From a Parent's Eyes

I really liked this article by the parent of a transgender child.  It's short, and leaves a lot to be said, but I think it captures a lot of the reality.  Anger, sympathy, frustration, love...

I am of course, the only me there is, regardless of what is on the outside. But then, even I view people so strongly through the lens of gender... I relate to men differently than I do to women (I don't really understand the men...), and so does everyone else.  Changing over is hard on people, isn't it.   I don't think our minds are really well adapted to it... it's certainly been hard on my own, and I'm very sympathetic of myself. =)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/site/newspaper/opinion/ct-perspec-1012-transgender-20121012,0,2914538.story?page=1


and while I'm at it, lets add this one too. Very different.  How I can relate... though my personality as a kid was very different... the same stuff, just on the inside.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/09/mother-of-trangender-child-shares-her-familys-journey/

A Date with Dysphoria

Sometimes it just gets bad. I have no idea why some days, weeks, even months are easy and why, suddenly, the next one isn't. That's the way it goes, I guess. They call it "gender dysphoria," a word my Kindle doesn't even know apparently... that terrifying emotional tsunami that threatens to drag your whole life into the depths.

I don't know if my particular cloud of gender schism is any harder than it is for others... its hard though... very hard. Maybe I'm just easily overwhelmed by it. But whether the drowning girl is a good swimmer or not is hardly the point, is it? The simple fact is, she needs help!

So that's my question. As a non-transitioner, I've got the unlikely task of needing to find things that will help ease the emotional pressure, but without fueling it in the long run.

All my girl-wishes are no good; painted nails, earrings, shaved legs... they're all very visible, at least to my LW, and more importantly, they are things I identify with my female self... and that would make me want it even more... can't allieviate the tension by adding yet more torque to the lever, after all...

But there must be something. I've been thinking of taking up painting, for instance. I really like a lot of the Japanese styles, old and new. I figure nobody would really notice anything amiss if I started painting lotus blossoms and cranes. I'm a plant lover already. But the point is, of course, to paint in all my favorite pinks and purples... colors I'm only currently allowed in dress shirts and vintage tees. The aesthetic sense appeals to that side of me too.

But what else? What do non-transitioning types do when it gets bad? I'm in this one for the long run, so it'd be great to have as many tricks up my sleeves ad possible.

The Tie is a Lie

On the outside, I'm pretty put-together most days.  I usually blame my traditional mid-west upbringing for my habit of wearing business attire even when nobody else does.  I wonder why I feel like I have to be so polished?  I wonder if anyone has ever stopped to wonder if I'm actually hiding the disheveled wreck that is sometimes so dominant behind my collar and smile?  Probably not.  I guess I wouldn't really want to be able to see everyone else's woes either... a very depressing way to see people, I suppose. God must have a very heavy heart...

Still...  it's something of an obsession...well, maybe not an obsession so much as a nervous habit.  Is it that I think looking put together on the outside will help me feel put together on the inside?  Maybe it does...

Birthdays...

Well, it's happened again.  After a year of no perceptible change in my age, suddenly, this morning, I've advanced an entire year.  It's OK though, since I'm still averaging to one year per year, even if it all happens today. =)

I'm not sure what I think about birthdays.  My family and friends are all very nice to me, and they do a lot to make me feel appreciated.  I wonder how many of them would still do that if they knew me better... it's just a silly thought, really.  Birthday accolades are not what makes a person valuable, after all, but rather the value that sometimes elicits well-wishes.

I think the part of birthdays that bothers me most is knowing that I will just continue to grow a little more "old-man-ish" each year.  More stubble, more hair, more of the wrong angles and missing curves.  Although now that I think about it, I will eventually start losing hair instead... hmm...

Certainly I'm nothing like old now, but a forty-year old man version of me sounds a bit more sad than the young-thirty version I've got right now.  There's not really anything to be done, of course, beyond resigning myself to it once again this year.

I'm really not morose or anything, and in fact, am having a very good day.  I'm a strong believer in having good days, even if there's stuff going on inside.  Can't let it beat us, right?  So here's to another great year, with or without the extra X!


