Deciding to Transition

Does someone decide to transition?

Many trans people that I've talked to or read about have said that it was never really a "decision" for them; that it was either transition or die (kill themselves, or die emotionally at a minimum and lose the will to live).

I can certainly identify with the deep despair, and even sense of being disconnected from this life as a result of feeling a gender incongruence. But I can't necessarily say that I've been within inches of ending my life. Why is that?

I was talking about this with my therapist this last week, and one thing we realized was that at each stage of my life when I did hit a wall, and started slipping into darker inner despair I reached out. I guess when I first hit that wall about seven years ago I was feeling myself slipping away so to speak to a dark space internally; just so tired of feeling like a fraud. When my parents and my girlfriend noticed something was wrong with me I reached out and went and saw a therapist. He gave me the courage to come out to my girlfriend, and the courage to examine my inner soul and seek answers.

And I did. I honestly, deliberately, and slowly started trying to sort out my feelings and educate myself about what "Gender Identity Disorder" was, and find others who shared a similar experience. I spent about four years in that phase educating myself, experimenting, trying coping mechanisms, and even ignoring it at points. But realized it wasn't going away when I went back for therapy the second time.

The second time I went back to therapy (with a different person) I was much more educated, and knew a lot more about myself. Namely, that I considered myself transgender, and that my G.I.D. hadn't gone away. I was scared to death at the possibility that I might need to transition, but I felt there were other things I could try first. Like could I get my Testosterone tested to see if it was too high, or maybe it was too low? Maybe I could lower my Testosterone enough that it would "take the edge off" my gender incongruence feelings so-to-speak. The test came back, my levels were perfectly normal in the male range. So after getting approval from my therapist and an endocrinologist I started on Testosterone blockers. I've successfully lowered my levels some (not extreme) over the last 18 months, and I have felt a little bit better.

But the feelings are still there. I still look in the mirror and see someone that doesn't feel like me, I still feel like a fraud - just playing the role of the boy in some really poorly written lifelong drama. And so, I'm up against the wall again.

Finally about a year ago my wife and I were in the car and she said I really should go to a therapist, she could tell I was getting down again, and had been for a few months. I knew I was too. I told her that I felt like lowering my Testosterone just wasn't working. It took some time for me to find a therapist I would trust with this kind of discussion that I needed to have, but I found one who was highly recommended - who I knew wouldn't try and push me one direction or another, and I made an appointment.

At each stage of my life journey the truth is I've been propelled towards transition, I've never had a time that I "decided" this path. At each stage of life I've reached out asking for help as I felt myself slipping into deep despair - and ended up taking small steps towards transition. But it's not as though I "decided" to transition. The decision was to allow myself to continue the spiral into despair; to lose control of my life, or to embrace who I am and live authentically. Through my whole life it has felt right to do what I can to make right what wasn't biologically right in the same way any girl would.

Whether I was a child crying in my bed at night begging Jesus to let me wake up in the right body, or wishing on a birthday candle, or a star - I've consistently reached out for treatment; I've sought out transition using whatever tools I had available at the time. Even during my young adulthood I prayed that same prayer.

Something drives me to correct what feels wrong on the deepest level. It's not like the "decision" part is 'to transition or not transition', but to either ignore who I am and have always been and go insane, or embrace it and try to live life as an authentic human being. Gender is such an integral part of the human experience, it is impossible to ignore. When one's spirit is at odds with their body it corrupts the joy of this life; absolutely. I understand that.

I know that to outsiders it probably will look like I made the decision to do this, but it's not that simple. For someone on the outside they would have to make the decision to transition, since they already accept and take for granted their own matching gender identity, body, and role. It would take an active intellectual process to move away from the congruence they already feel. For me it feels like a natural (even automatic) process to move towards gender congruence.

I never woke up one morning as a child and decided I was a girl, I just was one in the same way my cisgendered friends just "were" a boy or a girl. Inside, you just know what you are, from the earliest age. Neither did I wake up one morning and "decide" to transition. After 33 years of denial and fraud, I'm simply exhausted. It feels like "deciding" to sleep, you can willfully put it off for a while, but eventually you either give in and let yourself be human, or you die.

Speaking with my therapist last week I did start to realize that perhaps I'm fortunate, in that my current economic circumstances, and my support system both in terms of friends and medical care allow me the illusion of at least some degree of choice in the matter. Were I not in the economic middle class, with a health care policy that allowed me access to a therapist, and people around me who so far have continued to support and love me I'm not sure I wouldn't be the one standing on the end of a pier saying that I had no choice; that it was transition or die - which is hardly a choice at all.

It only takes me a minute or two to look back at the rest of my life and see a really clear pattern - to see this isn't going away, or getting "better" with time. There's just one way to fix gender incongruence; it's to find congruence. My spirit pushes me towards that. I choose life; authentic life. Like ignoring the need for sleep, transgender people like me can only ignore their gender incongruence for so long.

So is transition a choice? I guess I don't think the answer is as simple as the question.