Transition

It is OUR own responsibility to make sure our transition has what it needs to be healthy and survive.

If gender is a spectrum, can we say that transition is our opportunity to find where, on the gender spectrum, we feel most comfortable? If that leads to SRS, that is fine. It if leads to something short of SRS, that is OK too. The goal of transition is to find where we belong, NOT specifically to have SRS.

If you truly realize that transition is NOT for you, don’t be afraid to stop. This is NOT failure.

1. Don’t allow fear to rule your life. (This should not be translated as “Don’t Be Afraid”)

2. Manage your expectations. Fear, disappointment and frustration are incredibly destructive emotions. We have the power to control them, because they only exist in our minds. Remember, “There is no spoon.”

· Find a therapist who has worked with our community as soon as possible. Having an outlet to share all of your feelings, and who will provide valuable is so, so important. If you don't like how a therapist "feels", don't hesitate to change. You need to feel comfortable with your therapist if it's to have the value it should. Also, don't see your therapist as an enemy; someone standing in the way between you and hormones, or between you and a sex change. If you really understand the value of your transition, find a way to find the value in your therapist. (If you don't know where to find one, here's a good list.)

· PRIORITIZE. Transition is a huge, and long, process. It can’t be digested in one bite. It can easily become overwhelming. Decide what’s most important first, and work on it. For example, in my own transition, electrolysis and FFS were key components, and I would not begin living full-time until both were done. I decided to worry about voice last.

· Realize that PATIENCE, and not necessarily COURAGE, is the key attribute to a successful and healthy transition. Transition is like a marathon. The successes are people with the most stamina, not who can sprint the fastest.

· Define Milestones. Measure progress based on how far you’ve come, and NOT on how far there is still left to go.

· Stop finding reasons NOT to be successful. Defeat is a self fulfilling prophecy just looking for an excuse to become real.

· Go to an event like Southern Comfort, the IFGE Conference, or Colorado Gold Rush if you can. Meeting others who are like yourself, meeting some extraordinary people from the community, and living (even if only for a short while) as your true self in a safe, accepting, nurturing environment can be an incredibly empowering experience.

· Be aware of yourself, how you're feeling, what you're thinking, and where you're going. Remember, you're driving....

· Your best tool is your power of observation. Look and learn from genetic females.

· Understand that your “look”, and your development, will significantly change over time. Experiment. Tell your beauty service people about your needs.

· Realize up front that you're your own worst enemy. You're your own most difficult critic. Don't be so hard on yourself.

· Don’t mistake short term frustration/loneliness/confusion, for more than it is.

· If you think you're headed for surgery, schedule a date with an SRS Surgeon. Waiting lists are often long. If you have to change it, so be it, but it’s good to have something to aim for.

Transition. It means change. It means to change from something, to something else. I find that interesting.

I mean, aren't we all in transition? Isn't life always changing is some way or another? Whether we may realize it or not, we're all transitioning from something to something else all the time. I think it's absolutely critical to realize that our ability to handle change, or manage change in a more general context has a very real correlation to how we'll handle a gender transition if and when the time comes to do it.

Transition is about change. It is change. To do it is to embrace it. To accept it. Not to fear it. This isn't as easy as it sounds. I've found that most people are inherently change averse. They avoid change. They feel comfort in the same...the familiar. They need security; people tend to move towards a greater sense of security, not away from it. Actually, those who swim upstream against this current are a very special breed, driven by something far more precious and powerful than security, or fear.

There are some things to realize about change. It will happen whether you want it to or not. You can channel it in directions you'd like it to go, or you can let it go wherever it takes itself. It will happen whether you admit it or not. It's a normal, healthy, natural part of existence in our universe. To deny it is ultimately an exercise in frustration.

That brings us to an interesting topic. Why do people do a gender transition? Given the very unfavorable perception of transsexuals, why would somebody do a gender transition? If someone is able to fight these impulses and compulsions more or less successfully for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, what brings about the seemingly sudden need to transition? Certainly, something must happen. Something must tip this equilibrium that prevented us from acknowledging our true selves to the world for all that time. Something must have tipped the scales. Something changed.

