I have been reflecting on Gender following a reread of Conundrum by Jan Morris. The book that caused my light bulb moment of understanding that I was transgender and not just a weird freak…well maybe that too but not in respect of my gender dysphoria which I at last began to understand.

In Conundrum Jan Morris writes:- Transexualism … is not a sexual mode or preference. It is not an act of sex at all. It is a passionate, lifelong, ineradicable conviction, and no true transsexual has ever been disabused of it… I equate it with the idea of soul, or self, and I think of it not just as a sexual enigma, but as a quest for unity. For me every aspect of my life is relevant to that quest — not only the sexual impulses, but all the sights, sounds, and smells of memory, the influences of buildings, landscapes, comradeships, the power of love and of sorrow, the satisfactions of the senses as of the body. In my mind it is a subject far wider than sex: I recognize no pruriency in it, and I see it above all as a dilemma neither of the body nor of the brain, but of the spirit.

This is in line with my own thoughts that  although I want to align my physical body with my perceived concept of myself,  a woman, the whole concept goes far deeper than the simple physical body. It is the core of me and touches my psyche.

Later she wonders whether the gender line and the need for strict binary identity is a result of “the dogmatism of the last century when men were men and women were ladies and if in the next century people will be free to live in the gender role they prefer”.

Strangely prescient of the gender fluid culture which has developed in this century and where the young are far less phased by transgender. My own granddaughter when her mother talked about my transition responded with “oh I know all about that we are taught about it a school”. It is something that happens in life, not the end of the world. I find that difficult in a way as it had been my secret for so many decades, but then now is now and it was not the same when I was young. It was still considered to be and classified as a mental illness.

Equally, re-reading Virginia Woolf, an author I could not get to grips with at school, probably because it was a set book and I did not choose to read it ( a small act of rebellion )  Virginia Woolf writing several decades before modern psychology accepted that psychological androgyny forms an essential part of creativity. She writes:- 

“In each of us two powers preside, one male, one female…….“The androgynous mind is resonant and porous… naturally creative, incandescent and undivided,” 

However, even if the mind thrives on such fluidity our bodies are born into a biological binary. So what happens to the person when there is a disconnect between the spirit and the psyche, where your soul does not identify with its physical body.  For me feel the need to align my body with my psyche  and am content and at ease with that. I wonder if I had been born in a different era whether the  concept of gender fluidity would have held any attraction.

Maybe this has been a long time coming……I am not sure, as I was unaware that it needed to come at all. All my life I have been wanting to be something other than I am, or is that was? 

The obvious one was that I wanted to transition. However, that is with hindsight. I did not know what my feelings were or that I had gender dysphoria for years. I knew I was different, told everyone “I am a girl” from an early age and soon found out that nobody believed me and it was something that was best to hide away.

It’s all more pernicious and intrusive, just not that simple. This time of reflection in isolation has given me a chance to look at different aspects of how I have been. Whether the unknown gender dysphoria was a base cause is really hard to know. 

As a lawyer, I played the role effectively to the extent that when my firm merged with another and I did not want to continue with the new firm, I was told “you have to, you are the only one of us that looks and acts like a lawyer”. When people talked about justice I explained there was no such thing as natural justice. It was a game like chess. It has rules and what you needed was someone who knew how to apply the rules. Even then there was the risk that the Judge would have got out of bed on the wrong side on the crucial day. Life was a game of chess, play by the rules.

I have done many other things since leaving the law always being the chameleon portraying what was expected of me. I played by the rules of whatever it was. I was not going to let anyone know I was anything other than who they thought I was.

I underwent therapy, spent years trying to find out how to cure my thoughts and feelings of being a girl. As usual I dived in totally immersing myself and trained to be a psychotherapist. Not surprisingly, I achieved the opposite result from the one I had been seeking and realised I was Transgender and not going to be “cured”. 

By that time I had built a structure of “normality” around me. A family, children, mortgages, responsibilities. Not that my structure was normal, dysfunctional would be the best way of describing it and I made it my responsibility to hold it all together. I knew  I was transgender now. So what. It is all too difficult.

After a while when my “normal” life broke down seemingly from non-transgender issues I started to transition, not full time, occasionally testing the water. Would the chameleon be able to deal with this challenge. After a while I was probably 60/70% of the time presenting as the woman I was becoming. I passed the tests to be recommended for hormones and surgery, I knew what was needed.

