Our Lives Are Complex

We are the sum total of our life experiences and part of that includes our life before we transitioned. The other day I had to return an old cable modem to the cable company, after waiting in line for ten minutes I finally got to a salesperson she took the modem and then asked me to sign in on an electronic device. I started to walk away when she informed me that I had to wait in another line to sign off that I returned the device. After waiting another ten minutes my name was called and I was livid by now, not at the clerks but at the system. When he had me type my name on another screen I started out typing my old male name! Yikes!

I bring this up to introduce this article in the Huffington Queer Voices,

My Transgender Life: He’s Still Inside Me
By Grace Anne Stevens
April 12, 2016

“No, he is not dead and I have not mourned him,” was the response I gave to the audience. I followed up with, “He’s still inside me.”

I think that many there, in addition to the person who asked the question were a bit surprised.

This happened last November when I was honored to be asked to do a Talkback after a performance of Casa Valentina here in Boston. About 70 people stayed after the show as I and the play’s director were on stage answering any and all questions that came our way.

The question that led to my response above was how did I mourn the loss of the “man” I used to be?

I know that many transgender women may have done this, and feel that the man or male history of themselves was never true, never existed or died. I have said many times, there is no single or even “right” way to have the trans experience. I was only a bit surprised by the question about this, but it gave me a public opportunity to teach there are many different transgender experiences. For me, with a long and pretty wonderful life behind me, I have never felt that part of me has died or even missing. HE really is still inside me! HE no longer is running the show or me, and HE has a new job. In my book, I describe how the girl who is now in charge, has built a new relationship with the old man who worked so hard, for such a long time. Here is that story....

And for me I think she is right, we have our past with us all the time. When I do training one of the things that I touch upon is this, we have a past. I tell a story of a friend who was flying out to the west coast.

She was going through her purse and the woman in the seat next to her say a picture of her son, the woman who was visibly pregnant asked about her son and how was her labor. My friend had a choice to lie and make up a story or tell the truth, she chose the truth that she was the father.

The author goes on to write,

Last week along with two colleagues, we presented a workshop at the Massachusetts Social Worker Symposium. I shared some of this story to the group of over 40 social workers, most who have not had a much training in supporting gender variant clients. Many volunteered that they have clients who are struggling with the feelings they need to kill or mourn the man inside them. I offered them another frame or lens to look through; all with the guidance that each person’s story will be theirs and theirs alone. I am hoping that by sharing my experience with you now, you can appreciate how different and unique we all are.

We can accept our past or we can bury it, but with each comes their own set of complications.