It could be a variety of things. Sometimes, it's an event. Someone dies. Someone learns about our true selves by mistake. Something happens to make us realize just how unhappy we are trying to fight this. Or, maybe it's just the passage of time. Maybe we're getting to a point in our lives where we realize we need to make a decision before it's too late. Maybe the reasons we had for holding it back have gradually melted away. Maybe we've just matured. Or, maybe we're just desperate.

I've developed a concept that I call Ripening. Just as a fruit takes a certain amount of time and exposure to the elements to fully become ripe, the same is true for people, and more specifically, for change. It doesn't matter how much you might want to rush it, or wish it were ripe today....it will ripen in it's own good time. There's no way to stop it, either, other than to kill it. And when it's ready...it will know it. The difference, though, is that a fruit dies after it becomes ripe. It doesn't need to do anything except live, ripen, and die. People need to do more. It's what they do when they become ripe that counts.

When others ask whether I wish I had transitioned when I was younger, when I had more of my life ahead of me than I do now, I tell them with total confidence that although the seemingly obvious answer would be "yes", in reality I just wasn't ready. I wasn't mature enough. I wasn't through experiencing my life as Dave. I wasn't ready to risk it all. In short....I wasn't ripe.

I have lots of people who email me, telling me that they're too old, or too muscular, or too tall, or too bald, or too hairy, or too masculine looking to transition. And, for those who feel that way, if you think you are then you are. You don't need to convince me to the contrary...you need to convince yourself. But for any one of those reasons, I can show you someone who was older, more muscular, taller, balder, hairier, more masculine....and they didn't let that stop them. The real question to ask is whether we really believe that we can't do it, or we're looking for an excuse to justify never trying at all. Either way is fine. Just be honest with yourself.

I've got to tell you, I don't think everyone who is transgendered needs to transition. It's not like there's more honor in transitioning than not, or that you're not a real transsexual until you have your surgery, or even live full-time. I have no personal interest in luring closeted transgenders over to the "dark side". It's not like we're on a membership drive or anything. I don't get a bonus for every convert. We're not giving away prizes. It just doesn't work that way. If you're transgendered, you're transgendered whether you choose to accept it or not.

One of the core tenets of my life is based upon perceived quality of life. That's the ultimate baseline upon which I think I measure most things. Is the quality of my life going to be better if I do something than if I don't? If the answer is yes, then what's to stop me from doing it? Even if the answer might be no, there's nothing stopping me from trying it to find out. Quality of life is a difficult thing to measure, and it's a very complex mixture of any number of things at any point in time. In the end, we need to trust ourselves on this. We need to learn to trust how we feel, removed from fear, removed from the expectations of others, removed from doubts and roadblocks and excuses.

The key word in that phrase is "perceived". We don't really know how something will or won't affect our lives. Sometimes we think we know. We can take an educated guess. But until we try something and make decisions based on experience we're basing our decisions on many things, all of which make up our perceptions of something.

The initial goal of my transition was NOT to become a woman. Really, it wasn't. At first I thought that might be some big cop-out to give hope to other people that I might not take this all the way to the end, that I might turn back. But I've come to realize that I was right in the first place.

My goal was to find peace. It was to learn about myself. It was to find answers to questions that had plagued me for my entire life. I thought I might be able to find that peace, those answers, by living an authentic life. And although any of us can fantasize what it would be like to live in our authentic gender, until we do it and find out for ourselves it's difficult to really, truly feel comfortable with the decisions that help us get there.

At the very beginning of my transition I struggled to explain my need to explore Donna to my wife. We had been married for 17 years at that point, and I loved her as much then as I did the day we got married. I tried to explain my need to find some peace to her in a note:

"My family has always been good at hiding from things. At putting things off and making small talk. But my situation is one from which I cannot hide. It is one that consumes me totally. I cannot continue to live the lie that is my life. I need to be who and what I really am, or face a fate worse than death in a vain attempt to hold it back. I need answers to questions that have plagued me for my entire life, and I need to find those answers for myself. And although at this point I do not know what the answers will be, I know that I cannot and will not continue to live my life without finding out.

