For many of us considering, or embarking on, a gender transition, there is one word....one feeling....that gets thrown in our face time and time again. The word is "selfish". If others don't taunt and torture you by throwing this simple 7-letter word, and all that it represents, in your face.... I assure you that you will do it to yourself.
Consider that for a moment. From the time we're young children, we're taught not to be selfish. We're taught to share with others. We're taught that being selfish is bad.
In fact, it's this concept of selfishness that stands in our face like a brick wall, keeping many of us use from transitioning. We often rationalize our motivations by guessing what our disclosure might mean to the people in our lives...our wives or husbands, our parents, our children, our friends and peers...and that by keeping our deepest feelings hidden we are somehow being noble by thinking of others before we think of ourselves. We seem to think that by continuing to live unhappy, unfulfilling lives for the benefit of others who we fear may not understand or accept our need to explore ourselves, we are doing them a favor. I ask whether it is really our desire to be "selfless" that fuels our continued resistance, or our fear of where the journey of self-exploration may lead. Whereas one of these motivations is deemed to be positive and noble, while the other is distinctly negative.
Before we get too far, let's examine this silly little word. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides two definitions:
Main Entry: selfˇish
Pronunciation: 'sel-fish
Function: adjective
Date: 1640
1 : concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself :
seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without
regard for others
2 : arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in
disregard of others <a selfish act>
As I read these definitions, one thing immediately stands out to me. Both describe different versions of being "selfish", but in both cases the key phrase is "with disregard for others." In other words, true selfishness is defined as something that you do for your benefit, and yours alone, without taking anyone else's feelings or needs into consideration. Hmmmm. I find that interesting....
Many of use considering transitioning go to amazing lengths to take the feelings and needs of others into account. I would argue that the spectrum between NOT attempting to transition and keeping our needs totally and completely bottled up, and transitioning with complete disregard for anyone or anything else, is a broad one. As you slowly accept your true self, part of a healthy transition process is doing what you can to consider the needs of others. This is NOT being selfish.
But let's turn the tables for a second. If I'm married to somebody who announces that he/she is transsexual, and I do what I can to prevent this person that I love from even attempting to find happiness or solace....aren't I being selfish?? If I use all the tools at my disposal: guilt, shame, anger, love, disappointment, fear, to KEEP you from exploring yourself because I'm afraid of how that might affect ME, who is being selfish here?
In fact, as I started to transition, one of the surprises I noticed was the way that people turned MY transition around, to make it about THEM and not about ME. Friends became concerned that THEY would be rejected because of their relationship to ME. "What are other people going to think?" they lamented. "Nobody will ever want to date our son!" my wife screamed. "Don't dare tell another soul about this!" she warned.
Don't get caught in this trap. Don't mistake your decision to announce your true self as doing anything to anyone. Far more often than not, the injury that others endure as a result of your disclosure is self-inflicted. Although that certainly doesn't make it any easier for most of us to handle, and for the finger of blame to point directly in our faces, it's important to understand the root cause as we battle the evil step-sister of selfishness: Guilt.
Shortly after I started to transition, I had lunch with a dear friend named Susan. Susan and I had known each other professionally for many years, and our professional relationship has blossomed into a solid friendship. Me met for lunch every few weeks, and I supported her as her marriage crumbled. I was a sympathetic shoulder for her as she complained that her husband was cheating her, was stealing from her, was abusing alcohol, and that her life with him had become empty and unfulfilling. She needed to leave. I listened to her and supported her as she came to accept what she needed to do, and eventually she did it. Today she has remarried, and seems to be a picture of happiness.
So, as we sat together at lunch the day she met me as Donna for the first time, she waited for the awkward uneasiness that seems to pervade those kinds of situations to die down a little before beginning to ask me several questions. I encouraged everyone that I hoped to remain part of my new life to ask as many questions as they wanted, as I would answer each of them as best I could.
Midway through lunch, she asked the selfish question. She was blunt, and left no question as to what she was thinking.. "Don't you think that what you're doing is incredibly selfish?" she asked. "You now have a wife that has lost her husband, and a son who doesn't have a father, all for the sake of your transition. Isn't that selfish?"
I thought about it for a second before replying. "First off, let's be clear that the decision to leave my wife husband-less, and my son father-less, was not mine. In fact, I'd be at home with them this very second if I could. The decision to reveal and explore who I know myself to be was certainly my own, but the decision to kick me out, and keep me from my family was not my decision. That was theirs."
"Secondly, let's compare my current situation to yours. You say I left my wife husband-less and my son father-less, all for my own, personal needs. Isn't that what you did when you decided to get your divorce? Hadn't your life with your husband become so unbearable that you realized you just couldn't continue living like that, to the point where you decided to leave? Didn't that decision, that you and you alone made, deprive your husband of his wife, and your sons of their father? Think about it carefully, because I challenge that if you consider my transition to be selfish, they you'll need to consider your divorce as being selfish, too."
She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she answered. "You're right. When you put it like that, I understand."
I rest my case....
The Last Word
In our culture, many people believe that each of us have an inner spirit. Many of us believe that each of us has a soul. In fact, I use the terms "my soul", "my spirit", and "my self", interchangeably.
I'm not alone in this definition. In fact, an entire industry has formed around "self-help." Is the goal of these books to help yourself, or to help your "self"?
Using my spiritual definition, doing something that is self-ish, is about doing something for your soul, or your spirit. It is about being healthy and complete, and not about being manipulative or uncaring, as others would have you believe.
Your self needs attention. It needs nourishment. It needs to grow, and to explore. It has a life all it's own. We can choose to acknowledge that, or we can choose to reject it. However, if we allow our true selves to languish unfulfilled, unexplored, and unrealized, it is those in our lives that will have to suffer the consequences. They will be the brunt of the frustration, the anger, the confusion, and the resentment that boils inside ourselves. Is that really doing them a favor?
Ultimately, for those who choose to ignore our selves, under the guise of considering others at the expense of their selves, I think that one single painful emotion will be the last thing they remember before they die: Regret.
Donna (5/16/03)