As a child, I wanted many of the things little girls usually want -- to play with dolls, to wear dresses, to use makeup like a grown-up lady. I did have a paper cut-out doll of an airline stewardess that I played with when I could. Pretending I was she, I would change her outfits, from uniform to summer frock to bathing suit to uniform again. I often played dress-up in my mother's clothing, as so many little girls do. I ached to grow up looking like the pretty women I saw on magazine covers and calendar s; but I knew I never would, for I am physically male -- although I can scarcely recall a time when I did not wish I was female.
When my mother went out shopping or on other errands that were likely to keep her away for a few hours, I often went into her bedroom to get some clothes from her bureau drawers a girdle, a blouse, a skirt, some stockings to wad up and provide filling for a brassiere. I brought them upstairs to my bedroom, where I took off every stitch of my boy's clothing and re-dressed in hers. And then I regarded the effect in the mirror on the back of the door.
I thought I looked grand. I liked seeing that "girl" in the mirror. Knowing that "she" was me gave me a very special feeling, a feeling of rightness. Seeing myself in the mirror satisfied a hunger in me -- for a little while. It was the closest I could come to expressing what I felt within, but which I could not then articulate.
Technically, I am a transvestite. But "transvestite" carries connotations that I feel do not apply. Transvestites often dress privately, secretly. They live their lives as the sex they were born; they hold down jobs as males, they marry women and father children. The word implies a temporary status which I feel is inappropriate.
But "transsexual" isn't entirely appropriate, either. I do not loathe my genitalia to the point where I have a driving desire to be rid of them. Often, I wish they were detachable, that they would just go away, like loud static in the background of a program I'm trying to listen to. But I have no desire to put myself through the pain I would have to suffer to be rid of them. They are, after all, decidedly hard-wired" to me and -- however much I feel distanced from them -- they are potentially the source of a most pleasurable sensation.
I could -- and, indeed, did for many years -- satisfy my need merely by dressing in feminine clothing and staying safely behind closed doors. But having only the mirror for company soon proved to be a shallow, shallow, empty experience. I felt myself becoming isolated and secretive. I needed human contact. And so I began to go out dressed as a woman. Having then no sense of style, I frankly looked terrible and I attracted many knowing smirks. I felt embarrassed -- even guilty -- to be wearing in public clothing inappropriate to my sex. But my need to interact as a woman with other people was stronger than my fear of possible embarrassment.
Gradually, I learned style; I learned what kind of clothes suited my frame, what colors to wear, how to apply makeup properly, what hair-styles looked good on me. I became used to being in public in this alternate persona. When addressed as "ma'am" by store clerks, bus drivers, strangers, I ceased to look around for the woman they were speaking to. I ceased to be on the alert for knowing smirks. I had learned how to be an unremarkable, reasonably attractive woman.
Being an introvert, I try to avoid embarrassing situations. When I can't, I try to shield myself with the knowledge that I am trying to live my life the best I know how -- even if doing so leaves me open to potential embarrassment.
One such moment came when one day I and two women friends went to a smorgasbord-style restaurant for lunch. We were just getting down to our food and chatting about the various jobs we were doing when a large, beefy man approached our table. He was wearing a ball cap, a dingy sport shirt and dirty trousers. He seemed to have decided we women needed male company (his).
His first comment was to me. He said, straight out, "You're a guy, ain't ya?" I was mortified; I felt I had been stripped naked. But I tried to bluff it out.
"Not the last time I looked," I responded -- more to my plate than to him. I was desperately afraid he would know I was bluffing. He had me pegged. Acute embarrassment froze my thinking, leaving me without any way to cope with the situation. I hoped my comeback would confuse him, shut him up. Alas, it did not. He continued. "Well, you were, then," he amended.
I could only sit there, studying my food intently, ears burning with shame. I had been read. He knew I was male. Why am I doing this? Why do I put myself in situations like this? These and similar thoughts were whirling around in my head. At the same time, I tried to ignore this internal critic, knowing I felt most comfortable being a woman. He seemed to be interested in pursuing this topic, but one of my friends deflected him with a skill I was acutely aware I lacked. She kept up a conversation with him, focusing his attention on her until we had finished our meal and were able to leave him behind. Afterward, my friends commiserated with me; but I took no lasting hurt from the encounter. I may have felt like I'd die on the spot, but acute embarrassment is rarely fatal.
I'd love to say right out to such a man, "This ain't easy, buster, and you aren't making it any easier. Do you really think I'd be doing this, that I'd go through all this hassle if I had another choice?" But I am inhibited. It would be an open admission that I'm not physically a woman, which is the last thing I want to advertise. Besides, it's really none of his business. Why should I have to explain myself? To think I need others' permission to live my life however I feel best is to grant them enormous power over me.
However, not all encounters are so fraught with embarrassment. Sometimes, quite the opposite is true. On one particular day, I had gone to a medical center to apply for a clerical/secretarial job. On the way home, I discovered a front tire was flat; I could feel it when I moved the steering wheel. So I called the Auto Club. A Club driver duly showed up, re-inflated my flat spare and mounted it on the car. It wasn't until after he had departed that I discovered a second tire was flat. I didn't know what to do. Without a spare, I couldn't call the Auto Club again. I thought of walking down the street to find a supermarket that sold a can of temporary flat-fixer; but the nearest supermarket was a long walk away.
While I was working the car's jack, a young man driving by noted my difficulty and stopped to help. When I explained what I needed, he offered to find a can for me. I accepted his offer.
When he returned with the stuff and tried to inflate the tire with it, we discovered the hole was too large; the stuff came out as fast as it went in. The tire would need a proper patch. So he dis-mounted the wheel and drove me to a tire shop several miles distant. He waited while they patched my tire, then drove me back. He re-mounted the wheel, too. His chivalry gave me a warm glow. I was doubly grateful to him -- not only that he had gone out of his way to help, but also because that very help implicitly acknowledged me as a woman.
Society's conditioning, imperfect though it has been, still has "taken" enough that I often note incongruous behaviors in myself. I have, for instance, internalized the competition thing which is so stereotypically male. In any game I play, I feel I must win or else I don't enjoy it; I seem unable to play merely for the joy of playing the game.
I have a male body, with fully functioning equipment and biological urges; yet I feel more like a woman. I am not attracted to men; yet to have sex with a woman affirms a male identity with which I am equally uncomfortable.
I want to be independent and to do things in my own way, yet I also feel a deep need to be taken care of, to surrender my autonomy for warm security.
If I see someone struggling with a process I grasp instantly, I itch to do it myself; yet, in stereotypically feminine fashion, I feel dreadfully inadequate if I'm put in charge.
This conflict is at the core of gender dysphoria. Being dysphoric, I face a crucial choice: Do I deny a part of myself -- starving my psyche and being less than a whole person -- or do I acknowledge and give expression to the cross-gendered part of my being, nourishing my psyche but also incurring the displeasure of a society that thinks in stereotypes? How I answer that question depends on what I want out of life: Do I want the approval of society and easy camaraderie of men, a better chance of being materially successful in society, and to have a reasonably easy choice of love objects -- but yet to be operating from only part of my self? Or do I allow expression of all qualities within me and be stigmatized by society for failing to live by a "proper" gender stereotype?
It is my task to balance these conflicts -- certainly no one can do it for me. Living these questions day to day, I hope some day to live into the answers.