Image from Grae Phillips on Geraldo television show. |
If the truth be known, all the way back when I was a kid struggling to understand what gender I was on any given day, I would have been known as gender fluid.
Of course, gender fluid was a term which hadn't been invented yet. Anyone who was interested in cross dressing was branded as being a transvestite and even worse labeled as being mentally ill. In the middle of my gender vacuum, even I knew well enough I was not mentally ill just because I wanted to wear makeup and dresses. I hid my desires and hoped for the best, which mostly came when I was left alone to cross dress and admire myself in the full length hallway mirror at home. Most of all, I was trapped and could do nothing about it. Keep in mind, all of this was happening in the information "dark ages" before the internet and social media. The gender underground I was interested in came mainly from the pages of Transvestia Magazine and Virginia Prince. Even I knew the pages of the "National Enquirer" and other predecessors of Faux News who sensationalized cross dressers were not to be trusted.
Then came the barrage of so called reality television talk shows including, Donahue, Springer and Raphael. All of whom seemed to be pushing the theme of cross dressing husbands Except for the impossibly beautiful and talented "Grae Phillips" who put everyone else to shame. All of these shows probably did little or no good for my gender dysphoria except for publicizing the fact there were cross dressers of transvestites of all kinds at all. All I knew was I desperately tried to watch or tape every show I knew was coming up from my "TV Guide". My wife was trying to tape her soaps and I was trying to tape my talk shows and both kept us busy. Even though I still had to watch my shows in private attempting to learn anything I could about the outside world.
I did learn once again. my gender size was unique and did not fit all. In fact, I still felt out of place when I started to attend my first cross dresser - transvestite mixers here in my native Ohio. I discovered there were so many different levels of participation from transsexuals headed for gender surgeries down to the weekend cross dressing hobbyists. For some reason, I was not part of either group and once again my gender size was not fitting in. The problem was, all of this happened before the transgender terminology was introduced. When it was and I started to have access to my first computer, I was able to research the term which was unknown to me. Suddenly I knew what had been missing my whole life, a gender size which fit me and I set out to discover more about being transgender. For me, it meant being part of a gender description which was somewhere in-between the spaces I had been in previously.
Even though my gender size did not fit all, finally I was able to locate my own niche to thrive in. Life became fulfilling, scary and exciting at the same time. I found out I was fine being who I was all along and it felt so natural. I was home.
Due to a couple of bad discs in my neck, I have lost the ability to do some things with my hands and arms. I have learned to compensate in order to do many of the ordinary things in my life, but I no longer can do the work that I used to do for financial security, nor can I play the drums at a professional level (something I attribute to having been my saving grace in dealing with my gender dysphoria over most of my years). My atrophied right arm and numb left hand are constant reminders of what I can't do anymore. I try to be positive, concentrating on doing other things that I still can, but it's difficult to maintain when I can't even eat a whole bowl of soup without getting fatigued and having the last spoonfuls drip more down my chin than making it into my mouth. It's not only frustrating, but very unladylike!
I don't think I had any more of a choice to transition as I did to develop my physical problems. Interestingly, they both started at about the same time, and learning to go through my life positively in spite of each of them has been a struggle. Nevertheless, I cannot allow myself to see either as a disability - even if there are others who would.
I think that getting used to whatever limitations we may have is certainly better than living in fear and despair, but we should never settle for giving in to them. I may realize that I can't pass as a woman any better than I can now pass a football, but I also know that I don't have to be defined by those things, either.
We shouldn't put so much pressure on ourselves. Doing so only robs ourselves, and any others who may care, of who we really are. "