Once Gender Dysphoria Has Been Evicted, What Next?
Nature hates a vacuum
After years of slow but focused and consistent efforts I’ve managed to disassemble my gender dysphoria into small pieces and burn much of it to ash, let other evidence whither and mostly ignore the rest. I should party. It’s time to celebrate, pop the cork on the champagne bottle and swing from the chandelier. Or maybe I should just let the party slide.
I should set the context before picking out my party dress. I’m 75 years old and started my medical transition six years ago. Since that initial dose of estrogen, I’ve had multiple surgeries, hospitalizations and other life challenges to deal with, some intentionally faced, others unwelcome but necessary and shouldn’t have surprised me.
I started this part of the journey and have come this far widowed and doing the majority of the work in quiet isolation. This is not to ignore my friends and family who have been involved and supportive beyond my expectations, but it’s very common that I’m on my own and maybe looking for someone to bounce ideas off and provide new insights to my questions.
That may be why you are reading this, I’m not feeling sorry for myself nor am I wallowing in self-pity and as I write, I’m simply using the keyboard as I’m looking for answers, not sympathy.
Validation and questions
So there I was, after wandering the aisles of the grocery store, I was at the self-check with a 20lb bag of charcoal and another equally large and awkward bag of wood pellets for a smoker grill in my shopping cart.
The young fellow managing that area in the store came to me, unasked and offered to lift those big heavy bags out of the cart and scan them so I didn’t have to struggle with them. Mind you, I was three inches taller and probably 40 pounds heavier than him, but he was sincere in wanting to take care of the gray-haired woman in the line. I thanked him, wondering if he failed to realize I’d put them in the cart in the first place and would have to load them in my car.
When I got home and unloaded said bags and put other things away I poured a cup of coffee that would grow cold as I first sobbed and then considered what that single kind act did to me.
I was reminded of several things all at once and was overwhelmed by the implications of any or all of them being true. First, I had been shopping and was totally unaware of my gender that day. Not as I ate my breakfast, not as I visited my dermatologist and not as I shopped. I was just me.
When the young man helped me, I realized he didn’t see me as transgender, he saw me as an older woman and felt it was appropriate to help me with the heavy stuff. I was surprised and, of course, I was pleased to see evidence of a measure of success in my journey. But why did I cry when I thought about the kindness offered? Wasn’t this the result I was looking for? I can assure you, dear reader, that they were not tears of joy but something else breaking through. But what did it represent and where had it been residing?
As I mentioned earlier, I was widowed nearly 12 years ago and have lived, for the most part, alone since that time. I’ve had family in my home for short periods of time and a few visitors, but being on my own has been the predominant situation.
In the past, I would have been tending to the needs of my wife or helping address the challenges of her family, mine being either dead or independent. I had felt the isolation and the consequences of being lonely, not just alone, and took considerable pride in my independence as I aged. But I’d been doing well enough for many years. Why did unannounced sorrow seem to pop up out of nowhere at this time?
My “Ah Ha” moment
My best guess is that part of my mind that had been the long-term home of gender dysphoria was no longer being used for that function and some other set of emotions discovered the unused worry space and decided to settle in.
So now there is competition from all the preexisting worries, concerns and evil fantasies that couldn’t get around the barricades that gender dysphoria had built. Gender transition didn’t solve all my problems, just a very big and insistent one.
At the same time, I managed to learn new skills in how to identify and manage my emotions and the conflicts I face. That realization is allowing me to deal with those issues with a similar step-by-step method as I’d used on the last resident that lived rent-free inside my head for scores of years before being evicted.
With attention, a calm attitude and a skeptical mind, I may be able to move through the new, unwelcome squatters with fewer tears than I shed over the last challenge. And maybe I can pick out that party dress after all.
