind of makes me happy, as it’s an artifact of the first stages of my journey.

This period of exploration, discovery, retreat and denial lasted about four years, until last fall. Over time, but particularly in the final months, I came to recognize and accept that I really was more comfortable when I could present myself as a woman, but these opportunities were still always in private (or at least what I thought was private) and still always accompanied by an element of fear and shame. For the sake of length, I’ll continue my story tomorrow and share how I finally broke through that fear and shame and the ensuing results.

My story: How being a missionary opened the door to finding myself

Some years into our marriage my wife and I finally had the opportunity to pursue the life mission we had shared when we first came together: we became missionaries. Yes, you read that correctly, I was a Christian missionary. In the environment in which I grew up and for me personally in my youth I could not think of a higher purpose for my life. Yet after university we had loan debts to pay, I went on to graduate school, then we had children and the whole idea seemed like a pipe dream, until fairly suddenly it wasn’t. Because my focus here is not on that journey, I won’t give further details, but after many years of doing other things we found ourselves moving to Russia with our two children, who were four and nearly seven years old.

Not surprisingly, as a missionary there isn’t much room for questioning one’s identity. People (that is, your home church(es) and your ministry partners, and generally your co-workers as well) pretty much expect you to have your shit together. Struggles and doubts of any kind (talk with missionaries about mental health issues, or family problems if you want to explore this!) are not really welcome or understood. During these years I lived a seemingly normal life in my adopted gender. Probably the only indication of my true identity was my continued inclination to form primary relationships with the women around me, which wasn’t really normal in the cultures we lived and worked in (we moved on to a second country after several years in Russia), nor was it considered typical in the missionary community. But the people I was closest to and remember most fondly from those years are all women.

Those years overseas were wonderful in many ways and very exhausting in others. You pour yourself into work that you believe is valuable, but month to month you don’t know whether you will have enough money to live on (we had no guaranteed income) and, at least in the countries we worked in, you never know whether you will be able to stay from year to year or even month to month. You often feel forgotten by those back home. And that’s not to speak of adapting to life in another culture. I’m glad I had the opportunity and I feel that I contributed the best I could, but in the end I think those years also broke me, and probably my marriage.

Perhaps ironically, it was those years overseas that prompted me to explore issues that would prove important when I began to reevaluate my identity. As I observed the treatment and role of women in the cultures where we lived and worked, I became increasingly angry about the perception of women in our world. I recognized that it was not just those cultures either, for my own culture has miles to go in terms of affirming the full equality of women. I saw that many missionaries (not all!) merely propagated the secondary role of women because their own views placed women as subservient to men. (I could go off on a whole series of posts just about that.) I became, and I am not ashamed to say this, a feminist, someone who believes that women are fully equal to men and deserve to be treated so. As I recognized and claimed this perspective for my own, I think I also resonated with it more deeply, though I could not have put it into words at the time. This wasn’t just about me as a man standing with women (though I think that is essential as well), but me identifying with the women of the world in a deeper way – not so surprising in retrospect.

Five years ago my family returned home for what was intended to be a short vacation to see our families. (We didn’t get to see them often at all, due to the cost of flying four people halfway around the world.) Some medical needs on the part of one child compelled us to make a last minute decision to remain in the United States, a decision that was completely the right one, but which unlocked all the brokenness of the years overseas. Suddenly I (as well as my spouse, though that’s her story), found ourselves without focus or purpose. No longer in the thick of the work and living back in the US, we dropped off the radar of our missionary colleagues very quickly. I’m not saying that they didn’t care about us, but it certainly felt like we were “out of sight, out of mind.” We tried to maintain our connection to the work, but without the support of those who had financially made it possible, nor the active assistance of our colleagues in the organization, this proved extremely difficult and disheartening. I remember sitting on my bed one day pouring out tears because I had no idea what I was about anymore.

This brokenness, the complete collapse of my world, despite all the pain it has caused (and still does, at times), provided the key to unlock the secrets I had hidden away for so long. As I examined my life, searching way back to my childhood, I looked at who I am and who I had been throughout my life. I had tried to live the life of the devout Christian man, only to see it collapse into nothing. Looking at my life I became aware of the threads I have written about previously and began to wonder, what if those things were not an aberration? What if they are not something I must be ashamed of and hide? What if that is really who I am?

