June 20, 1997 is my second birthday, the day I received my first shot of testosterone. December 9, 1997 is also my second birthday – the day I had chest reconstruction surgery. What a ride it’s been!
I had no mentors back then. There was only one peer support group in Portland, and my ex-partner (long, largely-irrelevant story there) found it first, so I couldn’t join. At the time, this left me feeling bereft, as internet support was pretty rudimentary then and I felt isolated.
What helped me most then? Kate Bornstein’s book Gender Outlaw provided me with a different way of looking at transition. Kate’s light-hearted approach helped me take myself seriously for the first time in my life. Nothing else at that time did. So what would have helped me to know back then? I would have loved it had a wise mentor told me the following:
• You can do this. Yes, you come from a family where no one takes you seriously because you’re the youngest. Yes, you come from people who expect you to have all the answers in place before you ask the questions. But it’s your life, not theirs. So – live it. You’re not responsible for their feelings, but you are responsible for taking charge of your life.
• You are enough. Your transition might not look exactly like the next guy’s, you might have different ways of viewing gender, you might take longer than your trans friends to start hormones – none of that matters. It’s your transition, it’s yours to define.
• You will act and feel like an adolescent for awhile after you start hormones. This is normal, so take a deep breath when you feel that cockiness coming on a bit too strong, back off a little. Your friends are not all 14-year-old boys, especially if they’re not transguys recently on hormones, and they’re not going to appreciate this energy.
• It’s fine to be single through this process. Then you can be as self-centered as you need to be while you reinvent yourself.
• The Standards of Care aren’t the be-all and end-all way for a therapist to interpret your transition. You’re entitled to find a therapist who views transition as an issue of identity emergence. You’re entitled to find a therapist who will work with you to help you clarify who you are, and will then help you become that person, as you navigate your way through this process that changes everything in your life. If your choice is between a therapist who doesn’t get it at all, who puts roadblocks in your way through lack of understanding, or a few good friends to see you through it – go with the friends.
• Don’t try to map out your long-term future too concretely. You can’t really know where this will lead you beyond the next step. Try the hormones, then ask, “Is this enough?” Make surgery decisions after you’ve been living “guy” for awhile. There is no right or wrong way to transition, so it’s fine if you want hormones and no surgery, or chest surgery and no hormones. Whatever. Just take what feels right to you as the next step, without worrying too much about what the step after might look like. Internalize AA’s Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
• You can be loved. Back in 1997, how could you know you would get married on Feb. 5, 2009?
• Get over viewing this as a psychological disorder, despite what the DSM says. Take in what a good friend once told me: “What a gift, to be able to live as more than one sex in the same lifetime.” Yeah.
• Let yourself be all you can be, don’t hold yourself back out of fear of your family’s reaction. You are family to them as they are family to you. It’s going to be hard to watch them grieve the loss of what you’re moving away from as fast as you can. They have to go through a transition process with you, but it’s different from yours. They have to let go of “daughter,” “sister,” and “niece,” only seeing what they are losing. They can’t yet see what they might gain – a happier, more centered family member that they now have a much better chance to know. To them, it’s almost as if you died. It’s hard to watch, and feels unsupportive, but that’s not where they’re coming from. But watch out for your brother-in-law – he is going to remain unsupportive. Rush Limbaugh has had too great an influence on his world view. The others will come around, over time. And believe it or not, eventually you’ll just laugh at your brother-in-law. He will one day look like an ass when he calls you “she” at a restaurant and the waiter doesn’t look at you, but looks at him like he’s got Alzheimer’s. Enjoy the moment, when it comes.
• Let yourself feel lonely. You’re losing your lesbian community, and you don’t yet have community to replace it. That’s okay. You didn’t fit that identity, and now that you know it, you really can’t stay. Know that in the future, your individual lesbian friends are still going to be there, but it’s not going to be the same. They knew you when, you will have shared history, but you may not feel like you have shared future. Don’t worry about it – other friends will come along who understand gender as you’ve come to. They will understand you, and your journey, better than your lesbian friends can. Eventually, you will feel like you’ve grown and your lesbian friends have not. But that’s not quite it – it’s just that you’ve grown beyond that community, while to them, it’s still home.
• Keep in mind what a magnificent thing you’ve done, reinventing your entire self and life from the ground up. What courage that took! It’s not a courageous thing to have been born trans, you had no control over that. But you do have control over what you do about it. You’re taking control, and here’s what you will accomplish: You’ll go back to school, get your BA in psychology, move 700 miles to get your MA in counseling psychology, move back to Portland, open up your therapy practice, work with a supervisor for over three years accruing your hours, get your therapist license, publish a book, and become widely respected as a trans therapist and writer. You’ll retire as a therapist, write another book, and eventually, you’ll write your memoir. Oh yeah, and you’ll get married to a wonderful woman and become a step-father to a 16 year old daughter.
That’s it for now, but I may have a whole other list for you in the future, because that’s my last piece of advice: Don’t expect the journey to end.
Take care,
Reid
Reid Vanderburgh 