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Moving forward

1992 – ON a personal level, I’ve had the misfortune to undergo a divorce from my lover of nearly 18 months; the woman who first encouraged me to embark upon my process. This has triggered many issues for me over the past few weeks.

Beside the initial shock of separation and finding out that the woman who loved in me my masculinity, now finds it inappropriate, many insecurities and self-doubts have emerged. I hadn’t realised the extent to which I had relied upon her for validation of my new gender and the ability to feel sexy with it. I had to question whether what I had been doing to my body was in part to please and retain her as a lover. Was I better off remaining as a transvestite? Did I really want surgery of any form? All issues I thought I had previously been clear on.

Being left caused me to blame my masculinity for my rejection and thus I briefly became quite loathing of myself, feeling that my ‘maleness’ had now become a problem – a fundamental characteristic that would forever alienate women (and in particular lesbians) for me. Okay, so it all sounds rather dramatic but these concerns were very real and distressing at the time of analysis and could well happen to yourselves, which is why in part I’m relaying this trauma.

Culturally identifying as a male lesbian (with poofter leanings), I panicked at the thought of being ostracised within my community through simply being no longer viewed as an attractive and desirable person (after all lesbians do ultimately wish to be with women). Was I to see myself the recipient of every lesbian’s sexually curious bisexual phase and never experience a long-term relationship again? Would I have to find my partners amongst heterosexual women with whom I have no cultural base or affinity? In despair would I make myself totally gay and live my life with gay male partners as some sort of consolation? Or worse, would my transsexuality cause me to be absolutely alone romantically? Scary stuff especially for someone who always seemed to wind up in a relationship sooner or later.

So sifting my way through not only the grief and loss of a partner, I’ve had a mountain of self-questioning to contend with. Ultimately, I’m grateful that all this has occurred. It has shown me that I had shelved in my mind the vast consequences of my gender decision on a very fundamental level, going along on the ideal concept that all would fall into place easily through sheer determination.

Many people have said how brave I have been in choosing to undergo a gender transformation and my reaction to this until now has been to think what bravery? It’s a simple decision based on what is true – (all of course spoken from within the sheltered security and nurturing of a loving relationship). Now I am feeling that, yes, it does take much courage to do what we are doing and is indeed a painful process on many levels with a number of difficult sacrifices.

I’m now learning to re-establish myself as who I really want to be, weighing the pros and cons. I’m learning to fall in love with myself as a man and to find myself attractive (it’s wonderful what stress can do for your figure!). I’m learning to think positively about the future and my position in it (which is still causing confusion for me), and to realise that the appropriate lovers will enter my life as karmically destined, and being a unique individual I will attract unique others to me.

Jasper (2001). Moving Forward. Torque, 1(1), 1-2.