Much Love,

Hailey

Non-Transitioning

There are a lot of reasons for a choice like transitioning from one body to another. Each story is filled with it's own mix of stresses, wishes, and road-blocks... and at the end of all the soul-searching, many people make the leap. For me though, there continues to be a difference.

It doesn't matter how many times I ask myself the questions, or how many ways I try to write the outcomes... once all is said and done, and as hard as it is to come to the same conclusion again and again, I still think the right decision for me is to continue living my life as it has always been. It hurts, often unbearably, but the pain still adds up to less than the cost of transitioning.

For clarity, I ought to say that by non-transitioning, I mean that I am not living in any way as the female that I believe (I think) I am. My XY body is as convincing as the next, and through the three decades of my life, I've become quite skilled at playing the role. I don't have any girl clothes or makeup, and as far as anyone has ever known, I'm a well-adjusted man.

Well Adjusted. How many times have I heard people speak of me that way. It is sadly ironic, tragic even, how bad we are at summing people up from their appearances. Probably the better way of labeling me would be, “...considering the life-long emotional turmoil and fear that she has had to live with, Hailey is not too badly adjusted...” Its like being surprised that a smashed car still drives... sort of...

But nobody sees the battered car with its shattered windows... They see “well-adjusted” me; the XY Boy, on the outside. I wish it weren't that way... I cry and pray and wish... but what can I ask, that people can see my soul instead of my body? It can't be.

Still, the question remains, why is it that I'm not transitioning?

Love is the answer. I am not alone. If I were, it would not matter what I looked like, after all. But I am with people. I am married, and have three children, and a really wonderful set of family and friends. Furthermore, and more importantly, I am a very convinced Christian. (Please bear with me here... I know a lot of Christians have some pretty negative things to say about transitioning... I am not one of them.)

My wife has known for several years, and she's been phenomenally graceful. It is very hard on her too, harder than I can bear, some times. She loves me as a man..., the man she's always known and always sees. I know there are some partnerships out there where permission with acceptance is possible, but that comes down to how each of us is wired. That story is not our story. My wife loves me to death, but she is terrified of what it would be like to live with me in an XX-styled body. I will not subject her, purposefully, to shame and fear. The peace I might otherwise gain from finally being outwardly congruent with my own self-image would be completely lost by the turmoil I would create. The net gain would be emotional rejection... and I am one who has borne enough of that in my life already...

She is not the only reason though. It is possible that some day, she will be happy enough with it all that for her own sake, not much would be lost. But even if that were the case, my children are in another category. I am not sure what kind of life a kid would be forced to live if their dad couldn't be called dad anymore. I can certainly imagine how I might have reacted to a similar change in my own parents. Shame is a terribly destructive force in human hearts. I love my kids like nothing else in the world. The thought of the probable shame they would bear each day of their lives; at any mention of coming home, meeting parents, asking after family... even getting a family Christmas photo... The alienation would be unbearable for me, and the life-long uncertainty and loss of that parental relationship would be a sad loss for them. Certainly it is possible that they would grow up with a more understanding world-view than the world at large, but that does not necessarily translate into the same relationship they can have with good-old “Dad.” A caveat, of course, is if I were to live as a sullen, depressed sort of Dad... which would be worse probably, than a happy second...mother???, but I'm not really like that.

It pains me deeply to think that my kids will never really know me, but at the same time, I remember that no child really ever knows their parents completely. No matter what they're like, they'll always be “mom and dad,” in some way or another. They don't need to love me and care about me as deeply and dearly as I do of them. Even if I had been an XX girl and borne them myself, that would still be true.

Lastly, my faith applies here. I love Jesus, and He has been more dear to me than any other person I have known. I believe His words about how we should live, and know absolutely that the best parts of my life are a result of me giving up bits of myself to live more like He does. It has always been better for me to love others than to love myself, and so it is in this case. If ever I decide that my own plight is more important than the lives of those ones who love me most, I will have lost an awful lot more of myself getting to that point than I could ever gain by transitioning. I would rather be a loving XY girl than a selfish XX girl, because, after all, it is what is inward that drives us, not what is outward. I like who I am, even in this body, so I cannot sacrifice who I am on the inside to become just another body on the outside.

