=Thought for the Day=

All my life, from as early as I can remember,  the people in my life were constantly beseeching me to "act like a man." Parents, friends, my spouse, eventually and inevitably (in retrospect) my divorce lawyer…they all seemed flummoxed by my seeming inability to "man up." Why wasn't I like other men? No "real" man acted like I did. What was wrong with me? I didn't know myself. I tried. I really did. I thought I was being like other men. I mimicked carefully everything a real man did. I dressed like they did, talked like they did, carried myself like they did—or so I thought. I did what real men did, if maybe not as well. Where was the difference?  What was the problem? No matter how hard I tried, the refrain was always the same. Somehow I was a disappointment. Somehow I wasn't acting like I should be acting. Somehow I wasn't being a man. Whatever that was!

Finally I gave up trying to figure out how to be a man and I started to be myself. Suddenly, no more confusion. I didn't have to think about how I was acting. I didn't have to plan it all out. Everything came naturally.

To my surprise, however, when I announced my transition, a lot of the same people who never thought I behaved like a "real man," who were forever accusing me of not being a man at all,  brushing off my equally ardent defenses and "proofs" of my manhood, unexpectedly did an abrupt about-face. Now they couldn't accept that I was a woman. Suddenly, no matter that I agreed with their previous estimation that I wasn't a man, no matter who I thought myself to be, no matter what hormone therapies or surgeries I might undertake, I'd never be a woman in their minds. How could this be possible? What was the basis of their denial? It's supremely ironic…comic, really.
  Because you're a man, that's why!

This is pretty much the view of society at large—or at least a large segment of it. No matter what you do, how far you go, even if you have complete gender reassignment surgery, these people still will not accept that you are a woman. Then it's the fact that you don't have a womb and can't have children, though someday I imagine science will create an artificial version of a womb. Even at that point, you won't be a "real" woman because of your genetic makeup (although science has already shown certain genetic ambiguities in transgender people). Last, but not least, the argument will be that you're a man because that's what God made you. End of story.

Which is why anyone undergoing transition should think long and hard about what procedures they want to undergo—and to undergo them only for the "right" reason, which is that it's the right choice for you. Because if you're opting for surgery, especially something as serious and complicated and expensive as full gender reassignment surgery, primarily on the basis that the world will at last accept and acknowledge you as a "real" woman, you're sadly mistaken in believing that will do the trick. Not even Houdini could do that trick. 

I'm not underestimating the relief of walking out of doors and not having people stare, point, snicker, insult you—or worse. I'm not underestimating how gratifying and convenient and essentially life-affirming, it is to have the gender designation changed on your driver's license and birth certificate, but there is a limit to what you should do to fit in with the expectations of society. I don't broadcast the fact that I'm transgendered. I'd just as soon people consider me female, especially on trips to the grocery store and in casual or professional encounters with people whose business with me by it's very nature never approaches the deeply personal. I'm not running or hiding from my transgendered identity. But it makes it easier to navigate the world if you're not turned into an object of curiosity. The fact is, I've dealt with my issues and it took me a painfully long time to do so. I've got other things to do now. I don't particularly want to take up a lot more time dealing with other people's issues with me being transgendered. 

So, ultimately, it is a matter of convenience and convention that I identify publicly as a "female." Since I have to choose between one or the other—at least the way our society is presently constructed—then I choose female, since that is the closest acceptable approximation of what I am, both mentally, physically, and hormonally. But, in reality, I am a third thing, somewhere in between. In absolute truth, I am my own thing. Which means, that to a lot of conservatively minded people, I'm no-thing at all. I'm not a woman—since I wasn't born that way physically—and I'm not a man because, well, would any man look and act the way I look and act? So really, by their computation, I'm no-thing at all. I simply can't exist. And if I insist, as Descartes said I could, that I must exist since I think I do, then I must be profoundly insane.

Well, maybe. 
But as Krishnamurti once wrote, "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." 
I look in the mirror and see someone looking back. And she looks good enough and real enough for me.