Breaking the Gender Chains

 

Image from Arlem Lambunsky
on UnSplash.

For years and years I blamed myself for my transgender issues. 

I did not have access to the proper information to know otherwise. I thought somehow I was addicted to seeing myself in the mirror as a femininized person. The chains of being a male person weighed heavily on me. It was not until much later in life that I had the chance to learn I was completely wrong and I had never really had the choice to attempt to break all the chains which were restricting my life. All of this occurred in the pre-internet years and it was not until I bought my first computer did I finally began to see there were others just like me who struggled the same way in life.

At approximately the same time, I began to meet more and more diverse individuals in the new LGBTQ community. Primarily, I learned the difference between cross dressers and transgender women and men. Those involved in pursuing a life in transgender womanhood were much more serious than the average cross dresser who was actively embracing how they appeared as a woman. I was able to meet several impossibly feminine transgender women who embraced being a woman, not just looking like one. At the time I was intimidated and wondered if I could ever make the jump myself. Plus, I knew before I attempted such a radical move, I had quite a bit of work to do on myself.

I became the mistress of excuses of why I could not break my gender chains and move forward into the great unknown. What would I do about the remnants of my male life and what if anything would I do about my sexuality among with other important parts of my life. One thing I knew for certain was my desire to live as a fulltime transgender woman was more than an addiction because the process felt so natural and affirming. The entire process was stressful and damaging to my mental health because I was firmly stuck between the two main binary genders.  I would have not wished the stress I was feeling on my biggest enemy and the worst part of it all was  how I needed to internalize my feelings to the world. 

Life was so black and white at the time. Half of the time I was in the darkness of being chained to the wall of my old male life as I daydreamed of the lighter times when I could explore again and again the times I had as a woman. 

Through new woman friends and a good therapist, I was able to break out of my old gender chains and live my dream. Proving time and time again I was living the life I was meant to live. In no way did I have any lasting attraction to just wearing woman's clothes. The clothes were just a larger indication of how I wanted to live my life and were an external view to the world  which enabled me to open gender doors which were previously closed to me. 

I could not believe after the chains were broken and the new doors were opened, how much brighter my world became. Somedays I wonder if the wait was worth it.