WOMAN OR TRANSWOMAN

When I started my transgender journey many years ago I thought I was transitioning from male to female. There was a clear destination to the journey: womanhood. 

Through years of hormones and electrolysis, "real life experience," and, finally, Gender "Reassignment" Surgery (GRS), I doggedly clung to the goal of becoming a "real" woman. I'd heard other "transsexuals" speak of being reborn, going so far as to abandon their original birth dates in preference for their day upon the operating table. The long-term effects of hormones, the self affirmation of RLE, and the skill of the surgeon made it seem as if the objective was possible. 

Still something inside me could not reconcile the facts of the matter. I innately realized that longing is not being, and no matter how hard we try we can't always become what we so fervently wish to be. Despite all the time, energy, money and pain invested in the pursuit of this objective, acknowledging that the dream would never completely come true, was unexpectedly relieving. Coming to terms with this reality enabled a whole self integration. Dispelling an untruth allowed for a much cleaner, healthier view of self and world.

So I don't claim to be a woman. I'm a transwoman, infused with feminine psychic energy and now the proud owner of reconfigured female acoutrements, yet still rooted in male biology. My XY chromosomes are still there. My cultural experience, from boyhood through four decades of male privilege cannot be erased. Sure, if I could snap my fingers and be born again, I'll try it as a full-fledged female, but since that's not in the cards, I must accept the blend of masculine and feminine thoughts and feelings that define me, and affirm the sacredness of that reality.  

I am a gender explorer, a traveler across the great divide. It's a rare privilege and perspective. Why should I deny such a special characteristic in favor of a figment, however appealing. I'm better off grounded and balanced in me, rather than in fiction.

So it's better for me to face up to reality and acknowledge and appreciate that I am not man, I am not woman, I am transwoman, meaning a female-like individual who has emerged from maleness. This is amazingly healing for me. 

Yet this identity is also better for others. Most cis-gendered people, those who enjoy perfect congruity of biological sex and gender identity, cannot fathom the mindset of those who would change their sex, and inherently doubt that such a thing is possible, though some are kind enough to play along with the charade to some extent. They're actually correct. You can't change your sex. But you can change your gender, if you want to. That's been going on for thousands of years. The "transgender" people of today are the "eunuchs" of antiquity, the volunteer eunuchs anyway. It was easy enough for cultures back then to assimilate eunuchs; they were cool people, versatile, creative, non-threatening, not so very different from we modern transgender people.

It seems we could go a lot further and faster toward assimilation if we self-identify as something that is at once more accurate for ourselves and palatable for cis-gendered people. I never felt comfortable telling a woman that I am a woman. It just didn''t fly in my mind, much less theirs. It's an insult to their experience, as well as a wild conflation of my historicity and physicality. But when the term transwoman is substituted for woman the effect is very different. Now I'm on solid intellectual ground, and they are offered the opportunity to open to a new possibility that doesn't impinge upon their identity. So the term "trans" becomes a portal to acceptance. 

Giving up the dream of ever becoming a woman, I am free to be a real transwoman. No denial or delusion is required. I don't have to hide or devalue my history. I don't have to twist myself into a theoretical pretzel. It's not what I originally envisioned, but now I believe I have found the pathway that I was born for.

Arete
Annie R.