Trans 101: The Mirror is Lying To You
How to live authentically as a transgender person when “passability” may not be achievable
I am a member of a Facebook group for transgender people age 50+, and this evening I responded to a comment that touched me deeply, in a discussion regarding “passability.” I am almost 65 years old; not exactly young and chipper by anyone’s standards. And at 6'-2" (and on the wrong side of 300 pounds), with a deep, unmistakably male-sounding voice, I know that “passability” is not in the cards for me. I’m way too tall and way too bulky to ever be “passable” as a woman. So I’ve had to give up that dream and just be myself. The comment read:
“I am Trans and Gay, I know this, I feel it but I still present as Male because I can’t see my femininity in the mirror. There is conflict and it’s hard to reconcile who I am with who I see. How can I expect others to accept me, if I can’t accept myself?”
This was my response:
Give it time. Self-acceptance will come. Every gender non-conforming person, whether they call themselves “transgender”, or some other label like “non-binary,” “gender creative,” “bi-gender,” or “agender”, has their own individual experience, and no one’s story or perception of what being transgender means is any more or less valid than anyone else’s.
For myself, a few simple facts define how I arrived at Transition, and how I perceive myself today:
- I had an epiphany when I was 5 years old, in 1961: I wished I could be a girl, and that my name was Laura, not Larry. My entire life, I have hated the name my parents gave me — it never felt “right” — and I hated to look at myself in mirrors.
- I felt compelled to cross dress from age 8, and I never understood why, until I was 59 and finally sought help and guidance from a transgender support group.
- I suffered a severe “gender crisis” on June 4th, 2016 and committed myself to Transition. I immediately felt better, and have never questioned myself in the aftermath as to whether or not my transition was the right thing to do. Almost from that day, my self-perception changed radically: I stopped hating to look at my face in mirrors. That face hasn’t changed significantly [as you can see from the 2007 and 2021 photos below], yet the face I see is that of someone who deserves to be loved, even by herself. Does that make any sense? I really hated myself, for almost 60 years. Now I don’t.
But, there will always remain the question: how could I have lived so happily for 28 years (1986–2013) as “the husband” in my marriage with Lynn, but now I know that I can’t ever do that again? Meaning, I can’t ever be Larry again, and I can’t ever again play the role of a husband. Yet, I can’t just discard 28 years of my life and pretend that they never existed. I loved my wife too much to ever want that, and were she still alive, I might still be trying my best to be Larry for her.
I have had to come to terms with this dichotomy — “integration” is what my therapist calls it: to find a headspace where a transgender person can realize that they are — and have always been — just one person, worthy of being loved and cherished for who they were, as they were, every day of their lives, regardless of their gender tag and name at the time.
Transition is only the first step in the process of integration for a transgender person. It is a process that might take only a few weeks, or it might never be “complete,” and thus, take the rest of your life. But know this: whether you can see your femininity in the mirror or not, it is there in your mind and your soul.
Try this meditation exercise: get comfortable in your chair or bed, relax, breathe deeply, and feel the air moving in and out of your lungs. Close your eyes. In your mind, travel to some quiet place in your imagination. An alpine meadow, the bank of a stream under shady trees, or the seashore at sunset with just a hint of surf gently washing the sand. If you choose the beach, imagine that you can smell the sharp tang of salt in the air. If it’s a forest, smell the pine resin from the trees. Just breathe for a while and let your stress flow out and dissipate, and take in the peace and serenity of your quiet place. There is no mirror here. No one to judge how you look.
Now, who are you? If you could step outside your body as it rests there and look at yourself, who would you see? As the sun sets and the only light on the scene is that of the stars, does it matter how you look? Your soul is there, unchanged by nightfall and darkness. Your inner light still shines as it did an hour ago in the daylight, and in all the days that came before, and shine it still will in all the days and nights to come.
It matters not what you look like — the people who love you, love the inner light of your soul, not the way it looks on the surface. “Passability” may or may not ever be achievable, but you must still live your life as honestly as you can. The very fact that you are a member of a transgender support group, and that you are even asking the question that you did, strongly suggests that your sense of gender dysphoria is real enough, and strong enough, that you probably need to find resolution for it, whether that will eventually turn into transitioning or not.