For a very, very long time I have lived a life of fear. It is a life that no one should be forced to endure. It is a life of self-imposed exile, where refusing to accept what I know to be true in hopes of continuing my façade of a life has always been the top priority. You tell me that I’m trying too hard to be what I’m not, and you’re absolutely correct. But our ideas about who and what I am are most certainly not the same.

I have done a lot of thinking lately, especially since my dad died. I have been thinking about life…particularly the quality of life. The saying “life’s too short” has never held more meaning for me. If I died right now, at this moment, I would die with the regret that I never got to live the life I feel I was born to live. I would die knowing that I allowed the pressure of others to dictate how I lived my entire life. In short, I would die knowing that I was given one shot at life, and instead of living it, I let it slip away.

I look down the path of our lives to see what lies ahead. We have built hopes and dreams, and made plans for our future together. I would never want any of that to change. But I also see a life that cannot continue in its present condition. I see my situation eating away at us both, and never, ever relenting or retreating. I see it causing a lifetime of unhappiness and hurt for us both, when we both deserve so much more. I see that fear is driving our decisions, and as long as that happens we will both continue to struggle and fight and drift apart. These issues need to be addressed with honesty and courage and conviction rather than fear and shame in order to come to some sort of closure so we can all move on with our lives and live them as we were meant to."

-- Letter to my wife, February 1998

If you're considering a gender transition, keep this in mind. Remain acutely aware of how you're feeling, what you're thinking, what you're doing. Trust yourself; if it feels right, it probably is. I envision the transition process like getting into a steaming hot bath. We rarely just jump in with our whole body. We start by stepping in with one leg. Then the other. Once they've gotten used to the water and we realize that it's nice and warm and inviting, we move in a little more, and a little more. That's how I see transition.

I see far too many people in our community rushing through transition like a lunatic out of a burning building. It's almost as though they feel the pressure to do it, so they want to get to the end before the urge goes away as though it's a mere formality, a trifle not really worth the time to appreciate. It's like they've got blinders on, afraid to look around too much for fear that they might change their mind, or see something that might slow them down. And as awkward and odd as transition can be, I don't understand how they think some surgery will change that. But that's a topic for later in this discussion....

Also, I see far too many people who are afraid to make the commitment to do it right. They stand there at the edge of the tub with one foot in and one foot out, unable and unwilling to give themselves the opportunity to make any real commitments. I know it's hard. I know it's scary. I sometimes joke, "If it were easy, then everyone would do it." But, it's necessary.

Usually, change doesn't happen overnight. In autumn, all the leaves don't fall off the tree at the same time. Wrinkles and gray hair don't magically show up one day. Some transitions take a long time. Others take a relatively short time. Either way, the term "transition" implies some elapsed duration between states. Transitions take time.

So the question becomes, "How much time?" If defining a transition is a difficult thing to do, defining how long it takes is almost impossible. Especially if nobody can agree on when it starts or ends.

Some would argue that a gender transition lasts from the time that you first visit a psychologist, or the day you go full-time in your new gender, until your surgery (or some variation thereof). It seems that many people feel the need to time box a gender transition into some easily identifiable milestones. And although I suppose such a simplistic view of things doesn't really do any harm, I think it steers the thinker to totally miss the point of the transition in the first place.

It seems like the popular graphic representation of the amount of "stuff" happening during transition might look like this:

Or, for those in a hurry, time gets compressed. They just want to get it over and have their surgery, so they fast-track somehow. For these folks, the learning curve might look like either of the following:

None of these is healthy. And although each may depict how people approach their transition, I think many people who approach it like this end up paying for it in the end.

I have developed a much broader view, holistically, of a gender transition. I'd argue that much of our life is actually spent in transition, not just some portion centered around the visible changes that are occurring specific to our gender. The time before our true self becomes public knowledge is very active with a variety of efforts to come to terms with our situation.