I realised by the time I had gone full time that transitioning still left you with all the other life issues to deal with and continued spinning plates. The nag, nag, nag of gender dysphoria had dissipated. It has gone now. I know who I am, a transwoman learning to be the best I can be, but that was not the life lesson I needed to learn. 

The life lesson I have needed to recognise is not that I am a transwoman something for my chameleon to act out and portray I am so much more than that, I am simply me. It has taken this time of isolation, this period of time of stopping spinning plates to recognise I do not have to be anything other than I am, I do not have not to live up to a label or portray an image to be worthy or acceptable. I am just me nothing special, other than being me as we all are,  unique and special individuals. It has been a long time coming and I am looking forward to being able to live in the future without the need to be something other than myself.

I have been isolating for the best part of eight weeks now. I am being shielded by the people I share the house with as I am in what is classed as a vulnerable group. People talk of the “new normal” when the reach of the virus is contained. I feel this is true and that a significant number  of us will not return to the same practices and way of working that we were used to before.

This is definitely true for me. Before I became isolated I was driving large distances every week spending more time driving than I would in the meetings when I got there. I used to think I had to do this. It happened ,as a result of choices I had made for my personal life, that my work was a distance away from where I lived. I took the view that if the colleagues I worked with didn’t continue to see me on a regular basis then the working relationship would deteriorate and my work would drop away. I had spent some years developing what I do and at my age was not looking to start all over again. In any event I had invested time and money in building the business and wanted to hang in long enough to get a proper return.

As it has turned out, I have been able to do everything that is needed by phone an email with some Zoom conference calls thrown in. The main colleague I work with has acknowledged there is no need for me to come down to meet him and travel as I used to.

So this has given me so much more time. Instead of always chasing my tail, grabbing a sandwich on the way, using eighty per cent of my monthly allowance put aside for basic expenses on driving and eating while away from home. I am now able to get up without having to rush out of the door to start a journey of not less than three hours and often six hours before I did any work. I walk from one room to the next to work and I have no travel expenses.

What is there not to like?

So how do I use this extra time? Exercise. I am now walking for an hour every morning before breakfast as well as doing some exercises and Yoga stretches. I feel fitter than I have ever done with the added benefit I am losing weight and shaping my body naturally with the assistance of HRT. I am eating healthily and preparing my own food without all the preservatives and additives I have been eating on the hoof. I get more work done and the best part of it is, as someone who has transitioned in the last two years I have so much more time to perfect my female persona….my voice, mannerisms and all that goes with it. By the time this lockdown is over, I intend to be walking on four inch heels as if I had been born with them on my feet rather than trying to give an impression of a baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time.

I have been wondering about the effects of being more centred again in myself. It seems to me that as I grew through my teen years and into adulthood my life became distorted by my gender dysphoria. It took most of my energy.

I made sure I had no time to dwell on anything. As a child prior to my teens I had been immersed in music, singing in a choir at the Cathedral where I went to school, learning to play the violin and piano….it was my life. It fed my soul and gave me spiritual sustenance. I listened to music at all hours. Music had no gender. 

When puberty hit, I also moved away from the cathedral school to a school where music was of minor significance. Previously gender had not been important. I knew there was something wrong and I was really supposed to be a girl. The difference was with puberty my feelings of being in a mis-match became so much stronger. Nothing began to fit and my energy was dissipated by trying to sort out the dilemma of my developing hormones. Somehow my interests dwindled, yes I continued with my music while I was still at school though it was not all consuming as it had been.

By the time I was a young adult my confusion had taken over my life. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I knew I was different and that knowledge consumed me. It was taking my energy 24/7 worrying, seeking explanations, training as a therapist to try and find answers. Rarely did I find the time to listen to music anymore and certainly not to play. I owned a piano. All that I would do would be “doodle” about on it, then dismiss it and engage in the serious matter of “what’s it all about”. I coupled that with working hard. With hindsight I realise I used work as another distraction not to deal with my difference.

What is the relevance? I have fully transitioned now. It has been a slow process and I didn’t just switch a switch and make the changes. I have been on HRT for over a year. This does not make instant changes either. However, slowly but surely the gender dysphoria slips away and I have grown comfortable in myself, I have come home. My energy is no longer dissipated in combating the dysphoria. I find myself listening and enjoying music again as it nourishes me.

