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Middle-Eastern Transition

I HAD no problem with gender before puberty. As a kid I was free to do and be whatever I wanted. My father was delighted with my tomboy ways and encouraged it. My mother was more apprehensive about things, and would put me in skirts every chance she got. Then beg me to sit with my legs closed or to please please act like a lady! Still I had no problem with any of this, until puberty hit. Even my father joined everyone else, in hopes that I would suddenly wake up a delicate young woman.

The thing is, I didn’t think of myself as a boy or a girl, but just as ‘me’ with a fabulously lean and strong body that would take me anywhere I wanted it to. So in the early stages of puberty when the changes were small, I could keep up my ways. Unfortunately Middle Eastern femininity soon took over and I suddenly found myself with large breasts, hips, loss of strength and muscle, and all the rest of it. I couldn’t understand the logic or justice of puberty: boys continued on with the same body that only got better, bigger, stronger, yet for girls it was a complete change in a weird direction. A totally new game. Most outrageously, I was suddenly expected to behave differently. It puzzled me that most girls went along with the new expectations with delight. They actually liked having breasts, looking pretty, wearing make-up!

By the time I was 13, frustration and misery had set in. I began to work out and diet excessively to get rid of the new extra bits. Unfortunately I only ended up bulimic for two years, messed up my thyroid, and lost lots of hair. From then on until my early 20′s – with the exception of a few months here and there when I tried to be a ‘girl’, I kept my hair short, wore only boys’ or boyish clothes and shoes, and where the languages I speak allowed it, spoke using masculine grammar. My family and relatives thought it was odd but funny and played along by buying me butch clothes and speaking to me as if I were a boy.

I also got into feminism. The variety where everything is blamed on nurture at the expense of nature. It soothed me to believe that a little attitude tweaking here and there could turn anyone into a proper man, really! Militantly I set out to show every woman the errors of her ways. Show her, she too, could have big muscles, body hair, no make-up etc etc if only she’d set her mind to it. I was desperate that it really be so. Eventually the blank stares made me wonder if I were being a tad bit absurd.

In my 20′s, I decided to go as low key as possible. My family was no longer amused, but frosty. You don’t play with gender or sexuality in the Middle Eastern context. In fact, you could die. Anything different from the sanctified roles is a source of intense shame. And my case seemed hopeless: here was I, a small girly girl daring my hopes to trespass into men’s territory. I didn’t know about the wonders of testosterone. I thought surgery was all there was. I didn’t have the benefit of internet then. So I gave up on any ideas of change. I resigned myself to staying female, albeit one who wasn’t a ‘woman’.

Many documentaries, books and internet sites later, I learnt about testosterone, but felt it was for ‘others’, those brave, cutting edge people who like taking risks, or had supportive family and friends and had nothing to lose. Or at least the ‘real transsexuals’ – this sort of thing doesn’t happen to boring people like me, you know. My first assumption was so off the mark. As for the second: why not me? Maybe me. Heck! It is me!

So December last year, when misery had hit an all-time high and even my family was worried what I might do next, I decided to listen to that inner being. I gave myself a few months to learn whatever I could on all levels; theoretical, political, medical… By May I started seeing someone who referred me to an endocrinologist. I have had three injections (6 weeks) now and feel amazing! Such a long way to go, but already I have some new muscles and strength, my voice is changing, hips and thighs are going (yay!), my facial features are more defined and I have hair growth on my chin and upper lip. I haven’t told my parents. When they notice, I will explain. My siblings know, and once they got over their ‘grief’, they started playing along cheekily, dropping hints here and there in front of unsuspecting relatives!

Pan, (2008) Middle-Eastern Transition, Vol 8(1).