My Rules

In a strange kind of way, I've had two opportunities to transition.

Whereas I have a difficult time categorizing any transition attempt as a "failure", my first one nearly killed me so I suppose that would qualify.  It was so traumatic and ill-conceived that it caused me to rush back to the safety of being a guy.  Ironically, I really believe it was that experience of failure, and subsequent consideration of just what had gone wrong, that made the second attempt work so well.

In this essay I'd like to give some of my thoughts on keys for a successful transition to save others from having to fail first, before learning the hard way....

Transition is not like a mountain.  It's not an obstacle to be overcome.  It's not a challenge to be faced by those who simply enjoy challenges.  It's not a punishment to be endured, where the reward for surviving is a brand new vagina.  It's not a square peg looking to be forced into a round hole.  Although each may sound obvious, it took me quite a while to really learn these things.

Perhaps the most important thing to do is discover just what you expect to get out of your transition.  I mean, if you already know the answer before you even start, what's the point in going through the motions?  Hell, if that's the case, save yourself a lot of trouble and buy yourself a sex-change.  All it takes is money.

But the goal of a transition is to learn; about yourself, about life, about where you feel most comfortable in the world.  Whether you embark on a transition, and subsequently decide to go back, both you and your life will be changed in the process.  I assure you.

When my ex-wife was pleading with me, asking "Why are you doing this??!!," I only had one answer.

"I can't NOT do it," I explained.  "These are things I need to figure out by doing, not by being told what to do, or by being afraid to even try."

My wife gave me a choice.  Either stay and be the husband and father that she and my son expected me to be, or leave.  There was no in-between.  In her mind, it was a pretty simple equation, and I think it stunned her the day I came home to explain that I'd signed the lease on an apartment nearby.

When my first transition attempt imploded, I looked at some of the things that had added to the enormous pressure that I was feeling:

• I hadn't told my son about what was happening.  My wife had explained that he didn't need to know about this, and that if I told him she'd take him and I'd never see him again.  Although I doubted she'd really do that, I rationalized that perhaps she was right.  Perhaps I didn't need to tell him anything until I'd made some real decisions about my life.  I don't know if I was just stalling for time, or maybe I wanted to preserve the father/son bond that we had.  What I do know is that when I left home, I told him that I was doing work out of town for a few weeks, and he accepted that without question.
• I hadn't told my family.  I think the same rationale about not wanting to jeopardize my "status" with them in case things didn't work out applies.
• I let others manage my transition.  The HR department at work wanted me to use the "big bang" approach, where they'd announce my situation to everyone on a Friday, and the following Monday I'd show up at work as Donna.  I tried to accommodate them, despite the fact that I'd never even spent a single day living as Donna up to that point.  In the end, trying to manage my transition to make others happy doomed it to failure.
• My visions of the type of woman I expected to be were unrealistic.  More on that in a future essay....
• I underestimated how difficult it was to suddenly be alone.  After being part of a family for nearly 20 years, suddenly finding myself all by myself was a very difficult experience.  To know that my wife and son were only a few miles away, and all of the hurt and pain that I was causing, but being unable to do anything about it, was absolute torture. 
• I hadn't built a support structure to help me. 
• I was in too much of a hurry, almost as if racing to get it done for fear I'd change my mind if things took too long.
• I underestimated the effort to clear my face with electrolysis.  I soon found myself on the table 6 or 7 or 8 hours a day...day after day.  Physical pain often exacerbates mental pain.

Despite all of  this, I got to within a day of a nearly disastrous transition attempt.  The day before they were to announce my situation at work, to all my friends and co-workers, I called it off.  It only took three or four phone calls to end it, the last of which was to my wife telling her I was ready to come home if she'd still have me.

In the weeks and months after my aborted transition attempt, I slowly realized that the forces that drove me to the brink of transition hadn't gone away.  If anything, they'd intensified.  I came to understand that it's not what I was doing that was wrong.  It was how I was doing it that was flawed.  As I started to plan my next attempt, I decided to address all of the failure points that caused my transition to collapse the first time around.

First off, visualize this.  Picture a line drawn in the sand, and you are straddling the line.  One foot is on one side of the line, and represents your life as a boy.  The other foot is on the other side of the line, and is your life as a girl.  Part of transition is often the difficult experience of living on both sides of that line for a little while, not really passing very well as either gender.  Too often, we keep one foot firmly planted in that male life, just in case we have to go back.  The fact that that life is forever changed seems lost in the comfort we feel in keeping one foot firmly planted in safety. 

