Returning to Our Tribe After Gender Transition

Previously, I discussed the dramatic psychological growth I experienced during gender transition, especially after gender-affirming surgery. All it took was acknowledging I am transgender and must transition gender in order to live a life fully realizing my identity.

Of course, "all it took" is the culmination of 52 years of denial, shame, guilt, and eventual breakdown over my failure to fulfill the expectations of the social environment around me. Only then was I able to begin the painful, yet startlingly rapid, reconstruction of all I knew about myself.

Even my psychologist views my changes as atypical in the field of psychotherapy. In two years, I've done the work of a lifetime, maybe multiple lifetimes.

But as I learn to harness these new, seemingly limitless powers of self-reflection gender transition bestowed upon me, I discovered a significant barrier to my acceptance in the social environment.

No, I don't mean the recent spate of hate and discrimination spewing from my government (although the resulting political chaos certainly hasn't helped). What I mean is having to unravel as many as 52 years of experience some people have with my behavior under the influence of chronic gender dysphoria.

Although I know I have changed, nobody else does…and the dissonance of being treated like the person I was instead of the person I am is my newest challenge in gender transition.

Transformation

My psychologist compared the dissonance I feel in my social environment after gender transition to the reception an alcoholic fresh out of rehab receives. To be clear, she is not claiming the two experiences are equivalent - she admits gender transition is different from any other condition she's observed.

Similar to a newly rehabilitated alcoholic, however, gender transition brought new clarity to my life, a renewed sense of purpose, and focus on activities outside obscuring the pain bubbling close to the surface of my psyche.

The story resonates strongly with me. I struggled with substance abuse for decades before gender transition. It seemed much easier to drown my persistent sense of wrongness in my identity with alcohol than face my identity directly.

After my son was born, and long before I considered gender transition seriously, I resolved to quit my substance abuse habit to find new methods to cope. It worked…for a while, anyway. In the end, I replaced alcohol or drugs with work and running.

I was still deep in denial…just slightly more healthy denial.

Gender transition transforms those who experience it. Newly transitioned, we possess existential lucidity previously masked by our blindfolds of ineffective coping mechanisms.

Quickened by blossoming identity, we are ready to achieve the potential gender dysphoria suppressed for so long.

Hesitation

Although We the Newly Transitioned know we are ready to achieve our potential, the rest of the world doesn't. The rest of the world, frankly, is hesitant to believe it.

It isn't that We the Newly Transitioned appear insincere. Far from it - gender transition is our first true taste of sincerity. We grasp at our new futures more tightly than any short-term, quick fix substance to abuse.

The trouble is years of our lives dedicated to proving the opposite: that we are sullen, damaged, and unwilling to fix the problems we sow around us.

Finally - after gender transition - we possess the tools, the drive, and the desire to build the lives we craved. And yet…those around us remember the person who hurt them before.

Those around us don't trust the person before - with good reason. Those around us don't know that person has been replaced by one who would blush and stammer an apology when confronted with previous behavior.

And unfortunately, many of us don't get the chance to apologize - those around us bear too many scars from the person before.

Frustration

What happens to We the Newly Transitioned when we possess the tools and the motivation necessary to engage in relationships honestly and fully, but lack the trust and agency from those around us to use them?

Not hard to answer: we are deeply, painfully frustrated.

Yes, the Old Broken Man may have acted badly! But that was him. The New Shining Woman would never act that way! She understands now why the social environment wouldn't trust the Old Broken Man. Hell, she even agrees!

And now…the New Shining Woman expects to be trusted to heal old wounds, both in her and in those around her.

We know we are different inside. We know poor habits and behavior are behind us. We know we are open for a loving and distinctly human experience. And all of it means nothing.

They don't know.

And - depending on how difficult the Old Broken Man was, they may never experience the New Shining Woman. They may never want to experience her.

Memory of pre-transition behavior runs deep. And the rejection leveled at We the Newly Transitioned is grief felt all the more keenly with our new ability to experience life.

Resolution

New wounds inflicted by old expectations destroy the elation we feel from gender transition.

We endured endless self-reflection, demolished our past, and revised our identity. We discovered what life, joy, and love truly represent. We learned to shrug off the hate and discrimination we face daily as transgender people - as best as possible.

And after every slight we suffered, it is the people we love the most who wound us most deeply. Our only succor is to understand they wound us unknowingly.

They don't know what we are now capable of. At least, they don't know it yet.

We face a choice - one more difficult than the act of gender transition. We face the choice either to heal our wounds and theirs…or to walk away in disgust at the treatment we receive from those we are now capable of truly loving.

Being able to forgive people for treating you as you were requires infinite resolve. We must meet them where they are, not where we are.

We must atone for previous sins, including a lifetime too mired in dysphoria to realize we had sinned.

Our final challenge in gender transition is to prove the person we always were, the person we hid out of shame, the person now standing before the Universe…is real. We must prove we exist and want to be in our loved ones' lives as we never could before.

Invitation

When we look forward to the result of gender transition - the act of "just living," as many of us call it - we expect the world to return to us. We don't remember a lifetime spent alienating ourselves from the world.

What we must face is a new lifetime - one inviting our world back to us.

Some relationships may not heal. Some relationships may not be worth healing. Our final task is to discover which relationships deserve our full attention.

Who would benefit from our newfound engagement with life? Who would embrace us in it? Who will share our previously unrealized zeal for existence?

We must find those people. They are our tribe - they are the ones we must invite back - especially if they never left.

It will be difficult - Good Goddess, is it difficult! The final step in living the life we envisioned as we began gender transition is to jump into the relationships that define us, but with one caveat.

We must leap into the unknown with eyes fully open, emotions fully engaged, and love fully extended to catch the rays of a brilliant life well-lived at last.