A Letter to 11/11/18
Dear 11/11/18,
Hi. It’s me. 11/11/19. Just thought I’d drop you a note to let you know it turns out OK. Well, “OK” but there are going to be some rough days and nights. Rough might be an understatement. Absolutely terrifyingly harrowing might be more appropriate. And lots of them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
11/11/18, you’re going to post on your Facebook feed today a question to the small group of friends and family you have there that will be by turns, silly sounding and momentous. Let’s quote the whole thing, shall we:
Ok. Serious question for a select group of you. I've decided I want to play with gender a little bit. Specifically, I want to look for a dress or skirt of some kind. As I pointed out to a friend of mine last night, 'it became acceptable for women to wear pants but it never went the other direction for men to wear dresses.' (Yes, yes, I know all the reasons for that.) But that said, I can't help but think, ok but what would that be like for me. So here's the question for the crowd: what KIND of dress could you see me wearing? I'm asking for real suggestions. Cuz I'll be totally honest, if I were going to get one, I'd at least like to get something that would look good on me!
How little you will be able to fathom what comes next. That one sentence, “I want to play with gender a little bit” looks so innocent but was actually tantamount hurling a rock into a glass wall you didn’t even know was there. And, what is more, you’re going to be startled by the glass cracking sound; you’re going to hear, over and over: “You look so happy!” You’ll come to understand that soon enough.
To their credit, your friends and family will indulge you and start making suggestions. One, in particular, is going to be particularly enthusiastic. And for that, you will owe him a debt of gratitude and, you’ll want to wring his neck! The ideas will come flooding in and they’ll prompt you to think hard about what exactly it is that you’re trying to do. It cracks me up now, but you’re going to be really committed to the idea that you’re just trying to ‘break gender’ by declaring a skirt is just an article of clothing and clothing doesn’t have a gender. All true and yet….
What is more interesting, from here a year later, is that you were so sure of yourself and didn’t in the least question your sense of excitement over getting a skirt. The search for a skirt and the discussion will become a little all-consuming. In our typical fashion, once you were in, you went all in. You’ll find yourself bringing it up at work, online, any chance you get. Nonetheless, you’ll never stop to wonder why. Perhaps, that is and will be for the best. If you had the slightest inkling what you were unleashing, well, I might not be here.
The skirt will get ordered. After clicking the Submit button, you’ll sit back and realize you’ve crossed some line. You won’t really understand the full ramifications but something in the air will have changed and you’ll know it, deep in your gut. Maybe it’s the sense that you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do. And while we have been and probably always will be very good at intellectualizing things, this one will bend that ability to its utmost.
A little over a month later, you will really cross a line. You will wear that skirt you ordered to work. Again, once we’re in, we’re all in. Go big or go home, right? The glass wall you cracked with the first rock will get another one hurled at it and now bits and pieces are going to fall out of it. You’ve prepared everyone at work for this big day and they are going to be absurdly supportive. Really, you won’t appreciate it until much later, but a lot of what will follow will not be made harder than it is because you’re in probably the best workplace environment anyone could ask for.
This will really start to test your relationship with your husband. He’s going to have no idea what’s going on or what to make of it. I suppose in many ways, he’s been prepared for something like this for years with you. Not this specifically, but rather the very idea that you’re always running off on some new obsession. So for a bit, he’ll bite his tongue. Well, correction. He’s going to make comments, but he’s not going to really press the issue. Who knows. Maybe he’ll be thinking, “Whatever fresh crazy this is, it’ll pass like all the other stuff.” In that regard, you’ll both be a little blind to what’s coming. And for awhile, that’ll be somewhat helpful actually.
Winter recess at the university, that long period of time before Christmas to New Year’s Day, is going to be when things really start to fall apart. You will have tried this experiment, wearing a skirt (and getting a second one!) and you will hear something repeatedly that is going to finally open your eyes up to the damage you’ve done to that glass wall. Despite some valiant efforts to keep intellectualizing what you’re doing (“I’m non-binary! Above gender! It’s all fake!”), you’re going to wake up in the middle of the night and it’s going to hit you like a ton of those glass bricks falling down. We will probably go to our grave remembering the thought that will cross our mind that definitively brings decades of assumptions to an end. “Oh my God, am I actually trans?”
Looking back on that moment now, I can tell you the answer to that question should have been obvious. But oh boy, buckle up, buttercup! You’re going to turn that question into hundreds of variations on that same theme for months to come. Oof…! Just thinking about it now makes my stomach churn. But we’re resilient. You’ll talk with our best friend and our cousin who are both therapists and they will in a not-so-subtle way affirm your opinion that you need to get professional help. In fact, the tone in John’s voice when he says this to you will actually unnerve you a bit.
After discovering that therapists who specialize in gender are actually pretty rare, you will seek out resources available to you at work because, duh, you work at a university! And that will be when you meet someone who will be like a midwife, your therapist, on January 16th. That’s when our life will really get interesting!
11/11/18, I don’t want to spoil everything for you but meeting him will basically be like meeting a shaman/buddhist monk/oracle all in one. In that first meeting, you will walk in with a bold statement, which writing it now, is just hilarious. “I want to tell you my story and have you tell me that ‘I’ve worked with lots of trans people and no, you’re not trans.’” His immediate response will be, “I will never tell you that.” Oh the foreshadowing…! But he ends that session telling you, “Your homework is going to be to look up a term you might not be familiar with. It’s ‘gender euphoria.’” You’ll go home that evening and, while lying in bed, Google it. The only way to describe the impact this will have on you is to repeat what you’ll say after reading about it. “Oh….shit.”
