The story so far…

Originally posted 25/04/2013

There are all sorts of things we take for granted every day, like food, showers, pavements, gravity etc. Your average person will wake up every day, brush their teeth, get dressed and carry on as normal. He or she might get the train to work, read the free trashy paper (I mean you, Metro), buy an overpriced cup of coffee, perhaps worry about money, family, work, or any of the other random problems that people have. Not many people, less than 500,000 according to GIRES, will wake up and immediately have that ever present questioning of their own gender gnawing away at the back of their brains. And on a bad day, it’s not gnawing at the back, it’s snarling and snapping right at the front.

I’ve felt like this for a long time, since childhood in fact. Back then, the internet had to be started up with a backing track of Sinclair Spectrum-esque loading noises. It was expensive, painfully slow and a much smaller place than it is now, so my main exposure to trans women was through the media, who portrayed them as freaks in sensationalised ‘sex-swop shocker!!’ stories. Trans men never seemed to get a look in, which given the nature of the articles was probably a blessing.

With no real information, no genuine understanding of my feelings, the point-and-laugh attitude of the press, and of course the hellish social structure of high school, I did everything I could to hide my feelings, convinced that I was some sort of mentally damaged freak. The gender identity dysphoria would ebb and flow; somedays manageable, others intolerable. But there were aspects of my personality that would be considered male by society: I liked football, Clint Eastwood films, and of course, girls. So I put the possibility of ever crossing the great divide to the back of my mind, and convinced myself that I could be happy as a man. I kept my secret throughout my 20s; I had met a girl who I wanted to be with her forever, and I was determined not to let my ‘defect’ ruin my chances of a ‘normal’ life. She had already unknowingly saved me from one major bout of depression, and my love for her grew quickly and seemed to have no limits.

So what happened? Why, at 32, am I now single, and thinking about what colour I want my hair to be when it eventually grows long enough, and when would be the best time to get my ears pierced? Put simply, I failed. I tried my best to be a man, but I didn’t have it in me. The GID became so bad that a lengthy and traumatic bout of depression came down on me like a thick blanket; thoughts of suicide spurred me to seek professional help through my GP, and the weight of carrying my secret for so many years became too much, leading me to tell my long term girlfriend and soulmate about my identity struggles. Things began to snowball from then onwards; I had terrible anxiety on a near daily basis, and life was becoming harder by the day. After various counselling sessions, I walked back into the doctor’s office, and asked for a referral to a gender identity clinic.

And that’s where I’ll leave this post. Plenty has happened between that point and now, but those events need posts of their own.

Bye for now!

Amy 🙂