Well when the conversation moved to me I described how "home" life was - now I was probably 19 at the time for reference. The looks of surprise on their faces is one I'll never forget. After I had finished the one who was sort of a friend said - "we always thought your home life was like the Cleavers from Leave It To Beaver" (dated reference I know). My response was that it was more like the Addams from Addams Family. I just never felt the need to share those things - perhaps to my detriment - but I didn't need/want pity or anything else; it just was how it was.
Once again, here we are at paragraph three and I'm just getting to the point behind this, I need to work on that I guess. Now nearly 25 years later this has sort of resurfaced for me; not my family life growing up; but whether or not to be private about things specifically my transition and related feelings and such. I found Susan's Place (and other sites such as Laura's Playground) early on and after a bit of "hiding in the background" I started to share things myself. It was uncomfortable early on , even hard to a point as I have always been so private. But even so I felt I had been benefiting from what others were sharing and I wanted to try and do the same for others. I shared my (limited) experience with things so far, such as how my wife and the few others I had told about things had handled it; some retail experiences, generally leaning towards things such as buying makeup and how I was treated at those stores; and so on. Eventually I even got brave enough to post a picture of me on the "Could I Pass One Day" thread.
Over time I got a little more involved, and stayed involved on the site until late last year - around October - just after I went to court. I then up and left there cold turkey and started this blog and lately I've been semi-active on Reddit, specifically the AskTransgender subreddit, but also others. I've touched on why I've left, it was more than one reason; but there was one that stood out more than others. For those of you that have read earlier entries this may be a bit of a rehash, but bear with me I'm going somewhere with the recap.
So why did I leave Susan's Place (and Laura's Playground too, even though I was never very active there)?
- To a small degree once I got my name and gender changed I felt my transition was more or less complete. Yes I'm still having hair removal done, yes I still want surgery - I've since had the Orchiectomy, but I still want SRS; though no desire for FFS, and BA is a question mark at the moment. But I felt my mental and emotional transition was done and as I've heard from many others who felt they've reached that point sites such as Susan's don't hold as much of an attraction. Now you could argue that people that have reached that stage are just as important as those still on the journey and I would not debate that point; however, experiences become dated, feelings and emotions aren't as fresh in your mind, processes like legal proceedings and hair removal and even surgery tend to evolve so there is a point where the wisdom isn't as helpful as that from people more currently transitioning.
- To a larger degree and this is mostly confined to Susan's - there was a lot of chaff to wade through to get to the wheat sometimes. By that I mean a lot of just banter back and forth that really didn't relate to transitioning, etc. That's all fine and good, but it did make finding things more difficult and while I would agree some of that is helpful, there was so much *I* felt it was becoming a nuisance personally. Additionally, and this is a problem at most sites, but it seemed like nobody could take a moment to search for something before posting. By that I mean simple things such as will laser hair removal work on light colored hair; all the way up to more complex things such as legal issues revolving around changing names or genders. I realize that people were going there for support and such, including me, but before I would post I would've done my research both on the Internet in general, but also on the forums at Susan's first as more often than not my question would either have been flat out answered (often more than once), or at least I was prepared enough to ask the question with all the pertinent information. I probably sound like I'm being a c*nt about this, and I don't mean to be, but goodness at some point a little effort on your own is nice before expecting to be spoon fed answers.
- But the biggest issue of all and the whole point of this post - and a new record for time taken to get to it - is guilt. So many people have such a hard time with their transition, be it issues with family, work, financial, and so on - well it got to be depressing in a lot of ways and I started feeling guilty. Why did I feel guilty? Simply put, because mine was going pretty well. I mean work aside, I can't imagine my transition going any better unless I hit the lottery and could afford to immediately get my surgery done and such. I mean I have a supportive wife - beyond supportive really, I can say the same about M as well. My daughter has been great about things. I have a friend who was already doing it and provided some good advice - thanks D. We're by no means wealthy - but we live a nice middle class life and we do have insurance which covers my prescriptions and Doctor visits - though I pay my therapist out of pocket. We can afford my therapist, we've been able to afford to replace my clothing with things I like - granted mostly on sale/clearance, even sometimes visiting thrift stores (an under-rated thing to do especially early on when you're not sure of sizes). I've had virtually nothing but positive experiences in public. I have a wonderful Doctor supervising my HRT who works with my regular GP who I just love. I was able to get my name and more important to me, my gender changed legally pre-surgery. Even though my biological family and I are estranged, my uncle and aunt have been wonderful. My friends post the other day aside; at the time I even felt like that was going well. It became hard for me to reconcile how well my transition - and life for that matter - was/is when constantly reading about so many who weren't having it go as well, or even flat out bad. I tried to be supportive, and hopefully for some I was; but what I found is that many people really didn't want the support they wanted a pity party and as much I personally don't believe it that for myself - well I would feel bad and take part.
The guilt started to consume me and depress me, I actually started to question why I had things going well and why others didn't. I hate to see anybody suffer, but it really hits close to home when it comes to transitioning since I am too. Yes I've worked hard to be in a position to transition in the manner that I have and such; but I realize that sometimes working hard isn't enough and for those I feel so bad that they struggle and have a hard time. Now obviously there are exceptions to this - I do constantly see those that seem to think things should just be handed to them and that they shouldn't expect to have to work hard at transitioning and to those - well good luck with that; but I just don't have the same empathy or guilt when it doesn't go as well for them. Not that I want them to fail; but I just can't feel the same way for those that could make effort and won't - that's no different than anything in life as far as I'm concerned.
But I'm getting off topic, the topic here isn't that small subset of people, but rather the larger group that tries as best they can and things just don't go their way. How do you handle that? Do you try and keep them positive via comments and/or anecdotes? Or do you just leave them be? I want to do the former, but anymore I find myself doing the latter more often and it pains me to say that, but in some cases I really just don't know what to say to try and be helpful - especially when at times it seems like they've mentally/emotionally given up on things such as their SO's, etc. I guess in part those are really rhetorical questions and I hope I haven't hit a nerve with anybody, but I needed to talk about this for my own benefit and writing these blog entries always helps. I promise the next one will be more upbeat. :)
- M
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