Being transgender is hard.

Being transgender isn't a choice. It's an inherent part of your genetics, the result of complex interactions between genes, at a level far more subtle than just what chromosomes you carry. If you're transgender, the only choice you have is how you're going to respond to that truth.

I 💜 being me! I 💜 being able to pull a dress off the rack, try it on, and walk out with a new favorite in my extensive wardrobe! And, yes, the gold heels add 2.5" to my height.

It typically starts with a vague feeling that something just isn’t right. While anyone can have body issues, gender dysphoria is something that cis people just don’t have real references for understanding. I'd struggled with this since puberty, at a time when LGBTQ people "didn't exist," especially in the Bible Belt of midwestern America, when being "other" could get you beaten up, or worse. It happened to me. Long before I had a clue about my truth, I was called all those awful names, by the bullies who tried to jam me into my middle school locker. I freaked out in high school, when one of my best friends bravely came out to me as bisexual, propositioning me, and my first thought was "what would it be like if I was his girlfriend?" I repressed that dream hard, trying to bury it as deeply as possible. Trust me, dysphoria can be a bitch, a persistent, nasty itch that only gets worse over time, bleeding into everything. It can consume you. Being transgender is hard.

I tried so hard to deny it, but it kept coming back. I (poorly) hid my female wardrobe. I'd dress in the late hours, when everyone else was asleep, marveling in shame just how right it felt being a woman. It wasn't sexual. It was just comfortable and natural to me. Being transgender is hard.

Once you start to recognize this dysphoria for what it is, you begin questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself, all your assumptions and habits. I had decades of behavior as inertia, things I had done forever. There’s often a huge struggle to accept your truth. Anxieties and fears fill your mind, because of the very awful way society treats transgender people. No one should have to deal with this horror, for any reason. Transgender people know they might lose everyone and everything. We can also be our own worst enemies, magnifying our anxieties and fears beyond all rationality. That can be disabling. On top of that, we also come with all the usual mental health challenges everyone faces. Being transgender is hard.

Once you come to terms with the difficult truth that you are transgender, you have to tell the people you love that you are not who they think you are. It takes incredible strength and courage to make that admission out loud. They have to come to terms, often suddenly, with a complete upending of what they thought and knew about you. They probably haven’t seen or understood this struggle you’ve been agonizing through for years or longer. Grieving for the "loss" of a transgender relative is very common, even though that relative is still right there. It is devastating to watch someone you love walk away from you, or worse. Being transgender is hard.

Once you’re out to the people you love and care about, the next huge step is stepping outside your door, in clothes that weren’t designed for your current proportions, still looking like the person you’ve been seeing in the mirror forever. It’s probably obvious to anyone looking at you who and what you are, and that thought echoes deafeningly in your head with every new stranger who crosses your path. You’re different, and being different is hard.

I love this dress! I am not subtle! This was in Erica's salon, at peak hair! She's incredible! 💜

Somewhere along the way, you may have decided you want to start hormone therapy, because that’s a scientifically well-understood, safe treatment, one that works well-documented wonders — despite what some people may scream. Depending on where you live, there will be varying levels of gatekeeping barriers in place, many from before doctors and therapists had any experience with the reality of being transgender, and many newly enacted in a frenzy of intolerance. Many primary care doctors don’t have experience with transgender patients. The same is true of therapists. Ideally, you can find and afford an endocrinologist who understands how hormone therapy works and is capable of explaining it. Ideally, you can find a therapist with experience in gender issues and transitioning. Ideally, you have some kind of medical insurance that will cover all this. Sadly, that's rarely the norm. Being transgender is hard.

And then you need patience, more patience than most, because hormone therapy is magic, but it’s SLOW magic. You’ve started the process and you can feel some of the tiny early signs. Your dysphoria may have dropped significantly once you’ve started, but, but... you’re not changing (fast enough). That same face stares back at you month after month. The truth is that everyone else is probably seeing the changes, but, because you’ve been staring at your face and body for years, you just can’t see it. Being transgender is hard.

One day, about fifteen months in for me, you look in the mirror and you do a double take. There’s a new face in the mirror, a little different, one that makes your heart skip a beat. They start showing up more often, and you can’t stop smiling. If you’re fortunate, you quickly get to a point where that’s you in the mirror, and that’s the you everyone else sees. Statistically, there must be millions of transgender people, and more than a billion who fall into the broad space of LGBTQ folks. Nevertheless, there is the very vocal but tiny minority, screaming for attention in a (too) slowly growing wave of acceptance, who will be awful, but maybe they won’t see you now. Maybe. Being transgender is hard.

"Beauty is pain," many people remind me. I'm fortunate to not have a lot of body hair, but getting rid of what I have has required many painful and expensive laser and electrolysis sessions, and I'm not done yet. I want my facial hair gone, because dysphoria is a bitch. I've also worked really hard to lose weight, down more than eighty pounds in the last year, with more to go. Being transgender is hard.

You’ll note I haven’t mentioned gender confirmation surgery of any kind. The barriers, gatekeeping, cost, and availability of qualified, trained surgeons make this even harder — and, if your doctors and therapists know what they’re doing, they’ll advise you to let the hormones work for a couple of years before you consider some of the surgeries. Being transgender is hard.

This is just some of what I've gone through. I'm writing this at 66, 28 months into my transition, starting on my 64th birthday, two years fully out. I’m the single parent who raised two kids to adulthood entirely on my own. Coming out to them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I retired from a successful career, extensively vetted for my security clearance. My doctors, therapists, medical science, my experience, and my common sense all tell me I'm normal, not irrational, crazy, or an "abomination of nature." I’ve never been happier and more comfortable with myself. I 💜 love 💜 my life as a woman. Choosing to accept my truth and starting my transition was the single best mental health decision I've ever made, and a surprisingly good physical health decision as well.^[1] Nevertheless, being transgender is still hard.

Hot Girl Summer! One of my oldest, most repressed teenage dreams wondered what it would feel like to wear a bikini like this, to walk around in it, and to go swimming. I know what it feels like now — it's incredible!

Surprisingly to me, I am not subtle. Erica, my amazing friend and stylist, was one of the first people I came out to. She has carte blanche with my hair, and I 💜💜💜 what she's done for me. My hair is always brilliantly 💜 purple 💜, usually with streaks of pink and blue tips. That purple matches my nails (fingers and toes), my usual eyeshadow, and my favorite lip bond. I am always wearing a fashionable dress, as I no longer own pants. I coordinate my jewelry and accessories. I love wearing my heels, even if I'm 6'0" in my flats. I've bought more clothes, shoes, and jewelry in my 28 months of transition than I did in the 28 years before that. (I have absolutely no idea where this powerful fashion sense comes from, or my newfound love of purple, but I am not complaining!) I think it's still obvious who and what I am, but people treat me as the joyous, confident, beautiful woman that I am (and was always meant to be), and that's how it should be.

Being transgender is hard, but it's who I am, and, for the first time in a very full life, I truly love who I am. You can't beat happy.^[2]

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