Showing posts with label chains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chains. Show all posts

Friday, November 15, 2024

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. 

The Double Edged Gender Sword

Image from JJ Hart. Wife Liz on left. The longer we live as transgender women and trans men, often we find many aspects which represent a do...