Quite often people will say that a person who is transitioning or transitioned that, “you’re still the same person.” This begs the question: Am I the same person that I was before I began transition?
The answer is both yes and no. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, May 17, is the international day against homophobia and transphobia. Great! It is important to draw attention to the fact that many people who fall under the broad LGBTTQ* spectrum face harassment, discrimination and all too often physical violence because of who they are. Lots of organizations are celebrating this, or are they really? Read the rest of this entry »
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” How many times have we said this about something? I know a number of trans people, especially among those of us who are transsexual and transition who use it in reference to being transsexual. I have said it myself. As someone pointed out to me this phrase does not help discourse about the subject of trans issues. Further, by allowing myself to transition I have been able to discover who I really am and thus be my true self. So why use this phrase? Read the rest of this entry »
For those in Canada and the USA today is Mother’s Day. It is a day on which motherhood is supposed to be celebrated and people are expected to recognize their mothers. According to our mass media and advertising this means we are supposed to spend a lot of money on them. For some of us, however, Mother’s Day is full of mixed feelings.
First, I have very grateful and fortunate to have a wonderful and supportive mother. She has always been there even when I went through difficult times with schools and had to deal with them more times than I can remember. She has also been amazingly supportive of my transition. She was the first person in my family that I told, and one of the first people overall that I told. Her response was, “Congratulations.” I could not possibly have asked for a better response.
Other emotions also come in to play around Mothers Day. I have no children that I know of and one thing that has surprised me over the past number of months is that I have felt the desire to carry and have a child of my own. The main reason this surprised me is that I had gone through this thought process and was extremely sure and confident that I was happy not having children. As someone who has transitioned male to female I don’t have the physical organs required to carry a child of my own. There are reports of uterine transplants, but they are still very much in the early days and would likely be quite expensive even if a donor were available. Even if a uterine transplant were available to me there would still be the problem of what the genetic makeup would be. I would not have ovum of my own, and sperm is also an issue.
Another option to have a child that was biologically my own would have been to make use of a sperm bank to store gametes prior to starting hormone therapy. This is an option that many people who transition from male to female take advantage of. In my case I briefly considered it and decided against it. The major factor in this decision was money. Prior to starting hormones I was in a tight spot financially and just trying to get myself stable enough to pay the rent and have food on the table. Thus, at this point, children of my own are no longer an option. This is a situation that many women who are transsexual find themselves in.
All that said, because I am at a point where I am analyzing my own feelings and thoughts I am also finding this an intellectually interesting experience. These feelings are not such that I need to stop what I’m doing to let myself feel them. I also know that I am quite okay moving forward without a child or children of my own. I embrace these pangs of feelings when they happen, let them flow through me and then move onward. I know that it is okay for me to have these feelings and to let myself feel them.
[correction: had not known Mexico Mothers Day is always on May 10]
In my studies I have been reading the Gospels. The question, “But who do you say that I am?” This is one of the pivotal questions that Jesus asks of his followers in the Gospels. For Christians Peter’s response that Jesus is the messiah is an important part of the Gospel stories. The interesting thing is that the disciples are not supposed to tell anyone. When passage, found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, came up in a class recently it got me thinking to what the question can mean.
“Who do you say that I am?” In my own experience this is a question that we often ask of ourselves as a hypothetical when dealing with other people. ”Who do they think or say that I am?” Often this shapes who we are. Read the rest of this entry »
I was asked recently if I felt that I have had two lives and / or have lost years of my life. My short response to this was “yes and no.” This post is my long answer to that question.
If I look at the entirety of my life I can choose to separate it in many ways. The most obvious way would be pre and post transition, possibly adding in the transitional year or so as a distinct section. Another way might be to split it into childhood, adolescence, adult. Or I could break it down into much small sections. Any way that one looks at it, it is still part of the totality that is my lifetime. From birth through to who I am today. For the sake of this particular topic I’m going to break it down into three sections, zero to nine years old, nine to thirty-six and thirty-six onward.
The first nine years of my life I don’t look at as a waste or as part of two lives. It was when I was almost ten that things fell off the rails a bit and I started with depression and entered the second section of life.
It is this second section of life for which the above question would be the most appropriate. Were the years wasted?
In the sense that I was trying to be and live as a male, and be someone I deep down was not, it could be said that I ‘wasted’ those years of my life. That said, it wasn’t really a waste because I did do some very interesting things. At the same time, there is a sense that it was wasted because I wasn’t able to fully be myself. So, was it two separate lives?