To be perfectly honest, you don't give your transition a chance until and unless you finally pick that foot up.  It's not until you release your safety net, your desperate grip on the vestiges of your male life, that you truly experience the freedom of self-exploration that is the key to a transition of any kind.  I know it's often scary, but taking that step can be incredibly empowering.  Don't give your transition attempt 50% of your effort.  Or 75%.  Go all out.  Or, don't go at all.  Anything less isn't fair to yourself, or to the other people in your life.

Secondly, don't be in a hurry.  I've learned the hard way that the most important trait for a successful transition isn't necessarily courage or tenacity.  It's patience.  Give yourself the time to become comfortable in your new skin.  It doesn't happen overnight.  Don't let short-term setbacks interfere with long-term goals.  If you have really committed yourself to your transition, you'll find your transition to be a pretty amazing experience...no matter where it leads.

Thirdly, plan your transition well.  There's quite a bit of room between complete anarchy, and over-planning.  As you face your employer, and as you plan for your future, you need to be prepared.  Do your research.  Find others who can and will support you.  If you don't do it, nobody else will.

Fourth, don't measure your progress by how far you think you still have to go.  Measure it by looking back, and seeing how far you've come.  Progress is not measured in time, it's measured in growth.  And as you look back and see how you've grown and how you've changed, you'll come to realize that it's working.

Lastly, set some guidelines.

There are no rules for a transition.  I needed rules.  I needed at least some symbolic guidelines that I could use to help me make decisions, and find direction, when I got lost.  So, I decided to develop my own rules.  I wanted enough of them to be able to find something that could apply to most circumstances that I might face, but not too many so as to conflict with one another. 

After much consideration, I developed 5 rules.  I affectionately refer to them as "My Rules".  If you'd like to borrow some or all of them, they can be "Your Rules" too.

Donna's 5 Rules

Rule #1.  Do not let fear dictate your life. 
Your transition, and your life in general, has two significant obstacles to overcome to be successful.  Both of these obstacles come from inside each of us, and as a result, can be controlled.  The first of these obstacles is fear.  I decided early on that if I wanted to do something, fear alone was not a good reason not to do it.  I remember a time when I drove up to a store, and a group of loud high-school age kids were milling around out front.  The prospect of getting out of the car and going into the store, and face the potential of being taunted by those kids, scared me to death.  But I wanted to go into the store, and once I removed fear from the equation, there wasn't even a question.  After everything was over, I felt proud to have overcome the fear barrier, when in reality that barrier is only as high as I let it be.

Rule #2.  Manage your expectations.
The second most destructive emotion is disappointment.  Disappointment is derived completely and totally from our expectations for something.  Let's say that event E happens, we expected the result to be X, but the actual result was R.  If R is less than X, meaning that the actual results did not live up to our expectations, we are disappointed and our level of disappointment increases significantly the farther below X that we perceive R to be. However, if we take that exact same scenario and result, but our expectations were lower such that R is greater than X, we are satisfied with the result.  That's a lot of mathematical mumbo jumbo (my dad was a mathematician...sorry) to express the idea that keeping realistically low expectations is vital to battling disappointment.

Rule #3.  Be honest with yourself, and with others.
I had learned the hard way what happens when your not honest.  I had lived a lifetime of lying to myself, and hiding a secret second life.  The key to my entire transition was the process of finally becoming honest.  I refused to construct a different lie to crawl under.  I know people that manufacture entire fantasy lives for their new gender role.  Not me.  There is a difference between telling the truth, and not telling a lie.  Find that boundary, and use it to your advantage.  After a lifetime of feeling constant pressure to hide something from someone, it is refreshing to learn that the truth really can set you free.

Rule #4.  Live with Dignity.
Dignity is non-negotiable. It is a core concept in my life. I decided to face the issues in my life with my head up, and with my sense of pride and integrity intact.

Rule #5.  Experience Everything.
I did not want my new life as Donna to be saddled with the decisions that Dave had made during his reign in this body. Part of the joy of my transition was to experience simple "firsts" for myself: the first time I wore a bathing suit, the first time I went on a date with a guy, the first time I cried.  I have learned that life is a smorgasbord of sensuality waiting to be experienced, and I do not feel confined or restricted in my desire to "taste".

I think part of the benefit of having a post-op around to share her insights is that she can share her experiences and observations.  I certainly don't claim that the things I have identified here are universal truths to be applied in all transitions.  Unfortunately, this is not a one-size-fits-all situation.  However, I urge you to take the time to consider what I say.  You may find it helpful.  I'm interested in your thoughts....

Donna (4/29/03)