A topic that inevitably comes up when people grapple with understanding transsexuals is the “decision” to transition from one sex to the other. That word – decision – is quite a hot button for transsexuals. It’s often even a hot button among transsexuals.
Because, you see, there is a strong belief among many transsexuals that we didn’t decide anything. We were born with a condition not of our choosing. It wasn’t any kind of decision to be who we are. Transition, for many of us, wasn’t so much a decision as it was a coping mechanism trying to make life bearable after it had become intolerable to live as a person we knew we were not.
I fear I’ve previously been a bit flip about this issue. The most directly I have spoken about this in the past has been to say, “I didn’t decide to transition. I decided not to kill myself. Transition was simply the result of that choice.” I’ve said that more than once.
While that statement is true, I now recognize that characterization as a kind of evasion. It’s a truth that fails to enlighten, and that latter part is not accidental.
At the age of 37 I suffered a total breakdown. I was barely able to leave the house, and when I did I was either drunk or severely hungover. This was not an event. It was my life. And it was getting worse. No end in sight. And I didn’t care.
Here is a comment I placed in response to a nearly identical question on the (incidentally excellent) blog Is This Me?
(in response to the question: “What exactly was the problem you had with being a man?”)
“It wasn’t any one thing, in the end it was everything. I literally couldn’t function anymore. Total breakdown. Psychological, emotional, and physical.
At the time I didn’t attribute this to “being a man,” I attributed it to my life not being worth living. Being a man just seemed like a reality I had to accept, like I accepted that I had to breathe and eat and sleep.
And I did accept it. And also I didn’t want to live any more. It didn’t occur to me until lots of therapy later that these two things were related.
It was through therapy that I came to see that this one embarrassing secret – the thing that turned out to have the name “transsexual” – was at the root of all the rest. I knew I had weird emotional baggage around gender issues, but I was still not my therapist’s most easily convinced patient on the topic. I didn’t tell her I wanted to transition. I insisted it was impossible, so what else could she offer?
But gradually I made baby steps toward transition – purely mental ones at first. Allowing myself to believe hypothetically that such and such was possible, and such and such was true. What would that mean? And I realized that if those things were true I would actually want to live. So that told me those things were pretty important.
It STILL took a lot more convincing to believe those hypotheticals could be possible in reality, but that was the nature of my decision process leading to transition.
So for all of that, I leave it to those who read this to decide for themselves what exactly it was I “decided.”
Edit: p.s. If you want more detail – mine and others – there’s more good stuff in the comments section at the blog I linked above.
Salad Bingo 
Diana,
I wish I could write with the clarity that you do. This is an amazing piece. Thanks for sharing it with us 🙂
Your post reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin.
Beautiful, just like you.
I love that quote!
Thanks Ariel…I do too. I remember when I first read it years ago, it hit me like a ton of bricks….what a validating idea it was to me…that each path had pain and was hard…but I had to blossom, with all the pain and risk involved in that. That also reminds me of this song.
“Rather die then grow”. So poignant and sad because I really loved someone who almost literally said that to me…sad when people choose to “rather die then grow”…but I refuse to do that…no matter how scary it is, and sometimes lonely…I want to grow and live. And I am going to write a blog post about that. Diana has inspired me to be brave enough to blog…and now everything I think looks like a blog post to me. : )
Reading this makes me wonder how much I lost and how much I gained by not deciding to transition so much as having the major part fall on top of me. Still hard to come to terms with.
Thanks, helps me think clearer in this area.
I for one am glad that you made the decesion to transition. It allowed me to keep one of my dearest friends. You’ve helped me understand myself so much better and where I’m going in life. Thank you for being such a wonderful person. Luv ya bunches!!
Stephy
My mom (who is becoming increasingly wonderful about my transition, by the way) phrases it to me in a way that a few other friends and family have which is essentially, “If this [transition] is what you really want, I’m happy for you.” While I’m grateful for their acceptance and I wouldn’t want to discourage it, the idea that I’m “doing this” because it’s merely “something I *want* to do” (or even if it’s because I “really, REALLY want to do it” feels incredibly misleading. That statement feels like a massively watered down version of reality, because it implies I had another viable option besides transitioning. The fact that I believe to my core that I did not have another (reasonable) option is why the need to transition was not a decision for me, but rather a realization.
For me, transition is something I am compelled to do with every molecule of my being in the same way I would fight to swim to the surface were I trapped underwater and in imminent danger of drowning. I didn’t decide to become a transsexual – I simply realized I was. I didn’t exactly decide to transition; rather, I decided to stop *not transitioning* and give my true, authentic self permission to exist, finally.
It is nice to see people finally begin to be honest with themselves. It really is too bad that it is so difficult.
I guess that is the value of Faith. IF one has Faith, it is so much easier to believe in and attempt the miraculous.