Letters to the Distraught

To a friend who has found the world a cold and unaccepting place to anyone who is perceived to be different...

Dear J,

Being Transgendered - This is such a difficult realm to exist within I know. I hope that you are seeing your therapist who may be able to shed some light. You truly have all the pieces in place which would constitute the aspects of life which many would envy... wonderful wife, security of job and income, challenging work which allows for some freedom of artistic creation and expression, living in a wonderful part of the country the list goes on.....

It is ironically interesting that I often feel much the same. I have the things which others would envy and feel so blessed to have a fantastic wife and wonderful place I call home, no overhead of financial burden and a seemingly ideal job working from home. With all of these things, I still feel empty at time as if I walk in a scripted daze, feeling detached. I become upset for myself for not feeling this should be enough in life and although I don't desire anything more materialistically, feel somewhat hollow inside. It's a hard feeling to explain and what I feel is missing is the one thing that would upset the very fabric of the equilibrium I have in all things.

Joanie has a way about her and reminds me constantly that the grass is not greener in the other pasture and that it's fine to be in the middle - with a gender that is fluid, malleable and vacillating. I hope to come to this point of comfort but the rift seems to grow wider and not narrower as time goes on. It's not my intent to affirm societies norms by molding myself into one gender box or another - yet I still feel everything is just personally wrong and so walking the walk is just becoming harder and harder.

Perhaps me setting out my materialistic and personal goals was the panacea I thought would resolve the turbulence. Now in sight of a goal, I realize I have not been at all truthful with myself. It's not the glamor, the makeup or the glitz - these are ephemeral in nature but then again, these are the only times I have to make up for the times I feel holed up within myself and so I let loose.

I'm not sure if any of this relates to you specifically as you didn't indicate, but that's where I am - I don't know why I am on PE either - I am like the tidy bowl man longing to sail those seemingly beautiful and placid blue waters knowing that others are getting flushed down the toilet and their lives mangled and destroyed in the maelstrom of transition and beyond.

If I distance myself from here, I internalize the mental torment and it becomes worse. I'm probably glossing all this over with my therapist too - I can't even be honest in how I relate to her let alone myself. I'll probably just end up giving her some of my writings as this is the only time I can really communicate completely.

-Christen

Dear J,

I was rather late in my return last night and so sorry to miss you. I was quite upset to read your reply to my wife yesterday just prior to my departure. The world really is quite two-faced I find. What can seem like support can be quite the opposite behind one's back. Even confiding in someone can lead to their talking with an individual who ends up being the bad apple in the bunch.

I was quite literally in tears on my way down to Electro - and for several reasons - One was for the pain that was being caused through the willful and deliberate ignorance and intolerance of others toward you and the the second was a more general expansion to realize that this sort of behavior extends outward and would apply and encompass myself or anyone.

My thoughts on the road which I coined were... "We are what we are perceived to be... Our identity is determined by the judgment of others and not by ourselves"

That's a pretty powerful thought and one I would not have likely admitted to in the past, I had to pull over at one point to take a break. Then my thoughts turned to the thoughts of how destructive trying to be able to live authentically as how I feel, since it would cause an immediate demise of huge chunks in my own life - the negativity associated with the social stigma imposed by others would certainly be the major factor. It would be a domino effect of major proportion.

Then of course I began to look at my own duality and the times that I have to express myself. You mentioned once about my manner of dress - certainly over the norm of how most women present on a daily basis - and I thought about it - and I realized that my expression was limited to very few times where I could be who I feel inside and of course I condense what I can into a tight sphere. Again, still driving, this caused some stress realizing that I have only windows which I can present and which are "safe".

I thought of a Twilight Zone Episode which was relevant....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaVo2xifmSw

I must commend your wife's thoughts of your going back to Therapy but I must question the idea of HRT as a solution. I see it as a Panacea. How will HRT change any of the situations around you? I don't see it as a magic pill that will transform one into a woman such that they can now blend with ease and be so pleasing magically to the eyes of others such that their jaded thoughts of knowing who we were previously as the shell of a male just washes away. I don't see it as a happy pill either that will make one feel congruent and thus oblivious or able to handle the ignorance around them.

I don't see any of that. What I do see is a slippery road into a world of stark ultimatums which is driven by the realm of others who will continue to take judgment upon us and strive through ignorance to upset our ability to live our lives as we wish. This will be incurred through the strife and economic turmoil which they will inherently inflict upon us.

Basically I am beginning to believe that one must drop out, transition, and re-emerge as our new selves while burying our past - Stealth! I don't like to admit that - but it seems the safest route. Again, if it were myself, I would be hesitant to even consider HRT without some sort of game plan in place to take the idiocy and intolerance of the "sheeple" who inhabit the Earth into account.

-Christen