The Journey Begins…

Three months ago today — 07 July, 2022 — I applied my first estradiol patch and began my gender transition from presenting as a man to presenting as a woman. Three months ago, I would never have believed that the changes that I experienced could be possible in my life. When I did the proverbial “coming out” to friends and family, many people recommended to me that I persist the process in a series of articles. A couple of people have gone as far as to suggest that I am now a representative of the transgender community. As such, I have a moral imperative to persist the process and prove with my example that gender transition is completely “normal” — whatever the hell that means. To be blunt, I have rebelled against this characterization; I am only Amethsyta, I cannot claim to represent a community and to do so completely and appropriately. Nonetheless, here I am. On Medium. Writing an article.

The Journey Matters

It might be easy to write off my initial rebellion as simple ignorance of what I would experience in applying that first estradiol patch. I couldn’t have known that, three months later, my attitude would change. At least one person out there is thinking:

“Hey, you say potato; I say spud. Who cares how you got here as long as you arrived?”

But I believe that the journey does matter. My process will necessarily be different from every other male-to-female (MtF) transition in the world for all time. I am different genetically, biochemically, psychologically, emotionally, and experientially from every other transgender woman out there. I still cannot claim to be an appropriate representative of the entire transgender community. And yet…there are insights that have presented themselves over the past three months that I believe could be valuable not just to the transgender community, but to humanity in general.

The study that I have done over the past nine months regarding the transgender experience shows a surprising commonality in our stories. It is not that all of us grow up the same way and experience the same things, but that each of us has similar aspects to how we grew up and how we experienced the world around us. My experience has been very different from the experience of cisgender people, and I hope that my writing can shed light on who we are as transgender men and women. Perhaps we can discover commonality that helps us all integrate and understand each other better.

Who am I?

Any time somebody introduces herself saying that she may have the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, you probably want to ask a few questions about qualifications. I won’t claim that I know everything there is to know about being transgender, science, psychology, and culture. That said, there are a few qualifications that I hope will inform what I have to write.

First, I have a background as a scientist. I began my undergraduate studies in genetics. I completed my undergraduate studies in chemistry, then completed a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1998. Along the way, I have suffered from depression and dissociation that culminated in a very unhealthy use of drugs and alcohol that destroyed relationships and suggested to me that I would never see the age of 30.

Somehow, I began a successful career as a software developer. I got married and my wife and I had a son, who inspired me ten years ago to clean up so that I might be capable of living long enough to see him grow up. As a result, I read extensively about philosophy, spirituality, and psychology in an attempt to understand myself well enough to be stable at work and in my family. It took many years, and I cannot claim to have completed the process, but I have made some great progress.

I now have a healthy meditation and spiritual practice that enabled me to quit drinking in 2013. I have enjoyed further success as a software team leader and manager. I have reached a point in my life where I can accept the truth of what I am — a transgender woman — and begin transitioning to present as my authentic self. I certainly never expected to use any of the knowledge (I don’t dare call it “wisdom” just yet) in public, and I admit that writing even this article is a bit scary for me.

And So the Journey Begins

So. Like I said above: here I am. With this introduction complete, I will begin writing about the insights that have presented themselves over the last 52 years of my life. I promise that I will always provide a reference when I make claims that are not anecdotal or based on my own experience, and even then, I will make sure that what I experienced is labeled as such. I believe very strongly in the scientific method; I prefer not to be taken as an expert, but merely as an aggregator of streams of thought and science. There are steps that I have taken in my life that I feel are completely normal and possible for every human being — steps that are integral parts of the human experience. I do not want to be perceived as having undergone any special or grueling training and practice. I just might have been more stubborn and tolerant to pain than the regular gal.

All of that said, I believe that I have only just begun to figure out who I am — and perhaps more importantly, why I am — with the humble application of an estradiol patch three months ago. My transition and these articles represent a journey to myself that I expect to last the rest of my life, and I hope that what I share is valuable to somebody other than myself. Time will tell.

So…who am I? Let’s find out together!