Being Transgender Isn’t What You Think, Unless YOU Are …

I didn’t want to be transgender, I just am

Growing up, I didn’t want to be transgender. I didn’t even know what transgender was. It was the 1970s, and I was in elementary school and high school. I believed I must be sick. I thought something was wrong with me. I hated myself, because society ridiculed and obviously despised those people who were anything remotely like me!

Is it a coincidence that I thought of suicide? Is it a coincidence that I attempted suicide? Do I need to explain why I fear for the youth today who are being bombarded by political statements that who they are is not real? Can you imagine how that feels? I can!

Still, I didn’t want to be trans anything. It is a mystery to me why people think it could be a contagion, even as they look at the very idea with distaste and loathing. I mean, is it so cool to be someone different from everyone else? I couldn’t wait to be more of an object of ridicule and abuse. After all, getting attention is what it is all about, right? Any publicity is good publicity. (Were you ever in high school)?

I spent so much of my life, nearly 60 years, trying to fit in. I tried to become and feel comfortable being a man. I tried to understand and embrace having a goatee and beer-belly. I echoed crass jokes because I could see the play on words and willingly turned a blind eye to the hurt that those same words could cause. I tried so hard to just fit in.

Until I just couldn’t!

If you are a guy and can’t conceive of being a woman, let me ask you this simple question. When you look at a beautiful woman, do you imagine being with her? Or do you imagine being her?

I always imagined being her. I never imagined being the guy she would fall for. I never dreamed of being the jock, Mr. GQ, or whatever manly idol you might aspire to. That should have been clue my first clue. Still, I kept trying for 58 ducking years! (It’s never a duck!)

When I finally realized I must be transgender, it was a relief. I finally belonged somewhere! I quickly found so many others with common experiences to my own. Just as every kitten is cute, or every baby bird is tiny, fuzzy and adorable, I found that every transgender newbie shared almost everything with me!

Yet, as we grew, we grew differently. Some embraced the most extreme stereotypes of being a girly girl. Others of us were fixated on experiencing being a woman in every carnal sense possible. Everyone found their own distinct state of being. For every woman that you can find in the magazines and tabloids, you can also find transgender women emulating them. But for every transgender woman, you cannot find a tabloid stereotype.

Many, like me, found the ultimate relief in being an unremarkable woman among many other women.

I won’t pretend that I pass, at least from the standpoint that you can’t tell I am transgender. But I will posit, from my many girlfriends and our shared interests and activities, that I pass socially. I am one with my cisgender and transgender sisters, and they are one with me. I have their backs, and they have mine. In the end, that is what matters most to me!

Every transgender person’s experience, needs, and path to fulfillment is different. We have much in common, but like every other person, we are unique. Stop trying to ascribe whatever motivation you imagine might drive us to our identities.

Stop trying to think that our genitals define us. Or is that simply because your genitals define you? If they do, I am afraid of you!

We are not driven by motivation to our identities. Our identities drive us towards a wide array of motivations. If you follow one motivation back to a trans identity, you have found one motivation and one transgender person. It is a mistake to believe we all share that one motivation, or that it is, in fact, anyone’s sole motivation!

Think of who you are! Is your existence that simple? Perhaps you love basketball? Is that the sum of all your interests? Is that enough to understand who you are? Do you have family, and friends? Do you have other interests and hobbies? Do you possibly enjoy other sports? OMG, why must we exist only to be sexual deviants?

Just stop it already! Get to know us! We, and I am comfortable saying we in this context, are not monsters. We are not scary. We are not that different from you.

Don’t say you be you, and I will be me. Say, we will be ourselves and also be together! Together we are all glorious, and we, including you, are all the better for it!