Being Trans in a World of Mirrors and Magnifying Glasses
Don’t let the flawed reflections of an ignorant society magnify any doubt in your very personal beauty.
“Being transgender is the Olympics of internal pain and external vulnerability.”
As I have journeyed on my own torturous path of transgender discovery, and read and heard the journeys of others, I’ve felt saddened to begin seeing a pattern of self-criticism and self-hate that seems far greater than that experienced by the majority of the cisgender population.
Everyone has moments of self-criticism and self-hate. They can be even more painful if parents, siblings or friends highlight your own perceived weaknesses. That kind of negative attention takes the extra rawness and makes it throb inside our soul. We are all forced to find ways to deal with it and survive; it gives psychiatrists, psychologists and bartenders job security.
But being transgender seems to be the Olympics of internal pain and external vulnerability. Over the last three years I have experienced the transgender gauntlet of gender dysphoria in all its glory. It is an inescapable experience of doubt, confusion, shame, guilt, anger and fear, churning 24/7 in your head. When you have…