My story: University and the middle years

Sharing this section of my life with you has cost my many tears, and I expect there are more still to come, but I offer it to you in the hope that it will continue to help you understand my experience as a transgender woman.

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In university my life continued the pattern of my teen years. I lived as a male because I knew no other way to live, but my primary relationships continued to be with women. In the college years this becomes a bit more involved, as male-female relationships, at least at the Christian university I attended, always have the tension of where the relationship is going to go. I enjoyed hanging out with my female friends and went on a number of dates, though in retrospect I’m not sure how many of them were really dates to me as much as opportunities to spend time with my female friends (I want to say girlfriends, but in the male-female dynamic that term tends to carry loaded meaning.)

Beyond the relationships expressions of my inner identity were fairly limited at the time. When I was at home as a child I had access to mom’s wardrobe. As an independent college student I did not have such access, nor did I have the privacy or funds to seek opportunities for self-expression. I do recall though talking with one friend about borrowing a skirt and wearing it around campus to see how people would react, but I lacked the courage to ever actually follow through with it (though she was willing to let me borrow one!)

In time I met a woman with whom I felt a deeper connection than with any of the other female friends I had had, such that calling her a girlfriend would be accurate. We began dating and eventually married. I loved her deeply and do not think that in marrying her I was trying to cover my own inner struggles – though maybe I was. It may seem strange that someone who is transgender would choose to marry someone while living in the role of their non-internal gender. From what I have read and learned from other transgender people, this is not really that unusual at all. Because we cannot (certainly not at the time I got married) live in harmony with our inner identity, we strive to succeed at living in the role that society has forced on us, even if we don’t realize at the time that we are just living a role. I was pretty good at the male role, though interestingly I was never really very masculine. Even my future (at the time) wife recognized this about me and nicknamed me her “unguy.” Little did she, or I, realize at the time how accurate that title was.

She and I went on to have a family: two wonderful, amazing children whom we both love with all our hearts. We moved more times than either of us would have imagined when we first married. We were not a perfect couple. (I really doubt they exist). We struggled in various ways, one of which related to my persistent inclination to form friendships with women. Not surprisingly, and maybe not unreasonably, she had a hard time with this. I could never offer her a satisfactory explanation as to why I always connected better with other women. In retrospect it makes perfect sense, but for most of our married life it just created tension between us. I don’t blame her for this, as it was a natural reaction for a woman who thinks she has a cisgendered husband who can’t seem to stop building friendships with other women when he should be focused on her. I should have done better and I regret that I did not, though I understand better now that I wasn’t looking for love outside of the marriage.  I was just building friendships as I am a very relational person. 

In my next sections of my story I will share about the later years of our marriage and how I came to finally recognize who I am and why I had behaved as I did all my life. But before I close this entry I want to emphasize as strongly as I possibly can that my now former wife bares no blame or responsibility for my transition. I’ve already established that one doesn’t “become” transgender, yet some people will insist on blaming it on some inadequacy or failure on the part of the spouse. That could not be farther from the truth. I’m not going to say she was perfect. I certainly wasn’t. But nothing she did or didn’t do made me the way I am. I look back on our years together with a lot of joy, as we shared many great adventures together and passed through a lot of challenges together.  My greatest regret is that when I finally began to really examine myself and figure out who I was, I didn’t let her in on that journey. I’ll talk more about this later, but she really is one amazing woman and being her partner for so many years is not something I regret.

My story: childhood

My transition effectively began five years ago, but as we established in the last post, this was not the point at which I "became" transgender. In fact, using the word transition is somewhat problematic, for it implies that I have become something other than what I was, when in fact I have simply stopped playing the male role for which I was conditioned all my life and "transitioned" to an authentic expression of who I am. In so far as it is a transition, it's not complete, and I don't know if it ever will be. Do we ever stop becoming?

As I share my story with you, I will of necessity intersect with the stories of others who have been part of my life. It is not my place or my desire to tell their stories and what I share is entirely from my perspective. Out of respect for them I will not give real names. If you know me you will probably know about whom I am writing and you are welcome to contact them if you want to know their part of the story. Keep in mind though that they may not want or be ready to share their story, just because I am sharing mine. I have, unfortunately, hurt some people in my journey and this I grieve deeply. I probably could have done things better, but making a transition such as this is inherently difficult and causes deep hurts, both to those who love you and to yourself as a transgender person. I wish the world were not so.