Stages

I have been reflecting on the various stages I have passed through while transitioning. Not the act of transitioning itself more the various aims and goals that I have passed through in creating my current style of womanhood. Although I feel at the moment where I am is more or less the end product it may well be that there will further stages as I travel along this road.

The first phase was before I had come to terms with who I am and was going through a phase of being a cross dresser. During that period my fashion sense or lack of it would be best described as based on sexuality. The typical form of dress aimed at making one attractive as a sex object. Short mini-skirts, stockings suspenders, an emphasis on lingerie, heels. This was not to give me sexual satisfaction as I am not aroused by dressing, more that it was in line with a sexual objectification of women. One of the places I could escape to dress was in the company of sex workers who would encourage that style of dressing . It seemed quite normal.  At that time too I would have said my strongest physical asset was my legs, so heels and short skirts emphasised them. I would subscribe to Stana of Femulate’s words “my skirts are not too short, my legs are too long”.

This formed the basis of my wardrobe for a long time. After I realised that I was transgender I started looking closer at what cis women really wear. Being critical I was surprised at how many cis women seemingly do not try to dress well. I suppose I had always been fortunate in that the cis women in my immediate circle, my mother and her friends and two of my girlfriend/partners, my eldest daughter had cared about how they looked and dressed well. 

So the next stage was experimenting with what might work on this body of mine. This ended up with many items being bought which frankly just looked frumpy. I might as well have worn a sack. Then you look around and you realise that the majority of cis women wear jeans or trousers. If you go to any public place you will find this to be so.  You will also realise that so many just do not seem to bother about how they look.

So jeans and boyfriend jumper tops, ankle boots, let’s just fit in. Nobody will notice. But yes they do…..maybe it’s the make-up or lipstick that gives it away or just that you look like a man behaving badly!

The next stage developed when I transitioned full time. Instead of having clothes for the limited times I could dress, I needed to build a wardrobe of clothes for a week or weeks at a time and for different occasions. Certainly, jeans still featured as they are great for of blending in but now I had to think of clothes to work in, where I had to try and present to a standard. 

However, as well as having to look good, by that I mean presentable, I now needed to build on how I carried myself as no clothes, however beautiful, are going to work if you walk about in a manly way. It is critical to being able to blend to carry oneself and move in a feminine way. To develop this I have worn more skirts and dresses as this makes me so much more aware of how I am walking and moving than if I wear jeans and trousers. Once I have cracked it and got that down to a fine art then it should stay in place when I wear jeans.

One thing is fairly certain however much I feel this is it, there will be more stages of development as I continue to evolve.

In this unusual time my self-isolation continues and although continuing to work from home I am amazed by how much more time I have to reflect on my life. 

I have transitioned late in life. It is easy to say how I wish I had done so years ago, my life would have been so different. Is that really true? Yes it would have been different if other choices had been made. With hindsight I have made many bad choices. At the time the choices were made with the best of intentions and to me seemed the best thing to do.

However, stating the obvious I would not be the person I am now or that I was when I transitioned without the life experiences I have gone through by the choices I have made. What  I do realise though is that the shame and guilt I felt as a result of hiding myself away because of the lack of acceptance or indeed lack of understanding of being transgender or how that made me feel only contributed to and exacerbated the feeling of not being normal and the feelings you have tried to express and they become internalised and buried away so that you become increasingly dysfunctional.

The result was that I tried harder to be normal, to mange better even though inside you know it is wrong, but still you go on feeling guilt, frustration and embarrassment over how you feel. You overcompensate to be the nice guy, always willing to help “see I am okay really” and ignore the damage that is being doing to your mental health denying who you are really are.

In practice you become complicit and start to believe the lie, the act you are portraying and cover your tracks to keep up appearances for the sake of damage limitation. I would be fearful that despite my best efforts others would guess my guilty secret. In truth nobody could see or feel the depth of hole into which I had buried myself, that was known only to me and the longer it went on the worse it gets until it grinds you down and you feel hopeless and there is no way out making the best of things, keeping busy so you can no longer feel, you just do.

