Overcoming Inertia, Embracing Honesty
We think of the Earth orbiting the Sun or the Moon running its orbit around the Earth, but eventually someone who understands the math will explain it differently. The two bodies orbit each other in a shape describing an ellipse, with a focus of that ellipse someplace slightly off the center of the one with the greatest mass. Then, if we don’t stop that math wizard it’s numbers, numbers, symbols, calculations etc. as the rest of us grow glassy-eyed and start wishing for squirrels to jump in the smart person’s pants. In the big picture it means very little to most of us, possibly no more significant than changing the side you part your hair on. But that concept of an elliptical orbit has come to mean a lot more to me over the last few years.
Before my gender transition I’d been some version of the same guy from zero to over 60 years. My closet was full of guy clothes. My wallet had nothing but guy ID inside. Despite all the conflicting feelings stemming from having a contrary gender identity between my ears, I portrayed a guy quite well. The physical stuff of building and camping and wearing jeans and flannel, coat and tie all worked to provide an image that was comforting to those around me. I never learned how to grow facial hair very well, but I was quite convincing with the rest of it. I was the partner in a long relationship with logic and no visible emotion who would take care of bills and broken branches and get work done on the car. My wife was the emotional core, reservoir of family memory, caregiver and taskmaster keeping us on schedule and aimed forward. My life was connected to family and friends, all of that having considerable social and emotional weight and stability around which I moved. And all the accumulated male relics that partially defined me worked to weigh me down, giving me a significant “gender mass” that kept my path in the same orbit despite my desire to move off in what most would see as a wild, out of control tangent. Issac Newton said something like “An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.” I guess I’m a Non-Newtonian object because I was being moved by an accumulation of inside forces, none of which seemed within my control.
But some contrary forces had been building throughout my life that chafed against the mental and physical harness that was preventing my authentic gender from managing my orbit. I’d been uneasy for years and when the opportunities presented themselves, I would find deep and authentic validation in temporary vacations in womanhood. Validations that had yet to be found in all those years of manufactured manhood. In time, the need to make excursions to bask in that authenticity came to replace some of the recreational choices I might make, but eventually interfere with the basic responsibilities to my family. I was able to make up for those as slights or disguise them under a facade of “work stress” or “needed time with the guys”, but regardless of how it was termed it began to break down something fundamental in my life. I couldn’t live my life in ways that seemed simple enough and would make me happy, because the cost could easily be deducted from the happiness of those around me, something I’d dedicated my life to achieving. I was having difficulty meeting those expectations I had encouraged others to have of me. I had grown very frustrated staying in the same gender orbit I’d been on since birth. Despite my occasional efforts to bend the trajectory, I was failing to alter anything positively and was only increasing my frustration. The mass of years and relationships and denial was much too great for anything dramatic to happen.
My view of this dilemma over the years has been simple: I don’t want to be a guy; I want to be a girl. The problem with that was the simplicity of the statement and the definition of the goal. To get there it would require a massive shift in gravity, a possible cataclysm setting worlds spinning off, out of control and lost forever. Achieving that goal would require a lot of moving parts and either buy-in or unwilling sacrifices from many, many others. From my point of view buy-in was impossible and unwilling sacrifice would be unacceptable. I’m going to assume that not having a clearly defined goal had a negative impact on my ability to alter course. That vision of a universe out of balance was frightening and gave the problem more negative outcomes than the single positive one I would prefer. In order to keep Ragnarök from being visited on my world I delayed. I’d used just about every tool available to the transgender person to delay and waffle on the decision; unnamed real and unrealistic fears, my sense of duty, inherent self-loathing, understanding there would be a loss of status, the potential for isolation and/or abandonment and anything else that could serve as a roadblock and keep me on the original path. The more I thought about those negative consequences the more real they became. All those images began to populate the center of gravity in my orbital system, adding to the appearance of even more mass to keep me in that traditional orbit. In truth they were little more than a flimsy facade attached to a crumbling structure. I was falling apart, and my false front had less and less to hold on to. It didn’t help preserve the fiction since I was no longer interested in maintaining that universe of denial.
My rebellion started off slowly as I tested the waters. I’d had my ears pierced years before I came out, but the story was it was a minor rebellion after work enforced dress codes prior to my retirement. My hair grew out, but the story was I was returning to my old hippy days. I posted support for the Transgender community on social media, but it was only because I’d always supported marginalized groups. In secret I would attend crossdresser support meetings or attend events populated by all manner of queer folx. My efforts to move to that new orbit were asserted time after time and the inertia of my public life was holding me on that same path, still more in control of my trajectory than I was. I was searching for centrifugal forces, but my world was controlled by a stronger centripetal force keeping me locked in the same orbit. It was basic physics, but I was a poor student of physics.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me that it took a very long time to realize I really needed to stay in that orbit with those who loved and would support me. Yes, I was sacrificing my personal happiness for others, but it was a knowing and willing sacrifice by then. I still did all those things that provided partial validation for my gender, but once I was no longer using that world as an escape it became easier to accept my dual nature. It also provided me the chance to see much of what was holding me in my orbit was less substantial than I thought. Eventually my wife discovered that duality. But instead of the rejection I expected, she found much to be admired in my pursuit of my feminine aspects. It explained to her why I was different from some of the hyper masculine men she had known. And to my surprise, she loved me for that. With that acceptance came the opportunity for an honesty that changed my view of the world and where the focus of my orbit actually was. Ragnarök had been averted.
When my wife passed away years later, and years in my past now, I mourned deeply for her. But it turns out that while I missed the companionship that comes with a long-time loving relationship, I had been thrown back in the closet where I no longer felt the emotional balance I’d found with her. Recently I came to the realization that I was also mourning for the loss of those years of honesty as well. For all my life I’ve always seen myself as an honest person, but I was having to carry and perpetuate an untruth about my most basic nature. That conflict was added to the pile of challenges left for me when she died. It took help and time to untangle all the loose threads from our lives together that her absence had knotted up in ways that seemed to be unresolvable. But it happened, slowly at first with minor issues that were solvable but just being ignored in favor of grief. Others took longer and some of those knots are still being teased at from time to time as I attempt to find some sort of resolution or meaning, all the while recognizing it’s possible there may be neither.
I’d accepted my transgender nature years earlier, but it finally became time to act on it in ways that would finally be meaningful. More significantly, the knowledge of my efforts would be shared first with the people I loved and later with the world. That process continues to this day. And as the misrepresentation and misdirection I used as my face to the world are removed, I’ve finally discovered the true focus of my orbit. It’s not at the center of all those bodies making up the world of family, friends and official registers of identity. Nor is it located in the interests I developed or possessions I’ve collected. It seems to be much closer to my own heart, the part that reflects and can nurture the world I inhabit. Something I always thought of as a selfish point of view has become synonymous with honesty, vulnerability and a willingness to share something important with others. It makes it easier to live now, honestly and with a generosity that felt forced when I used those traits as a shield. I’m not foolish and know many of the people I know are in very stable orbits they are unable and unwilling to change. I’m only hoping that I can be a distant moon that shifts their focus out, just a tiny bit.