I grew up in a fairly typical, white middle-class suburban family. I did not have a traumatic childhood. My parents loved me consistently and thoroughly. They provided for my basic needs, though I by no means had everything given to me that I wanted. I did not "become" (here that fallacy again!) transgender in reaction to some trauma, violence, neglect or abuse in my life. I probably couldn't have had a much more mundane, wholesome upbringing. We were a church-going family. Every Sunday found us in church and, when I was in elementary, Wednesday night was always AWANA club, to which I would rush straight from soccer practice. Later in my teenager years I was a regular at youth group and I still have amazingly positive memories of that. I did well in school, had a good set of friendships, struggled quite a bit at dating and an enormous amount with affirming my self worth. I never felt truly comfortable with who I was.

Looking back I can recall many episodes in which I longed to be one of the girls. It wasn't just that I wanted to be able to play with them as a boy, but that I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be able to enter their world alongside them and experience life as they did. Cisgender women reading this may wonder how anyone could wish for that, but if so that's because you see the experience through a much different lens than I did. I would borrow my sister's dolls and play with them, and I would look at girl's dresses and other clothing and imagine what it would be like to wear it.

Throughout my school years and into my adult life my closest friends were always girls and later women. While I could play with the boys and had many friends who were boys, they were never the ones I most wanted to hang out with. I enjoyed being with girls at the age when it was absolutely uncool for a boy to do that. At my birthday party in third grade all of my guests were girls. At the time I received a lot of grief for this, because it was viewed as a bit odd.

I didn't realize at the time that this longing for connection with other girls arose out of my own internal identification as one of them. I couldn't have expressed it in that way because I couldn't have imagined that this was possible. It's very difficult if not impossible to imagine that something is possible which is never presented to you as possible or acceptable. In the society and culture in which I grew up there was no mention of being transgender. I cannot say that I heard messages against this in church because it wasn't even a topic of discussion, though I can hardly imagine the response I might have received had I even ventured to express such an inclination. I'm sure I would have been referred for therapy.

Had I been born in the last five to ten years and not in the era I was, I would hope that my gender dysphoria (the medical term for having a disconnect between one's biological sex and one's gender identification) would be recognized early in life and I would have the opportunity to transition as a child. Unfortunately such was not my fate, so I learned to play the role of a male, and did so pretty well, though I always felt like I didn't really fit as a typical male. I did not speak of my struggles or my questions with anyone and most of the time did not really acknowledge them myself. I assumed that my struggles with my identity were a result of my own sinfulness (being a devout Christian) or inadequacy and I learned really well how to hide the shame I felt.

For the sake of length I'll leave my story here for now and continue in my next post. 

Choosing to be Transgender

Why did I choose to be transgender?

I hear this question from some people. It reflects a common misperception about what it means to be transgender, one that views being transgender as a choice a person makes. But we don't choose to be transgender. We are transgender. It's part of who we are, just like someone who is gay does not choose to be gay. They simple are.

I didn't choose this. It is who I am, just as I am 5 foot 8 inches tall. Choice becomes a question only in regards to whether one is aware of their identity and whether one chooses to accept it. One can also choose how to express that identity. But one does not choose to be or not be transgender.

Some people seem to fear accepting open expression of transgender identity as though doing so will cause others to become transgender (as if that would be a terrible thing in itself!) But it's not a disease and it's not something one "converts" to. Accepting transgender people as they are will not suddenly make a cisgender person transgender. It doesn't happen. But it does allow people who are transgender but haven't come to accept it realize that it's completely okay to be who they are. And that's a good thing, because hiding or suppressing who you are is very harmful to your well-being.

Accepting who we are as transgender people can take a lot of time though, because the societal and personal barriers against doing so are enormous. This reality also points to the absurdity of someone choosing to become transgender who is not. Doing so exposes you to rejection, violence, and discrimination, and who would choose that other than out of the necessity to embrace one's true self? But when as a transgender person you finally come to terms with who you are, accept it and begin to live it in whatever manner you find appropriate, it is extremely freeing and liberating, despite those enormous barriers society raises against you.

