[continuation]
*There has to be some reason everything suddenly seemed so right when I started living in the world as a woman, as if I were suddenly directly connected to the world and the people in it, instead of always feeling one step removed, always a little off center or out of focus. There has to be some reason why people in general – male and female – are so much nicer, more open, more friendly with me than they used to be. There has to be some reason why I don’t hate who I am anymore, and no longer go through life wishing I were something else, and why I’m not perpetually anxious all the time. There has to be some reason why everyone seems to perceive and treat me as a woman. And there has to be some reason why all of this seemed to happen so easily and why so many things in my life seem so much easier. Which, of course, is why I wanted to transition; I certainly didn’t do it to make my life more difficult. That committed to “being a woman no matter what,” I never was!
And whatever the reason is for all these things, doesn’t really matter. Since I’m reasonably sure that the magic light bulb of “feeling like a woman” is never going to light up inside my head, these feelings are pretty much all I have. And if they’re the best I’m ever going to have, then I might as well go with it and finally believe that I am what I’ve always wanted to be, and what everyone seems to tell me I am. (After all, how is it that most natal women “know” they’re women, or most natal men “know” they’re men? Partly, of course, because their bodies conform, to a greater or lesser degree, to what’s considered standard for their sex. But also, I suspect, because everyone’s been telling them they were girls or boys, everyone’s been treating them as girls or boys, from the moment they were born. So, I might as well go with the program!)
Hopefully, then, one byproduct of the last three years going the way they have is that I’m done with all the omphaloskepsis of “am I? am I really? why don’t I feel like one?,” round and round in endless circles. For me, “that way madness lies; let me shun that; no more of that.”
And please don’t think that I’ve spent the last three years stuck inside my head thinking about all that. Most of the time, I have too much else to think about! After all, I can honestly say that transition-related issues (except as they affect my son) haven’t been even in the top four in importance of things I’ve had to deal with in the last few years. Being a parent has been more important, and required far more emotional resources (especially the last few years, with all the college-related stuff). Dealing with my job. Dealing with the devastation of the breakup with [a woman I was in a relationship with]. And, as always, having to deal with, and worry about, my health.
So, transition per se has been maybe number 5. Which is probably one reason I’ve found it so relatively easy, in a practical sense!*
By the way, a lot of the self-doubts about “really” being a woman went away after I had GRS in 2009. Not that I think that’s what made me a woman or makes anyone else a woman, but it helped me a lot not to have that cognitive dissonance about my body anymore. For me, at least, the physical dysphoria was always at least as strong as the social dysphoria. It was never solely a question of preferring the social role associated with women, let alone about clothing.