Finally, I will also die, one day, and on that day, I will shed all these burdens and see the One I love. It will take a while... a long long while... but at the end of it, I think I'll finally be His girl, if we even care about our gender when we are with Him. No one else who is there will care either, which is an awful lot different than the people who are here. So non-transitioning is not forever... real life is forever, and we will not be broken when we are truly alive.

So there's my story... without all the history leading up to it. Certainly if I had been born 15 years later, with all the treatments they have now for pre-teens, and if I had been part of a very different (tolerant) family, I would have transitioned.  But we can all tell "what if" stories, and they've never gotten any of us anywhere.  Besides, I would not, even now, go back if I could.  To lose the life I've had with my wife, and to never have met these three children... it would not be worth it.  The dysphoria is aweful... and it will always be that way... but it will always be worth it, and my soul can be still, knowing that He made me with a purpose, and bears the pain along with me, knowing, in His great wisdom, what will have been gained by the long sacrifice.  

(please comment if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear from you!)


(Later Edit)
PS: A little more on this topic: http://haileygirlme.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-pressure-cooker.html
PPS: And a little more, changing the plan a bit http://haileygirlme.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-i-told-my-mom.html

My Story - Who I am Today

Who Am I?

Who am I...  I'm a boy, and I'm a girl, and a lot of times, I'm not convinced I'm either one. Sometimes I wonder what it means if a person can't answer such a straight-forward question about themselves... but that is where I live: in the space between 1 and 2, in a world where there are no decimals.

Sometimes I hate being a girl just as much as I hate being a boy. The amount of stress and heartache it causes, the endless volume of emotion spent on seeking impossible answers, and worse, the dark cloud of UNKNOWN that hangs over my only confidant, my beautiful wife, takes its viscous toll on both of us. But if there's one thing you can't sacrifice on the alter of contented living, it's your self. This is not something I can give up, whether I would or not.

In the midst of it all, however, there are still a few things that are more certain than is my gender.  I love God, fully and completely.  My whole life is His.  That love, second to His own, defines me and carries me through all the storms of life.  He has been my dearest friend. Next, I love my wife and my three beautiful children much more than I love myself. I could never choose to help myself by hurting them; it's just not in my nature. These five loves; God, wife, two daughters, and son, define me more deeply, and more meaningfully, than my outward appearances and societal roles. Love is why we live, I think. So those things I am sure about; and all else comes second to those sureties.

Day to Day

If you like, you can think of me as a pretty thirty-something with a thing for long, sleeveless dresses, flowers in my braids, and a shy smile. That's me in my mind's eye... the dream of a wish that no fountain or faerie can grant.  But in cloud castles, we can all be beautiful... As I write these thoughts, as this anonymous digital persona, it is this young lady is who I am trying to be, or maybe its better to say, it is from her eyes that I am trying to express myself.

If you met me on the street, the person you wouldn't probably notice, is a thirty-something man in business attire... average and boring enough not to affect anyone's day, or attract any particular attention.  It's simple enough to say, yet painfully difficult to live with.  Guys aren't supposed to cry either, even if a shy, mild-hearted girl is lost underneath all that social acceptability.  So there I am, as plainly and vaguely, yet as honestly, as I can express.

A first time...

I've heard that there's a first time for everything.  For me, this is a first time...

I am a gender variant.

Some people would call me a transgender girl, that is, a girl who was born with a boy's body and genetics.  Others probably say that I have a gender identity disorder, pointing at that elusive mismatch between what I "am" and what I "feel like I am."  Of course, the list goes on from there...

It is very hard not to be able to answer the question, "who am I?"  I know some girls in my position are confident that their biological gender is just an artifact of their inherited genes, and that they are girls, through and through... or at least once you get beneath the skin.  I'd like to be as confident as that, but I'm not.  All I really know is that I have always played the role I've received from my genes and society, but never wanted that role.

I hope that I can, by writing here in this magical, anonymous, digital space, make a little headway in knowing myself, and ultimately, to live peacefully and honestly.  I hope that I meet sympathetic people whom I can learn a little from, or maybe just vent with.  And I think, hopes are good to have.

So bear with me as I find words to express the tangle of emotion and memory.  If anything, I'll try to be as honest as I can, primarily with myself.  I think my final hope is that my life, and my honesty, might help someone else, somewhere.

Thank's for reading,

Hailey