What has surprised me is that in this period where I have time to reflect and now even though I have transitioned I find these emotions still have had a hold from habit. This time has given me ab opportunity to see them in the cold light of day giving me the chance to deal with and face them, to see the impact and make changes. I am very fortunate in that I have a close relationship with a friend who I trust and who can show me without judgment behaviours by holding up a mirror and showing me things I am unaware of and giving me the opportunity to deal with them and grow. It doesn’t happen overnight. There is no magic on /off switch. However, I no longer feel as if I am drowning or overwhelmed. I feel as if I am making progress and at worst treading water as I deal with these emotions. The fact of transitioning has taken away the shame, guilt and fear I have always experienced. Now it is time to sort out the damage to my mental health that the years of experiencing the shame and guilt have had on me.

I hadn’t realised that Dolly Parton’s song Travelling thru was the soundtrack TransAmerica, a film about a pre-op transwoman on a road trip across America. When I realised that it was I looked up the lyrics;-

I’m out here on my journey, trying to make the most of it
I’m a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fit
Like a poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I’m just a weary pilgrim trying to find what feels like home

These lines sum up so well how I felt. I have often described my life as a journey and certainly for more than thirty years it was a puzzle and I had no idea where the pieces fitted. Having finally put the pieces of the puzzle together and having transitioned I have found what feels like home. Coming home is how I have described transitioning. Whatever the ongoing pressures and strains which come with living life I am now doing it in my body into which I have now come home.

Questions I have many, answers but a few

But we’re here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth

Yes questions, questions, What is it? Why? Why me? and Answers but a few, truly there are many theories, I am not yet convinced there is a definitive answer as to the cause,  there may not be a definitive answer, everyone’s make up is different. I think there is a genetic basis. I do know it is not a life choice. Learning to accept that whatever the cause, it just is. The truth of accepting who you are, your essence, irrespective of the physical shell.

We’ve all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
And when I’m born again, you’re gonna see a change in me

Being trans is in many ways a cross to bear and transitioning is being born again and there is no doubt there is a change in me.

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain

Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain

That has always troubled me while trying to piece together the puzzle, the orthodox churches and their dogmas found transsexuals unacceptable, an abomination, the whole concept was seen as a sin. For someone brought up as a choirboy this brought feelings of pain and shame. The churches have softened their attitude in recent years. I have come to accept that nothing is in vain and this is my challenge to face and that I can only grow by facing the challenge and feeling the pain as I make my way along the journey to find redemption and to come home.

Oh sweet Jesus if you’re listening, keep me ever close to you
As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wonderin’, as I’m travelin’ thru

I try to see the challenge as a gift to grow personally and spiritually while travellin thru though over the years I have often failed while stumblin and tumbling…thru.

While I am in isolation I have been looking back and wondering why it took me so long to transition. I know I am “mature” and I was growing up pre-internet but the main reason preventing me from transitioning was fear.

It seems there were many stages before I came to the realisation that I am transgender. In about 1968, when I was at university, one of my then girlfriend’s  friends was studying endocrinology There were many conversations about gender and hormones though strangely none that I remember specifically about transsexuality. I remember desperately wanting to ask her about whether if I took hormones it would make a difference. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough that might mean changing gender. I had not heard of April Ashley who was the first transsexual I came across and the idea of actually changing gender seemed truly impossible.

I just knew I wasn’t happy being male and didn’t fit in with society’s concept of maleness. I had worked out I wasn’t gay. I had supressed any notion I was a girl which I had been proclaiming loudly when I was three to all and sundry. Naturally I was ridiculed for such a stupid idea.

So secretly, like so many of us, I wore feminine clothes to give me some solace when the anxiety and pressure became too much, only to feel guilty immediately afterwards and to purge any clothes I had purchased.  I think almost all of us go through this phase at some time. Wearing feminine clothes just made me feel “right”. There was nothing sexual about it. 

By this time I was in my 30’s. I had come across Jan Morris’ book Conundrum. I found it quite by chance in my local library having picked it up because of its unusual cover design and its title, thinking I wonder what that’s about. Flicking through the book in the library I realised it was something to do with being transsexual. I read it as soon as I was home not stopping until I had finished it.  It really was a light bulb moment. Someone had undergone a sex change operation (as it was then called). I knew from that moment on that I needed to have a sex change…it was possible.