In a sense, it possibly could be that way, I was living as a male, and now I’m fully female, both in life and in my inner being. Yet I still have contact with people who have known me all my life. I have friends whom have known me through transition. So there is a continuity there. Further, I have all of my life experiences prior to beginning transition. I don’t really consider myself to have two separate lives. I view it as having a past and a rich set of experiences in that past that have shaped the woman I am today.
In conclusion, I would answer that rather than a waste, or two separate lives, I have, in the context of my transition, two sections of my life.
One of the challenges when discussing my experiences with depression, transition and other aspects of my life with people who do not have similar experiences is that they don’t have the same points of references. Likewise when I hear about the experiences of those living on reserves in poverty and third world conditions I lack a point of reference to truly understand their experiences. I can, however, make the effort to listen to what they are saying.
When we take the time to listen and learn from the experiences of others, especially when they do not share reference points, we expand our own horizons. Actively listening to these experiences will likely be uncomfortable. Once these feelings start we can respond in a number of ways.
First, we can close our ears and try to hide from the feelings and shut down. We don’t listen to what the person is saying and we don’t try to understand or empathise. When we do this we reinforce our view of the person telling the story as ‘the other’ someone that is lessened because they are not part of our community or identity. Once we categorize someone as ‘other’ it is a lot easier to continue to ignore injustice being perpetrated against them.
Second, the response being made can be patronizing. Rather than respecting what the person is saying we respond in a condescending manner. What we are telling the person when we do this is that we either do not believe them or that their experience isn’t valid and doesn’t have value.
Third, we can stay silent and actively listen to what is being said. We can work to empathise with what is being said, even though it may be uncomfortable. This is probably the most difficult response. Empathising with the struggles and plight of other people is not easy and may trigger responses in ourselves that we don’t expect. It is when we listen and work to understand what other people have experienced, even though we haven’t shared that experience, that we expand our own horizons and can then take that knowledge to work with them to help them heal and to help make the world a better place.
One of the more interesting challenges of my return to school is getting back into research for papers. I find that as I go through journal articles, publications, books etc. that there are many interesting things to read. Unfortunately, not all of them are related to the research that is supposed to be my focus and being a lateral thinker it is very tempting to go off on these tangents. I have been, more or less and rather more than less, successful at not getting sidetracked by other interesting articles. In life, as in research, it can be easy to get sidetracked from what is important in one’s life and to lose track of where we are in our journey of life.
As we move through life towards our goals and objectives there are many… ooh, that looks … nope, not going to look … Where was I. Oh, yes, there are many things that distract us and take us away from out path. Some of these things are beneficial, others are not. One of the benefits, in my opinion, of being a lateral thinker is that one can explore some of these side avenues and figure out reasonably quickly if they are worth exploring further. One must be careful, however, not to spend too much time pursuing dead ends or things that are detrimental to one’s well being or achieving of long term goals. There may be a short term benefit that has a much higher long term cost, and not just in monetary terms. The costs can be to our friendships, our families and our paid and unpaid work.
All that having been said, it’s also important to make sure that one does allow oneself to be distracted from time to time and to partake in fun and relaxing activities. These activities are important to help replenish energy levels and restore the mind, body and soul to allow us to continue on our paths. When we are rested and refreshed we are more attentive and more productive (something our society places a high value on). Just don’t take too much time away from the journey down the path of life.
As it is written in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”. For everything there is a time and we must discern these in our own lives. It is not always a time for play, and it is not always time for work.
One of the more interesting aspects of living in an urban area close to the downtown core is that there are a lot of people around from a range of social, economic and cultural backgrounds. Part of this diversity are those who have been marginalized by society. People who are living on the streets, people who may be prostitutes, addicted to various substances or drugs. In short people that are ignored by the rest of society. So how do we react to them when we see them? How do we react when they come through the doors of the church on a Sunday morning?
When it comes to the person on the street who is panhandling, possibly drunk or on drugs, most people walking by pretend that they do not exist. They are invisible. Others will react in more obvious ways such as crossing to the other side of the street, pointedly looking away. Sometimes even making derogatory comments about the person to those they are walking with or even directly to the person. Most people will avoid eye contact and when asked for change many won’t even acknowledge the request. The reaction when someone who appears to be ‘undesirable’ walks through the door of a church can be even worse.
Today I found myself reflecting on the idea of mind, body and spirit / soul being interconnected and what that has meant for me. Prior to my transition my mind, body and spirit were not in balance and were not well. From childhood I had problems with anger and depression. There was also an underlying sense that there was something not right with my body, but I could not identify what. As I reached my mid-thirties I hit an all time low with depression. At that point I did not care much for my body’s appearance and while I was paying some attention to my spiritual life it was very much secondary as far as my overall life was concerned. When I eventually realized what my problem was I was able to start working towards gaining a balance and health in mind, body and soul.