Perspectives On Transition

by Eila

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Most transsexuals have a strong wish to live their whole life without ever being questioned in a very normal lifestyle in their chosen gender. The transition from one gender to another is mostly attempted to happen in one "instantaneous" process. It may require tremendous effort to accomplish this purpose with as few humiliating failures as possible. A male to female transsexual would try to "pass" as a woman, causing no raised eyebrows and no sort of question. This is a hard demand, and most often the attempt is not totally successful so on occasions one may "be read", seen through.

The truth of the inner identity is what has to carry through the rest of life.

But the transition is a complex matter. Some might describe the initial taking on of another gender role than that given at birth can be seen as playing a role. However, one can correctly say that for a transsexual the original gender role is what is false, is a disguise of what feels the true identity. All seem to agree that what is particularly painful is passing the "space in between" the genders and hence some therapists and transsexual people alike seem to see no alternative to the "quantum leap" transition where life in the space between the two recognised genders is reduced and avoid at all costs. The perspective on transition is, however, not the only and full truth.

Once in a supermarket queue, I saw a young man who at closer distance I felt was a woman, but having chosen jeanwear and a short male type haircut a total appearance as a man was deliberately chosen. The same woman might the same evening appear in a very feminine dress or any other style within the female spectrum. Some women do use the whole spectrum from female to male and back again. This same possibility would seem not to exist for a male in this culture. But nobody could exclude that a male to female transsexual might highly develop the radiation of the female energies and "go into being that woman in the queue" meaning living a female life like that woman and choosing the corresponding appearance. It may not be a categoric necessity that the transition is a jump like a quantum leap from a conventional male to a very feminine appearance.

One point of great importance here, is the understanding that a relaxing into one's being is letting the true identity unfold. And for a transsexual it means that such relaxation supports the transition. If this is not the case there are strong reasons to suspect that the word transsexual does not apply to that person. Transition for a transsexual is very far from a situation of someone acting and hence needing to learn and take in from outside what the role contains. This relaxation into what, on a deeper level is the nature must be given the needed space and recognition in whatever way the transition is happening. A tense feeling of fear, of "being read" will far more invite situations of being read than a relaxed feeling of being what one is. The truth of the inner identity is what has to carry through the rest of life.

While the "quantum leap" model of transition is by some considered the only way of transition, it does happen that some individuals take another way: a very gradual change from male to female through all intermediate "androgynous" phases spending years in the taboo space between the genders. Some would think it impossible, but I can tell a little about this way, for it has been my own way for several years.

My inner need for female expression, my truth, was at various occasions urging me to give myself permission to choose female clothes. And the urge was strong enough to prevent my mind from stopping it with fear and thoughts and pictures of what is possible and what is not, what is accepted and what is ridiculed. My head would have said: nobody can survive that, but my strong urge didn't make space for those limiting opinions. I was in a "black hole" where suicide was my most frequent thought, and if everybody would make a fool of me, so what? I didn't choose extreme things of any kind, pants of a very feminine style and feminine blouses. Nothing like dresses, high heels, padding, wig or make-up. But a nice scarf covered the baldness of my head in a feminine way. That was me and I had a grounded feeling that I could sign for what I did. To my surprise, it worked for me, people were looking, but I looked again into their eyes and had my feet well on the ground and a smile. For the most important thing for me was not to take myself too seriously. That was a quarter century ago and it lasted for 10 years. Then I tried for some years if I could manage a life fitting the norms and disguising myself as a man. But again it was against my nature, this time it brought me to physical illness and at some point I resumed a female way of clothing. The inner urge for living totally as a woman was increasing and at a point I understood that now it was a matter of life or death, so I gave myself permission to seek treatment with hormones and hopefully in the end sex reassignment surgery (S.R.S.).

The increased permission to myself to feel and think and do and be did change and expand my whole world, but it ended my marriage. However, since being alone I have felt far better physically and emotionally in myself than in any period of my life before. I have taken very small steps to increase my feminine appearance, but the whole way I try to choose expression which feels true to me here and now. I have never tried to "pass" as a woman. Nevertheless little by little I become aware that increasingly, I am considered a woman. My most dramatic example is this:

At 13:52 the train left Copenhagen for the 5 hour transport, passing through the new tunnel under "Storebaelt". Everybody had seat reservations and the train was almost full. Opposite me a woman and her daughter of 8 months, and next to me across the narrow aisle, another woman and her baby of only 3 weeks. On this trip I was wearing grey leggings and a pink, shiny blouse under which a very normal female undershirt could be dimly seen and my head scarf was an ice blue nice colour. Quite soon, we three got some sort of contact. I did not say a lot, but since they soon felt I like children we had some small conversation. While one woman was following her crawling daughter to the other end of the aisle, I happened to say, that I have children myself; the woman asked, how many, and I said: "four". Without thinking first, I said "the smallest is six". The eyes of the woman grew bigger as she asked: "are they all your own" and I said: "yes". "How old are you" she went on, and I said "sixty-seven". Then she said "I did not know that was at all possible"! "Yes", I said, "it is". I did not say much more, because then it was like a shock evident that she considered me a woman, and with no question marks! I could not say very much the remaining trip, everything was almost like "home in heaven". I felt an incredible happiness for many hours. The "shock" that could have knocked me off the seat had it not been so good a chair with arm rests contain so much; the unusual tension free atmosphere from the beginning was based on their perception of me being a female, it was most wonderful to not feel the subtle push "to be a man" that has haunted my life till now. It was replaced by a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, in which love was living, and not the love that lives on polarities, real happiness for me! Most appropriately I could just sit still and digest and feel joy, uplifted and gratitude. This was the turning of a page to a new chapter.

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