Gender Dysphoria

When you look in the mirror, who do you see? For most people, the answer is ourselves. However, for many, there is a different answer. Occasionally, a person sees someone in the mirror who isn’t who they are at all. How can this be the case? Sometimes, things in nature aren’t quite so cut and dry as we would like to assume. Such assumptions are all to often the case when dealing with gender identity. The plight of transgender people is one that I well understand. You see, I am a transgender woman, and I suffer from gender dysphoria. When I look in the mirror, I see someone I do not know looking back at me. This has been the case my entire life. I would like to tell you, in my own words, in light of my own life, about gender dysphoria. “Gender Dysphoria” is the feeling of discomfort or distress one feels when their gender identity and their assigned sex at birth are incongruent.

Before I begin, let me first dispel some notions about gender dysphoria. Many assume the condition is just a phase. We all go through a litany of questions about our self as we strive to reach maturity. We question what kind of person we wish to be. There is much to consider, after all. Are we athletic or do we prefer another form of expression? What kind of music do we enjoy? Our environment is huge, so our questions are many. We understand how the answers to these questions help shape who we are and how we wish others to perceive us. Certainly, we do go through phases. When I was young, I enjoyed country music. Later, my tastes shifted towards classic rock and roll. I even went through a phase where classical music was the only genre I preferred. This shifting of taste is quite normal for someone trying to define who they are. However, when dealing with our gender, things get much more complicated. For most of us, our mind has been filled with years of gender stereotypes, based on our parent’s perception of who we are. When confronted with a disparity between one’s own perception of reality and the perception of one’s parents, a person’s life can suddenly become very difficult. I was around twelve or so when I first noticed something about myself that made me feel very uncomfortable. My body was beginning to transform from a child into an adult. I was certainly excited, but at the same time I felt very confused. I was suddenly forced to realize I wasn’t happy with the changes I was seeing in the mirror. I was turning into a young man, and the eventual end of that process was the problem. Every thought in my mind told me something was terribly wrong. Logically, I understood what I had always been told; I was a boy, and I was becoming a man. However, my entire world suddenly changed as I pondered how I felt. I knew what I was feeling, and I knew I was very unsettled by those feelings. Trying to keep my perspective, I did my best to dismiss how I felt by telling myself I was simply trying out the thought of being a girl in the same way I had tried out different kinds of music. My conscience was appeased for a while, but how long does a phase have to last before it is clearly not a phase at all? As I recall, I was first confronted with the questions I had about my gender in 1977. To be perfectly honest, I felt the same in 1987, some ten years later. In fact, I felt the same in 2018, some forty one years having passed since I first sensed I was conflicted about my gender identity. In all those years, my taste in music changed, my taste in fashion changed, and even my taste in food changed. However, the questions I had about my gender remained. Clearly, my gender dysphoria wasn’t a phase at all.

I suppose I should mention now, before proceeding any further, that the experiences of my lifetime are not necessarily the same as those of other transgender people. Certainly, each person has to resolve the question of their gender identity on their own terms, just as I did. For those who are able to find a way to resolve, and eventually dismiss, such questions, a feeling of being whole can finally be enjoyed. However, many transgender people find that with the acceptance of who they are from a gender perspective, comes a necessary increase in gender dysphoria. There is a common misconception held by many bystanders that a person feeling the effects of gender dysphoria are simply bearing the repercussions of having made a choice. I find this notion a bit repulsive, to be perfectly honest. To begin with, why would I assume such personal liability for making such a choice? Let us count the cost of my so called “decision”. First, I lost my career. I previously made a modest living as a quality consultant in the field of manufacturing. My phone stopped ringing the moment I announced to the world that I was a woman. Moving on, people I have known for many years, many of whom I assumed to be true friends, suddenly wanted to distance themselves from me. The cost of my “choice” ran much deeper, however. I was assaulted in front of my house recently, solely because the two men passing by took exception to my being transgender. After taking a thrown bottle to the face, I managed to remove myself from harms way. On more than one occasion I have been confronted for using the bathroom associated with the gender specified on my drivers license, which reads female. What is my point in mentioning all this? My neighbor shared a nugget of wisdom when I came out to him. He told me he used to think of people like me as “having made a bad choice”, but then went on to say that as he watched the plight of transgender people, he had come to a new belief: “Why would you choose to be who you are?”, he asked me. My neighbor is not of the same political cloth from which I am cut. We do not agree on a great many issues facing our country, but his words rang true. My life would be far easier if I just fell in line and lived the way my parents had envisioned. Indeed, I did not choose to be transgender, nor to suffer from my resultant gender dysphoria. How I feel was, and is, a mandate usurped by my truth.

