Philosophy
Think of the colour blue. Now look around, how do you know that everyone is imagining the same colour? How do you know that the blue you see in your mind isn't your neighbour's orange?
This basic philosophical question shows the difficulty in understanding and communicating gender identity. How do you know what it's like to feel like a woman, or a man, when all you experience is what it feels like to be you.
The Checklist
The earliest memories I can recall when I knew something was different about me were when I was around 10. I didn't realize it then, but that's when I started my checklist. It started very short: Penis? check. Only boys had a penis. When I was a teenager, my checklist expanded: Attracted to girls? check. Only boys like girls. Something didn't feel right, but I didn't dare tell anyone because it was clearly wrong, and I didn't want to get in trouble. I was already teased and bullied for being different, some of my classmates were sure I was gay. I had no words for how I felt, and I couldn't explain it to myself let alone explain it to others.
For the first chapter of my life, when my entire world assumed and reinforced that boys only like girls, girls only like boys, and everyone's gender matched the sex on their birth certificate. I was confused, and receded, but back then they called me “the quiet kid”.
I spent most of my teenage years holed up in my bedroom on my computer desperate to understand something if I couldn't understand myself. I had a small group of friends with open minds and an academic interest and that drew me to university. Far away from home, I experienced freedom and for the first time in my life I could express myself in the privacy of my tiny apartment. I was compelled to cross-dress, but I had no idea why. I tried so hard to bury the young man that I saw in the mirror under makeup and clothes. What I was doing was clearly wrong, I mean, that's what my checklist said. If anyone found out I would at least be made fun of, probably beat up, maybe worse. I was so deathly afraid and ashamed, I purged several times - that is, I threw away everything feminine I'd gathered – and newly resolved to "do better".
I met Sharon, my soul mate, when I was 24. While I told her about my compulsion, and she thought it was odd, we found our way through it by keeping it private. I was lost in love, and resolved that I would be the man the checklist said I should be. For Sharon, and her young daughter. And I was, for the first 10 years we were together - we got married, had two more daughters, and got caught up in life.
But during this my checklist was falling into disarray. The cut and dry answers from my adolescence muddied by more sophisticated questions as I matured, I had no clear answers. I was an early pioneer on the Internet, and once I gathered the courage, the free exchange of ideas and information that it provided gave me a place to challenge my checklist. I found many words and ideas, and spent years learning about them and learning how I related to them. My self-identity evolved to cross-dresser, which almost fit. I was afraid then to self-identify as transsexual. It seemed … unachievable. Male cross-dressers are typically attracted to women, and enjoy expressing femininity, like me – I could make it fit. I was still clinging to my checklist, trying to be a man. I remained receded, but back then we called it "workaholic".
The Catalyst
Then, my world imploded. In January 2008, I went to the walk-in clinic with what I hoped was a bad case of gas. Turns out a tumour had burst my appendix, and I was sent by ambulance to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. Sharon and our oldest daughter were in Michigan on a group bus trip. Fear tore Sharon apart as she struggled to find a way home, her cell phone battery failing, as she helplessly waited for any word that I was OK.
I pulled through, but the doctor had no idea what it was, had never seen anything like it, and had my entire family freaked out. Over months we went from doctor to doctor until we found a specialist at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. It was a rare form of cancer, one in a million, which had spilled into my abdomen when the tumour burst my appendix.
I was given two options. I could live likely 5 good years with my family. Or I could undergo a risky and experimental procedure in Halifax that could kill me, but had an excellent chance of eliminating the cancer. I was young, healthy, and not ready to resign myself or subject my family to 5 years of decline and a predicted demise. Sharon and I chose Halifax.
It was a year in between my appendectomy and my cancer surgery. As you can imagine, our family drew together. Sharon and I, after years of our marriage on cruise-control were deeply reminded of how we felt about each other. And I realized, that I did not want to live more of my life without understanding who I was. I finally overcame my fear and talked to my doctor, and she got me an appointment the following summer with the gender clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
The cancer surgery was grueling. 17 hours on the table. They took out all kinds of optional body parts - my spleen, part of my liver, gall-bladder, omentum (belly fat), half my colon, scraped the lining off the inside of my abdomen, took out some lymph nodes, filled my abdomen with chemo fluid, heated it and "stirred" me for two hours, and stapled me back up. I was a month in the hospital and another 3 at home in bed recovering. [You can read more about it here]
When I recovered, I found a switch had gone off. I couldn't hold back. Sharon and I began getting involved in the trans community, monthly group dinner outings around Toronto, trans conferences in Ontario and the US. We slowly began to get over her and my intense fear of ridicule and discovery, leaving the house and facing the public. We came out to our daughters. I went through intake at the Gender Identity Clinic at CAMH, got my medical "stamp" of Gender Identity Disorder, and got involved in their group therapy. Then later Sharon and I went through separate programs at the Sherbourne Health Clinic, Gender Journeys and the Trans Partner Network.
Through two years of all this, we met so many wonderful people. We met people in the community of all ages and at every place in the trans spectrum, we met couples who like us were struggling to embrace this, and were inspired by couples who were actually making it through. And I finally came to accept the facts that had stood in front of me my whole life, that my brain knew, but my heart hadn't accepted.
The Epiphany
Feel free to say, "duh!", face-palm, along with me here…
Some girls like girls. Some girls are geeks. Some girls like computers, motorcycles. Some girls drive big trucks. Some are tall. Some have broad shoulders. Some girls are even born with a penis. Women come in all shapes and sizes, and not one aspect makes them any less of a woman. I realized my checklist was rubbish. I finally accepted who I am - the woman standing before you today.
You don't transition alone, everyone around you, spouse, children, siblings, parents, all have their own journey they need to take along the path of acceptance. Theirs is as complicated as yours. It takes time, some are more willing than others, and some may never reach it. Today, some around me cling to the thought that "the cancer made me crazy", others cling to their memory of the façade I presented when I pretended to be what everyone expected me to be. Some believe I was seduced into this “lifestyle” by the secular trans and medical community, and some still hope that I will quietly slip back into my cage and forget all about this.
The Pot of Gold
I transitioned in-place in the summer of 2011, after 30 years of struggle, three and a half years after my cancer discovery, 2 years of professional counseling, and 3 years of engagement with the transgender community.
Today, Sharon and I live a normal life as a same sex couple, our daughters have two moms. Much of my extended family supports me, even if they don't understand, and the family that doesn't yet support me continue along their own journey, hopefully towards acceptance. I continue to run my software development business in Oshawa, well received by my staff, our customers, and our peers.
I remain an out and visible trans-woman in the community in hopes that my presence will inspire others to accept themselves, that I might meet and help others like me. That people will see that a trans-woman isn’t what they saw in that movie, TV show, or commercial. That I might be able to help change society to be a less scary place for those who struggle like I did. Because nobody should need the Cancer experience, or wait 30 years to overcome the fear of being who they are.
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