The next three weeks will be the most intense of your life. Thankfully, you’ll be writing throughout all of them so there will be a record of what goes down during that time. Let me warn you. It’s tough reading, even all these months later. I don’t think it’s too hyperbolic to say that it will feel like your soul is being ripped in two. And really, that’s pretty much what will be happening. The war that has raged inside of you for most of your adult life and which has been at a stalemate that entire time will reach a level of brutality that will be unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Even dealing with being ‘gay’ as a teenager will now seem like it was a cake walk in comparison. Coming to terms with being attracted to men was easier simply because it was something for which we had a frame of reference, right? Positive or negative, we at least knew homosexuality existed out there in the world. Your gender engaged in a civil war with itself is not something we hear much about or have many reference points for comparison. And, once it’s exposed to you, you’ll be shocked by the white hot intensity of it all.
Through all of this, you’ll have your therapist, who by virtue of the fact that he’s also trans will feel like having an expert guide by your side. Little secret I’ll let you in on. It’ll be months and months later but you’ll suddenly realize he’s ‘the friend’ in this story from the TV show The West Wing:
This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me. Can you help me out?' and the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’
There will be times when you’ll be saying something and you’ll see your therapist close his eyes. You’ll finally understand that he knows exactly what you’re talking about. There will be times when you’ll be mentally pacing back and forth like a caged animal and he’ll point out that the key to the lock is right there in the cage with you. There will be times when you’ll feel so smug about something or another and you’ll hear him start laughing. We’ll finally realize that when he starts laughing like that, we’ve just said something he’s heard a million times before and perhaps even once said himself. What is more, it is more than likely going to be something you’re going to rethink in the near future!
All of this will be why, when he finally tells you February 7th that yes you have gender dysphoria, you’ll realize you’ve reached the end of the beginning. That entire glass wall will come crashing down. You won’t really hear it though because that night, you will cry harder than you have in a long time. But thankfully, one of your best friends will be a calm voice of reason in your ear, telling you, “A new you is coming into being. You need to welcome them into the world.”
One week later, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, you will accept “his” terms of surrender. It will be a day and a date that you’ll always remember although there will definitely be other very important dates to come, including one very recent one! (Spoiler alert: the Civil War in your brain will come to a definitive end on September 27th!)
Racing forward, it’ll be March 1st when you finally tell your husband why you’ve been acting so strange for months and months now. You’ll finally tell him about the thing that has been eating you alive since you met. You’ll point out things that will make it absolutely clear without a doubt that this is all legit and he will himself recognize some of the things you point to as ‘evidence’ that this is real. And he’ll surprise you. He’ll say, ‘Let’s figure this out.’
I’m not going to lie. It’ll still be hard and there will be moments of terror that you are about to pay an incredibly steep price, namely your marriage, for this ‘authenticity.’ Word of advice though? Remember to include him more. He will really surprise you in ways that you will not expect and, if I’m honest about it, will irritate you. (The number of times you’ll be complimented on some outfit he bought for you will be a welcome thorn in your side!) I wish I could tell you it will all work out but sorry, 11/11/18, we’re not out of the woods yet! There’s lots more to this part of the story that even I don’t know.
Your summer will be a busy one. While it’ll be another round of anxiety and almost vomit inducing fear, you’ll tell your brother and sister. Once again, you’ll be surprised. I guess if we should learn anything from all this, 11/11/18, it is that we are extraordinarily blessed and need to have more faith in the people who love us. There are going to be more people to tell but I’ll have to see what 11/11/20 has to tell me about that! Attending the 50th Anniversary Pride Parade in New York City will be a real high point in your summer. You’ll see Pride through very different eyes and you will have a newfound appreciation for the giant shoulders you stand on when you hear the names Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. More than anything though? You’ll feel free in ways you didn’t even realize you weren’t when that glass wall existed.
As the summer winds down, having seemingly done so much hard work just to get to the point where you can say out loud, “I’m trans” to yourself, friends, and family, you’ll be a bit appalled that it continues to feel like it’s still just the beginning. Your therapist will warn you about this. “It’s a mountain. You cannot see it all and you can’t climb it all at once.” And, sorry, my dude. You’re going to contemplate ‘going back’ more than a few times. It’s going to seem much too hard and not at all worth it.
And I really hate to tell you this but I feel it’s something that can be said since I’m evidence you’ll make it. You are going to stare the statistic that around 40% of trans people attempt suicide squarely in the face and you’re going to be afraid. Very afraid. That along with the steady drumbeat of news that another trans woman of color has been murdered is going to make you feel some intense internalized transphobia. Thankfully, your therapist is going to call you out hard on all of this and you’ll be able to stiffen your spine for another day. And not to put too fine a point on it, but get a grip! While you shouldn’t take for granted all the privilege and relative safety you enjoy, don’t discount it either.
But here’s what I can happily tell you, 11/11/18. You will make it. We will make it. The deep sense of commitment to starting this new life and doing so with medical transition will arrive one day and you’ll be surprised at how easy, after so much hand-wringing, questioning, and doubt, you’ll make what feels like a now obvious decision to start HRT.
September 27, 2019 will become a day beyond description. Liberation Day? Independence Day? Armistice Day? Take your pick. All you’ll know is that within a short couple of weeks you’ll have a completely different problem: wondering how different your life would have been had you started this sooner! The tinny, whiny static that has plagued your mind for most of your life will suddenly disappear. Your therapist will also warn you about this, “This doesn’t make all your other problems go away.” But wow, does it make them all so much more manageable!
So, 11/11/18, a lot of people are going to remark on your wearing a skirt that day saying, “You look so happy!” Trust me. As much as that may seem hollow in the days ahead, you’re gonna be astounded at just how happy you’re going to be. See you in a year!
With much love,
11/11/19