The internet had arrived and now I could do research. I found other transgender people, Tula, wow she was beautiful and had become a James Bond girl. Yet I was scared.  Fear stopped me from coming out.

My research led me to a herbal doctor in the US who had a herbal regime for feminisation. I started the regime and for more than ten years I religiously took the pills, my body changing but more importantly I felt so much better in my skin. I was doing sufficient for me to know I was female I was transgender, yet fear prevented me from taking any other steps.

Fear kept me in that place for years until I met the couple I have mentioned before who just took being trans as normal. Who didn’t see the problem. I know they were aware of the difficulties in transitioning. However, it was more important to be oneself and face it than to limit yourself and hide. To be riddled with anxiety through keeping such a secret.

So I am now fully transitioned socially and am waiting for GRS when this current crisis has been overcome. 

What of the fear? I was scared to the point of shaking all over when I first stepped out, fearing the worst. Each time I would get home and find I was still in one piece. I hadn’t died, been attacked. Most people took absolutely no notice. Slowly my confidence grew. Strangely, it was only me that had felt it would be such a big deal.

I got better at handling everyday situations. I am self-employed and in the last six months I have come out to work colleagues and nothing has changed. True some handle it  better than others but I am still working. The worst I have has is “I don’t care what you do in your private life”. I have been lucky.

So with hindsight, a long time coming, I know I allowed fear to control my life for too long.

I am so grateful for my friends who would not let me hide anymore. I feel so much lighter and free, able to face the other life challenges that do not go away through transition. I have found I now have so much more energy to deal with those challenges that was previously dissipated on fear.

I am self-isolating. I am taking the necessary precautions recommended and washing my hands frequently so `I am hoping I will be safe and come through this fit and healthy

I miss not being able to go the beauty salon for my electrolysis which although that was painful, the whole experience added to my femininity visiting the salon, absorbing the ambiance, having a pedicure, waxing, eye lashes extensions, a massage all things I would never have done before transition. I miss the girly chats with my therapist all so natural.  However until I am able to return it is an opportunity for self-care that I would not have otherwise had and I do not want to waste it.

I am really glad I have transitioned before this virus arrived I feel better about fighting it.  I have a real desire to beat it as I have a life to lead; now so many years to catch up. In all honesty I would not have been too fussed if I had succumbed before.

I have realised this week , having had more time on my hands, been on HRT for over a year now and I am surprised at the subtle but consistent changes that it keeps on giving. I had thought that with the fourteen years of self -medication on phyto-estrogens my breasts had developed as nature had intended. I was wrong. HRT has initiated more changes, I continue to grow nothing dramatic, subtle changes and increased sensitivity. The regrowth of body hair has slowed and is really manageable. What is difficult to assess are the changes in body shape since these happen so slowly yet I feel they are happening. Of course too slowly, but then what woman is entirely happy with their body shape.I will need to build a new routine…until the next post.

Sadly, I am of an age that is covered by the request to self-isolate though this virus pandemic. In fact it is likely in the very near future it will not be a matter of choice. What does that mean for my transition. The first casualty is an appointment with a Consultant Psychiatrist who has emailed me today with an appointment for Wednesday. Short notice in any event. Also I am slightly shocked by her fee, £400 for a one hour appointment. As my surgery is going to have to be rearranged, presently booked for June, then there is little point in obtaining the updated referral until I know when the surgery is likely to be, at this rate sometime away.

So how do I continue with my transition while I am in isolation? I see it as if it is like a cocoon in which I can grow and develop into the rounded woman I want to be. So many opportunities to develop skills and not be in the public eye.

I can work on my voice, my deportment, perfect walking in heels, my make-up and how to master my hair. In relation to my hair I can buy whatever I need in terms of a heated brush and practice, practice, practice. When I am permitted to emerge from my isolation my hair will probably be shoulder length, where I want it to be, maybe even past my shoulders.

I guess the idea in my head is that when the period of isolation is over I will be able to leave the house head held high, looking groomed and together having had an unexpected opportunity to work on and develop the woman I am.

If something untoward should happen then I will at least have been doing all that I can to be the best that I can be.

None of this would be possible without the huge unselfish support of the couple with whom I share a house. They have made it quite clear that I am not to put myself at risk and have provided me with my own very comfortable space in the house until this is all over. I am overwhelmed and deeply touched by their care.