There are many different facets to being a transsexual, some of them different from person to person. One thing that remains the same, however, is that being a transsexual is a choice. There are many transsexuals that don’t want to admit that there is any choice involved with being a transsexual. Admitting that there is choice involved serves to give fuel to the people that would have us crushed under the heal of society. Making a choice, to some people, means that the extremists are correct in their assessment that we should be hated and ostracized by society. It appears to give credence to the people that think with their phobias instead of their minds. But speaking the truth is important to each of us that identifies as a transsexual. The truth opens the door for positive changes. The truth opens the door to self acceptance. The truth opens the door to people that genuinely wish to understand. The truth spans political parties and ideological divisions. But most important, the truth lets us take pride in ourselves again.
Before I continue, I feel I need to separate the decision to become a transsexual into two parts. First, there are the feelings that drive us to make the transition; and then there is the decision to make the transition itself. It is important to divide the early process into these two parts, otherwise all the talk of choices is simply lost in the noise of one person speaking past another. While I might insist that I didn’t have a choice, I would be referring to the feelings that drove me. Another person, insisting that I made a choice, would be referring to the actions I have taken in response to my feelings.
There are several hypotheses on the cause of the feelings a person has that might lead them to become a transsexual. Some of these hypotheses compete, while others are complimentary. Trying to find a root cause to transsexual feelings is difficult to say the least; and the more scientists look into these causes, the more possibilities seem to present themselves. There is even the possibility that the causes are different between the male-to-female transsexual and the female-to-male. Regardless of the cause or causes, these feelings propagate through a person whether that person wants them to or not. There is no choice whether these feelings will go away; so the real choice is what are we going to do about them?
What we do about these feelings is where the choice to become a transsexual arrives in our lives. I don’t think it is unreasonable, from the stories I have read, to believe that there can be different magnitudes of these feelings. For some people, I don’t think the feelings ever create a bigger problem than they are able to handle in their original gender role. If the pain isn’t more than the person can tolerate, they might make the decision to continue in their birth assigned gender role. For other people, staying in their assigned gender role can be so painful that it is no longer possible to continue functioning in society. There comes a point when it might even be to painful to continue living. But regardless of the extent of the pain our feelings cause us, we need to realize that we are still making a choice. For too many of us, the choice comes down to life or death, transition or suicide. This is the first choice we have to make.
Whether you have to make the choice between life and death or not, you still have to weigh the value of your pre-transition life with your post-transition hopes. Weighing these decisions is a balancing act that shows the magnitude of the pain we face. On one side of the scales is our family, friends, livelihood, home, money, community, safety, health, reputation, religion, and social network: on the other side, our need to be ourselves. It can be one of the most difficult and frightening decisions we will ever face, but it is a decision none the less. Most of us are all too familiar with this decision. We have lived with this decision brewing under the facade we called our lives until the weight of our needs outweighed the sum total of our pre-transition lives.
Transition brings on its own pain. Few, if any, of us are able to make a transition without being the center of attention for months if not years. There are too many mannerisms that need to be relearned, skills that need to be practiced, and prejudices that need to be faced. Often we are put through the very fires of hell for the hope of being ourselves. Often we can’t imagine the depth of the pain we will have to endure to let our true selves surface. Even if we thought we knew all the facets of society that would reject us, more often than not, these weren’t even the tip of the iceberg: but this was our choice. The medications, possible electrolysis, and surgeries are a crippling reality in themselves: but this was our choice. The loss of friends and family breaks our hearts and isolates us from society: but this was our choice. The loss of jobs and income ruins us financially: but this was our choice.
If none of these things sound like a choice to you, then you should consider yourself lucky. Transsexuality is the choice of the spirit over the body: a choice no one should ever have to make. But it is in admitting that we made the choice that we rebuild our self esteem — something that is often a casualty of our transition. By standing behind our decision to become the people we should be, we begin to loose the feeling that we are a victim of life.
There are people that would be our allies, but these people deserve the truth. There is no need to hide behind the victim mentality and claim that we had no choice. Only by explaining our choices can people understand the trials we had to endure, the strength of our character, and the value of the people we have become. We want people to see who we really are, not pretend that we are the poor victims of genetics, or hormones, or whatever the current hypothesis for gender dysphoria is.
