(Trans)Woman In Progress: A Journal, part one

It's all in the wrist. Remembering this makes me think of my school years.

I think it was around age eight or nine that I finally figured out the secret to walking like a man. This was important, because I kept getting teased at school and was desperate to fit in, even if it meant practicing stupid things like this in front of the mirror for hours every day.

The secret arrived in the form of the dialogue overheard on one of my mother's soap operas, a comment about how men always walk around dragging their knuckles about everything. Of course, the real meaning was lost on an elementary school kid, and so there I was, practicing trying to look like a knuckle-dragging gorilla, ook-ook.

It worked. It worked beautifully.

The way I understand it, it's supposed to be instinctive as to how a man and woman hold hands. His hand clasps over, hers cups under. Or, I have to take everybody's word on that at least, because my instincts were always backwards to what I was supposed to be. That's one of the things about being a transsexual -- your brain never fits what you're given.

Anyhow, there's a subtle and fascinating difference in how men and women use their wrists and hands, and it makes a tremendous difference in how each present. Men tend to stand, walk, move with their knuckles forward, ready to rush right in and get hands-on with whatever situation they might find themselves in. Women tend to relax, hands at their sides, palms almost a few degrees toward the forefront, almost a subconscious kind of vulnerability (sorry, ladies). Men grab with their hands -- women accept.

This has all come back to me while I now try to unlearn all those things that I meticulously practiced as a kid, until they became reflex for me. I'm amazed how turning those palms just those few degrees forwards pulls up your posture, draws your elbows in, keeps you from lunging forward with your shoulders, and creates a whole new sense of grace. New, that is, now that I can return to a personal style that actually feels more natural than what I've been faking all my life.

I've realized that I can't stand to live as male anymore, and have decided to pursue a total gender change. When I say "realized," I mean, "hit a brick wall at 120 mph during an almost-total nervous breakdown," but you can interpret it as you like. I imagine this revelation must have been to my family like that of the Simpsons, when Homer leapt up and said, "You people have held me back long enough! I'm going to clown school!" Which also pretty much also sums up their thoughts on my sanity.

They're not alone. In 1974, homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and ceased to be treated like a mental illness. Thirty two years later, "Gender Identity Disorder" still is. Don't get me wrong -- I have had a very appreciative experience with the doctors who I've dealt with along the way (that is, except for some Medicenter experiences). And I realize the need to screen people for genuine cases versus those who are out for a kick, paraphiliacs and people who are simply confused or don't have the strength to see the process through -- as well as having that beginning link to medical professionals who can provide the hormones and surgery and guidance along the way. Not to mention that there is always the risk that if transgender is reclassified as a medical condition rather than a psychological one, the medical community which does not want it in its lap would be quite happy to classify it as cosmetic, thereby delisting the surgeries and hormone prescriptions from those few entities that cover them currently. But having a social system that considers it mental illness doesn't exactly do anything to help the rest of society to see its true face. And having to meet with your Doctor in a clinic that treats the criminally violent, the delusional, the obsessive-compulsive and the unstable -- everything from passive-aggressives to pedophiles -- doesn't do a whole lot for your sense of self-worth.

Either way, I have no doubts about my choice, not like my family does -- there's only the occasional doubt of my chance of success. The greater obstacle is the fear -- the terrors of a schoolkid, trying to fit in all over again, magnified by ten. And yet this is still vastly outweighed by the sensation (the relief) of being able to breathe again... which is essentially what being able to come out of the gender prison really feels like.

If my blog only leaves one single impression in the minds of those on the outside of the transgender world reading it, it would be this: it is every other day that is Halloween.

This is what I mean by the gender prison: you're trapped in the confines of a body that doesn't make sense to you. In order to try to fit in to what society wants you to be, you spend years trying to behave like society tells you to behave. If you're a male-to-female transsexual, that means that you've spent far too many years trying to "pass" as a man, and can't do it anymore.

It's a subtle difference that few seem to understand. The marketing of the film "Transamerica" illustrated this beautifully. The director mostly "got it" about trans people, Felicity Huffman mostly "got it" about trans people -- but Hollywood did not. The whole marketing machine turned into a circus sideshow barker, shouting, "see a woman playing a man playing a woman." It wasn't, "see Felicity Huffman playing a transsexual," it was "see Felicity Huffman playing a man playing a woman." People think of transsexuals as dressing up and having surgery to become someone else, a kind of Halloween outing taken to the extreme.

But it's every other day that is Halloween. It's about becoming tired of trying to pass as something you've been forced to be, by virtue of a body that doesn't feel like it belongs to you.