In future posts I will share more about the journey I took to reach the point of accepting who I am, embracing it and choosing to live in harmony with it. The choice was not whether to be transgender or not. The choice was whether to accept it and live as a whole person or not. A dear friend shared a song with me recently that captured well the feeling I have in finally embracing my identity. I took the name of my blog from this song.  I'll insert the video here below and I hope that in listening to it you can comprehend something of the feeling I (and other) transgender people experience when we are finally able to stand in the light and be seen as we are.

Transgender 101: What does it mean to be transgender?

This would seem to be a straightforward question, and in a certain sense it is. But at the same time it requires us to reorient our understanding of and thinking about gender, identity, sexuality and biology.

For example, I am a transgender woman. That means that I identify as female, but I'm transgender because when I was born the doctor or nurse looked at my anatomical parts and said "It's a boy!"  Social and cultural boundaries at the time of my birth and in the sphere in which I was raised therefore determined that I must be male and I must be raised accordingly.

But the connection between anatomy (or biology -- the body we're born with) and gender is not so clear cut. For most people anatomy is fairly straightforward. One is either born with male body parts or female body parts, except for those who are not, in which case this distinction already breaks down. Regardless of this, we now recognize that one's gender is distinct from one's birth anatomy. Gender relates to how one identifies internally. Here we confront another obstacle in our traditional understanding. Not only do most people (and I speak here of western or more specifically American culture because it's the one I know) connect anatomy and gender, they also see gender as a binary: one is either male or female. But in fact gender exists along a continuum. People can identify as mostly male but partly female, or vice versa, or as half and half, or anywhere else along the spectrum. It doesn't have to be strictly one or another. Some people find they identify differently at different times. As much as we like to group people into nice, neat categories so we know how to view and treat them, gender isn't nearly so nice and clear cut as we have always been taught.

Since gender and anatomy are not inherently connected, and gender is not a strict binary division, one has to describe how one's gender and anatomy relate, and this is where the term transgender comes into play. Someone who identifies as transgender recognizes that the sex they were assigned at birth (usually due to anatomical features) does not agree in some degree with their internal gender identity. In my case, I was assigned male at birth (AMAB) but identify as female. If I identified as male, I would be cisgender, meaning that my gender identity and the sex I was assigned at birth are generally in agreement.

To complicate things further, we could add in a discussion of sexuality, which has to do with the sexual attractions one has. This too is distinct from gender and, to some extent at least, with anatomy. Many people assume that transgender women (to focus on my identity) must be gay men who like to dress as women. But that's not the case at all. A gay cisgender male is someone who is anatomically male, identifies as male and is attracted to other men. That doesn't describe me at all. I am a woman who happened to be born with male anatomy and is either asexual or attracted to other women, which would make me a lesbian. See how the terminology gets confusing? We want to have everything neat and tidy because that makes the world seem simpler, but that denies the reality of the lived experience of many people like myself. So let's put aside our dualistic, limiting perspectives and accept that people come in a wide variety.

I've done my best to give a brief introduction here. There is much more we could explore and probably will as this blog develops. Among other things the question of pronouns used to speak of people comes into play. (For the record, if you are speaking about me, please use she/her!) I highly recommend this article for further introduction to what transgender means. It includes some good links for further exploration as well.

An Introduction

My name is Andrea and I am a transgender woman. It has taken me a long time to acknowledge and embrace that, but now that I have, I can share myself openly with the world. In this blog I'll be sharing about the journey that has brought me to this point, as well as my ongoing experiences as a transgender woman in contemporary American society.

My perspective is simply that: mine. I don't claim to speak for all transgender people. We are as unique as any other group of people. We have much in common, but my experience should not be taken as the universal transgender experience (which does not exist!). I am happy to respond to questions and inquiries, but my responses will always be from my unique perspective.

I intend for this blog to be interactive, but I will be monitoring all comments before they are posted and will not tolerate demeaning, hateful or disrespectful comments, or any comments that I feel are inappropriate. This is a public online space, but it is my space and I will exercise my right to control the tone and content of what is posted here. Because I know that many transgender people are unfortunately unable to live openly, I will allow anonymous comments, but prefer that you identify yourself and own your comments when possible.

I'm more of a content-oriented person, so while I may add the occasional image or video that I feel enhances the blog in some way, don't come expecting a fantastic web interface. I'm here to inform, to further awareness and acceptance of transgender people and not to keep you entertained.

So with that in mind, welcome to my blog!