I'd also argue that transitions don't suddenly end. We can say they do...or set milestones that make them seem like they do...but in reality they don't. I assure you that there's still a lot to do, a lot to learn about yourself, a lot to come to some sense of peace with, after Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). It's not like you have the surgery and you're magically "fixed". It that's what you think then you're in for a very, very rude awakening. Transition doesn't end at surgery. It continues for a long, long time.

As a result, a more accurate depiction of what's going on in a healthy gender transition might look as follows:

I was recently approached by someone in Human Resources because someone else in our company, in another group, in another city, was apparently transitioning. They asked this person how far along in their transition they were, and they answered, "60 percent." "60 Percent?" The HR folks nodded as if they knew what she was talking about and then came running to me to see what that means. To be honest, as sad as this sounds, I have no idea what that means!! 60 percent of what? The moral of this story...know that this journey takes time, but don't report progress in percent.

In the broader context of a lifetime, I've identified a number of phases that express where we are in this process. I call them the Phases of Self-Discovery. It's important to understand up front that these phases and concepts are not isolated to gender issues. They have value in any journey of self-discovery. And, although this might seem like so much psycho-babble, if you bear with me for a while here you may find some value in what I say.

Each phase is marked by the significant motivations and expressions that occur there.

The first phase, which occurs early in life, is something I call the Self-Awareness phase. It's the period of time where we become aware that there's a problem, some sort of dissonance, in our lives. We may not exactly know what it is at first, but pinpointing the source of the disturbance is actually the focal point of the self-awareness nature of the phase.

Once we've identified what it is, we gradually move into a period that can be described as the Self-Acceptance phase, and by it's very nature it is the longest and "slowest" phase. It's the period of time where we try to make some sense of this, try to come to some understanding of what, and why, and how, this could really be. Depending on the nature of the "problem", the abilities of the person, and the specifics of the situation it's important to realize that some people never get out of this phase. Some people never really come to any level of self-acceptance. Self-tolerance, self-deception, self-medication, and any other number of other pretenders may seem to look and be like self-acceptance, but they're not the real deal.

The Self-Acceptance phase can be a very stormy time. I could write for on hour just on this alone (and will probably do that in some future diatribe, as self-acceptance is so integral to this entire journey). I see this effort very much like the stages of grief: full of anger, denial, bartering, and (hopefully) finally acceptance.

Once we've come to some significant sense of peace with ourselves, we find ourselves entering the Self-Expression phase. Although self-acceptance is still continuing, this phase is a period of time where we try to develop this newfound sense of self that has been introduced to the world. Because we often still struggle with self-acceptance, this can be a very awkward, difficult time.

For this discussion, self- expression is when this unseen, unexpressed aspect of ourselves takes on a distinct shape. It's when it stops becoming a vision or a dream in our minds, and begins to take on real expression in the world. It's the time when we start to give this vision some life, a look, a sense of self. We give it a name. We give it a personality. As time goes on, this sense of expression will be redefined over and over again as our own sense of self changes.

It's important to realize that none of these phases really ends. They're all going on at the same time. However, they need to progress in the proper sequence in order to provide a healthy transition. Otherwise, we haven't really come to terms with anything and we're forced into something we're not really ready to do.

The ultimate goal is Self-Actualization. It happens when we're comfortable with ourselves. Whole books have been written on the nature of Self-Actualization, and my favorite comes from Abraham Maslow (the guy with the Hierarchy of Needs).

How does one get to become self-actualized? Maslow (1956) indicates that there are two processes necessary for self-actualization:

Note that self-actualization doesn't happen by itself. It won't eventually find you. You have do do something. You have to move. You have to make it happen.

Maslow stresses that the deeper the self- exploration, the closer one comes to self-actualization. THAT'S SO IMPORTANT! That's why we transition! That's why we change! That's why we need to really know ourselves! That's the goal of this journey. It's not to be a man or a woman, or some fantasy come true. It's to find peace. It's to gain the freedom that comes from being truly comfortable with your self. It's from being self-actualized.

You may rightly ask how one knows whether or not they're there yet. How do I know if I'm self-actualized? What does a self-actualized person look like?

Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People

1. More efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relations with it. This characteristic includes the detection of the phoney and dishonest person and the accurate perception of what exists rather than a distortion of perception by one's needs. Self-actualizing people are more aware of their environment, both human and nonhuman. They are not afraid of the unknown and can tolerate the doubt, uncertainty, and tentativeness accompanying the perception of the new and unfamiliar.

2. Acceptance of self, others, and nature. Self-actualizing persons are not ashamed or guilty about their human nature, with its shortcoming, imperfections, frailties, and weaknesses. Nor are they critical of these aspects of other people. They respect and esteem themselves and others. Moreover, they are honest, open, genuine, without pose or facade. They are not, however, self-satisfied but are concerned about discrepancies between what is and what might be or should be in themselves, others, and society.

3. Spontaneity. Self-actualizing persons are not hampered by convention, but they do not flout it. They are not conformists, but neither are they anti-conformist for the sake of being so. They are not externally motivated or even goal-directed- rather their motivation is the internal one of growth and development, the actualization of themselves and their potentialities.

4. Problem-centering. Self-actualizing persons are not ego-centered but focus on problems outside themselves. They are mission-oriented, often on the basis of a sense of responsibility, duty, or obligation rather than personal choice.

5. The quality of detachment; the need for privacy. The self-actualizing person enjoys solitude and privacy. It is possible for him/her to remain unruffled and undisturbed by what upsets others. He/she may even appear to be asocial.

6. Autonomy, independence of culture and environment. Self-actualizing persons, though dependent on others for the satisfaction of the basic needs of love, safety, respect and belongingness, "are not dependent for their main satisfactions on the real world, or other people or culture or means-to-ends, or in general, on extrinsic satisfactions. Rather they are dependent for their own development and continued growth upon their own potentialities and latent resources."

7. Continued freshness of appreciation. Self-actualizing persons repeatedly, though not continuously, experience awe, pleasure, and wonder in their everyday world.

8. The mystic experience, the oceanic feeling. In varying degrees and with varying frequencies, self-actualizing persons have experiences of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, followed by the conviction that the experience was important and had a carry-over into everyday life. Maslow describes this as: "Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences."

9. Gemeinschaftsgefuhl. Self-actualizing persons have a deep feeling of empathy, sympathy, or compassion for human beings in general. This feeling is, in a sense, unconditional in that it exists along with the recognition of the existence in others of negative qualities that provoke occasional anger, impatience, and disgust.

10. Interpersonal relations. Self-actualizing people have deep interpersonal relations with others. They are selective, however, and their circle of friends may be small, usually consisting of other self-actualizing persons, but the capacity is there. They attract others to them as admirers or disciples. This characteristic, again, is at least implicit in the formulations of others.

11. The democratic character structure. The self-actualizing person does not discriminate on the basis of class, education, race, or color. He/she is humble in his recognition of what he knows in comparison with what could be known, and he is ready and willing to learn from anyone. He/she respects everyone as potential contributors to his knowledge, merely because they are human beings.

12. Means and ends. Self-actualizing persons are highly ethical. They clearly distinguish between means and ends and subordinate means to ends.

13. Philosophical, un-hostile sense of humor. Although the self-actualizing persons studied by Maslow had a sense of humor, it was not of the ordinary type. Their sense of humor was the spontaneous, thoughtful type, intrinsic to the situation. Their humor did not involve hostility, superiority, or sarcasm.

14. Creativeness. All of Maslow's subjects were judged to be creative, each in his own way. The creativity involved here is not special-talent creativeness. It is a creativeness potentially inherent in everyone but usually suffocated by acculturation. It is a fresh, naive, direct way of looking at things. Creativeness is a characteristic most would agree to as characterizing self-actualizing persons.

15. Polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon as though the two have united; therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict. To the self-actualized person work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason. The self-actualized person retains his childlike qualities yet is very wise.

After all is said and done, after everything you experience and all the self-discovery and self-exploration....the question to ask yourself....is this you?