Which I'm sure is not easy to understand, from the perspective of those who've never experienced it. In the case of MTFs, everyone tries to teach you to be strong, silent, stoic, that proverbial knight-in-shining-armor. And hidden in your mind, you're really the sweet, vulnerable girl who daydreams about him, and wants to get swept away in his arms.

For this transwoman, that brick wall of realization hit in the wake of a failed marriage that I came to realize failed not because of my partner's shortcomings but far more because of my own frustrations and feelings of suffocation trying to live out a gender role that I loathed. Even when I was given the lattitude to not live up to that gender role, it was replaced with a vacuum, rather than an opportunity to live as I needed to.

The brick wall of realization also hit on a day that I decided to beat up a golf club and two fence boards with my body. Not that I had anything against said golf club and fence boards... maybe it was the three people holding them. It was a surreal moment, not something I was expecting, and started off in a blur of oblivion that clarified when I heard the word "faggot," "pansy," and a brief unfavorable editorial about a piece of graphic art I'd displayed on an art forum and described as the experience of being transgendered. Apparently, golf clubs make excellent commentaries. Fortunately for me, a neighbor was taking out the garbage, and had the heart to intervene.

Of course, this didn't make me immediately want to "come out" and pursue gender change. It doesn't usually work that way. On the contrary, it terrified me to no end. I would look out the windows to make sure nobody was in the parking lot before I left my apartment for my car. I checked the back seat before opening the car door. I looked under the undercarriage as I approached to make sure no one was hiding there. I didn't go anywhere I didn't have to -- just work to home to work to home. Half the time, I was too scared to stop for groceries, and spent more than a few evenings starving because I didn't have the nerve to pick up any bread on the way home, and the shelves had grown bare. I never let Mercedes out, even if I had the curtains drawn. Of course, unlike transvestites, the appeal for me was never quite so much about clothes as about being able to look into the mirror and feel comfortable with what I saw, so this wasn't devastating for me... but it was still isolating. I withdrew from email and forums and every other form of contact I had with the outside world. It was two months of suffocation of the highest order.

The brick wall of realization was this: I could either try to bury what I was even deeper down than before, try to hide it even more carefully and not even allow myself the luxury of living it in secret or expressing it in art / writing... or I could face up to what I was, and finally do something about it. I had already seen the hate. I already knew what was out there. The brick wall of realization showed me that was that this was a price I was willing to pay. I discovered that I'd rather live a year as a woman than a thousand as a man. I was dying. It was change or suicide.

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The fear is still there, but it no longer has that kind of hold on me. My early experiences of transition have been largely positive. Of course, I was escorted out of WalMart once, after my voice gave me away while I was asking for directions. I had one Medicenter (walk-in clinic) doctor refuse to give me a referral to the gender clinic and another Medicenter doc refuse to treat me for an ear infection once I answered the question of what medications I was taking (there's no graceful way for someone who just stepped out of work in boy mode to answer "Premarin"). I had a Safeway clerk ring through most of my groceries but attempted to refuse to sell me a stick of "Soft & Dri" deodorant (yes, ladies, it really is strong enough for a man but made for a woman), saying "you don't need this" -- I just waited until she finally rolled her eyes and gave in. But my experiences have been far more positive than not. What I hear most from people is that they admire my courage. In terms of frequency, the snickers come in second... but compared to golf club commentaries, snickers are a breeze, and mostly bounce right off.

So now comes the redefining of Mercedes Allen. I've been on hormones for over two months, and been seeing one therapist and will be seeing a second shortly. I've discussed transition with my boss, and although I'm not out at work yet, there is a plan to implement the change soon. Now, I'm living full-time, outside of work.

And now, I'm unlearning all the boy stuff. All the times I was visiting my friend and his loud, opinionated older brother gave me gentle pointers along the lines of "you look like a pansy faggot doing that: men don't cross their legs like that, they're supposed to keep them wide, like this" and the like... all those things can now be let go. That's most of the process. I'm not trying to act feminine quite so much as trying to eliminate some of these things that I once tried to drill into my behavior. Of course, I don't have the benefit of a stretch of adolescent years filled with friends' advice, parental guidance and the socialization that women get in their teens, so I have awkward moments that still give me away. It takes time, and there will be things to learn after male things are unlearned.

But I'm amazed how turning those palms just those few degrees forwards pulls up my posture, draws my elbows in, keeps me from lunging forward with my shoulders, and creates a whole new sense of grace. I can breathe again.