Actually, you have no idea what I’ve gone through as a trans person to get to this point in my life, so take your “Your just a man in a dress” comment, and stick it up your fucking arse!
I absolutely hate being called this, and to get to this point in my life you need to know what it’s taken both mentally and physically to get here because you obviously have no fucking idea what it means to be trans! No idea at all!
Let’s take the mental first!
As a child you are confused as you don’t feel right in the body you’re in and you tell your parents who either passively tell you, “You’re a boy and boys look like how you do” or aggressively tell you “You were born a boy and boys play this sport and wear this and behave like this!”.
Eventually, even though still confused, you ask less and less because the older you get the more aggressively the answer above is spoken to you, especially as I grew up in the 70’s/80’s.
As a young child you dress up with your female cousin’s but after a certain point, it’s frowned upon by your parents and family and so, you retreat into yourself and become a shell of a child. Someone who has no interest in male things as pursuing female things is really frowned upon the older you get!
Then imagine, if you will, waking up every day and looking at your body, which is usually just a glimpse because you can’t stand to look at yourself, and hating it. You catch a glimpse in the mirror and go urgh! but don’t know why.
School changing rooms really freaked me out and I hated sports days.
It’s not because your fat, hairy, muscly or hundreds of other reasons because truly you know the reason but it’s hidden in there. You’ve repressed it, firstly for your own psyche, secondly by society, and thirdly because you’ve been told “this” is what you are!
You know deep down you’re not a man, you know you want to be a woman but you repress this because society has beat you into a shell of a human being.
You reach puberty and to please others you have a vain hope that puberty will “fix you”, but you the older you get the more you overcompensate because you’re told you’re a man.
You do crazy stuff to prove this. You fight, learn martial arts, play stupid sports (even though you hate them), you get in trouble with the law, you build your body up, you bed women, etc…. But none of this makes you happy!
You crossdress because there’s a desire there to do this. You want to look feminine. It feels good when you look in the mirror but you are now confused as society deems you a man and your now a “man in a dress” or “Tranny“, a phrase I don’t think anyone likes. I dont even think Transit Vans like being called this!
So, you end up get depressed, really depressed and you know why but pretend to those close to you, that you don’t know why!
Your parents always rationalise this with “it’s just a phase” but it’s not! It’s there all the time and it gets really bloody hard to repress this the longer it goes on!
You over compensate more and more as you get older, I raced motorbikes, rock climbed, cliff jumped, free dove, walked on my own for weeks at a time. I even found love and married, tried for a family but still I crossdressed and was still unhappy!
You get to a point where you can’t talk to anyone about this, how do you start this conversation?
You seek help but the medical profession you approach offer no help other than pills and potions or they put you on a waiting list so long by the time you get to see someone you’ve either done something stupid, have self medicated to the point where you either close to addiction, have damaged yourself or have a habit!
The NHS mental services really are piss poor from my experience and depression is looked at as a dirty word!
You end up sad and alone because you’ve reached the point where you know what’s wrong but now believe the rhetoric that you’re a man but would rather be alone or dead!
You agonise over the notion you are gay but you know you can’t possibly be as the idea of looking at other men is as abhorrent as looking at your own body, and your brain reminds you of those school sports hall dressing rooms 🤮
You seek psychiatric help privately which gives you a place to vent and helps get the thoughts out of your head and after much talking and a referral, you reach a point where your psychotherapist says, “I have a diagnosis for you. You’re are transgender”
You thank the therapist and take this diagnosis away. You then sit there looking at it, reading it over and over again. Not just for hours or days but for weeks, months, and in some people I’ve spoken to, this is years.
You look at this diagnosis, you study about what this means, medical and societally, and absorb the information before you finally admit to yourself, “Yes this is me! This is what I am like!”
The information presented to you in books, the internet, and support groups is bewildering and it’s difficult to make sense of it all and it takes time for your mind to digest all this information.
Being ultimately honest with yourself was like being shocked with 10,000,000 volts and it’s changed me as a person. I’m honest with everyone now even if what I sometimes say is not sunshine and lollipops.
You know some people think that I just rushed out and bought a new wardrobe full of nice dresses, tonnes of makeup and changed my name overnight! It’s taken me two years and I’ve only just started.
I’m evolving as each day goes by and I’m not the same person I was at the start of my transition.
Now, even after two years of transition and 2 years of therapy, there’s been years of heartache, years of sitting, pondering, crying (and I mean lots of crying), and lots of thinking. So much thinking it’s kept me awake for days!
The years go by and you find yourself evolving into a woman, mentally and physically, and your friends and family are accepting.
However, out in the real world, I occasionally get the “you’re a man in a dress comment” and this is voiced by someone who usually falls into two categories.
Young men or late middle-aged women.
That’s it! Never had the “your just a man in a dress” comment off any other age group.
Don’t give me that negative BS unless you understand what I’ve been through!
I haven’t even started on the physical things I’ve had to go through!
I’m on hormones now and the hormones I take are changing my body but imagine going through puberty at 50 years old, but that a topic for another blog post!