I remember discussing my feelings with a psychologist when I was a teenager. Please keep in mind the generation to which I belong. A lady does not like to dwell on her age, but suffice it to say I grew up in a time when even the medical field was not very accepting of my truth. In fact, my doctor told me something that caused me a great deal of distress when I spoke of what I was feeling. What was my diagnosis? I was told I was a sexual deviant. In essence, I was told there was something very wrong with me on a moral level. I did not grow up in a particularly religious family, but what my psychologist told me was well in line with what I had been taught already. May I be candid? My desire to live my life as a female, coupled with some inconsistencies in my sexuality, made for some very conflicted feelings. When one considers my doctor’s pronouncement, my parent’s teachings, and the predominant view of society around me as a whole, one can quickly see how I found maintaining any semblance of self esteem impossible. To be honest, the collective interpretation of so many people hung around my neck like an albatross. I will spare you, the reader, the details of how I found myself faced with oblivion more than once, and that by my own hand. I had come to believe, based on my feelings of gender dysphoria, that I was, in fact, immoral. I count myself lucky I survived long enough to discover the fallacy of this notion. Knowing my very life was in the balance, I set out to educate myself. I began to audit the whole of what things I believed to be true. In time, I came to realize I held on to some notions I had no real basis to believe at all. In religion, in philosophy, and even in modern clinical psychology, I found much dissent from the notions of gender taught to me by my parents and society as a whole. Only then did I find the courage to begin the process of transition to help alleviate the gender dysphoria instilled in me by society as a whole. Indeed, my truth was not a matter of morality at all. I am not a deviant. I am simply who I am. I weep often for my brothers and sisters who did not survive their journey as I did.

So if the gender dysphoria I suffer from is not the result of succumbing to a phase, nor the result of a choice, nor even the result of an immoral nature, then what is it? Let me tell you, first and foremost, that my condition is a cry to exist. I am a woman, and my very soul demands I be recognized as one. In March of 2020, I was faced with a horrible dilemma. I was sitting at home, doing my nails when the phone rang. A client called and needed to meet with me. I was only three months into transition and I was in a panic. My customer was unaware of my being transgender. I quickly removed my makeup and nail polish, then took a shower. However, something happened that day that changed my life. As I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to select a male appropriate outfit to wear, I began to cry. I could not help but feel I was betraying my truth by putting on the “boy” clothes once again. I felt these powerful emotions because gender dysphoria is a subconscious demand to be recognized as who I really am. Coleen was calling out, begging me to not hide her away one more day. The thought of dressing as a man even one more time seemed unthinkable. No matter what the cost, I knew I had to exist as who I truly was. In the end, the customer who called didn’t really care when I arrived as the woman I am.

So what, exactly, is gender dysphoria? I dare say this condition is the soul’s attempt to correct a mistake. Please understand my words at this point. Am I a woman? Yes, I certainly am. Why a child develops into one body and into a different mind is the subject of much study. In Her infinite wisdom, nature chose who I am. However, I must still point out that my gender dysphoria is an attempt by my psyche to correct a mistake. There is much research being conducted on the subject of gender identity, and while I do not feel compelled to delve into those findings at length, I will point out that gender is not what we have been taught to believe, historically. Gender is not determined by anatomy, nor is it determined by chromosomes. Gender is about who you are. Religion and philosophy have gone to great lengths to explain that part of us which makes us unique. Some call that uniqueness our soul, or our spirit, while others call that aspect of our existence our eternal self, or even our life essence. How you define yourself as an individual entity in the universe does not really matter. The simple truth is, every person is unique. So wherein lies the mistake that needs correcting? I dare say the mistake was committed by society as a whole. Whether the cause was through simple ignorance or something more nefarious does not really matter. To force someone to live in denial of their true gender identity is unnatural by definition. When I attempted to live my life as a man, I found it impossible to find peace with myself because I was denying myself. By this reasoning, one can plainly see how my gender dysphoria is the evidence of nature trying to correct the error society had made.

Gender dysphoria is one final thing. The condition is persistent. I, and many others like me, are unable to ignore the primal feelings we possess. Gender dysphoria will not be ignored. This is perhaps the most difficult example of my existence to discuss. May I be frank? I attempted to end my life on more than one occasion. In my lifetime, I attempted to be the man I thought I was supposed to be. I have done free form rock climbing as well as free form diving, knowing a mistake in either endeavor would mean the ending of my life. None the less, let me state here and now that my disregard for my life was not always so veiled. I know what it means to sit with the barrel of a pistol in my mouth, asking myself why I can’t just be like other people. I have finally come to find the answer to that question. Gender dysphoria is a demand made by one’s soul to be recognized. On more than one occasion, I had to choose between my truth and my convenience. My soul announced to my mind that she would rather cease to exist than to continue as a lie. That is a hard truth to understand. I am a woman. Let me say that again. I am a woman. I could quote all the reasons why current research shows that to be true, but none of that matters to me. Every time I look in a mirror I am reminded of who I really am. I am Coleen. I am a woman. Nothing will ever change that truth.

What is gender dysphoria? Gender dysphoria is an uncomfortable truth that must be accepted, regardless of the cost. There was a time I dreaded the distress of seeing the wrong person in the mirror, but now I draw strength from the experience. To quote Lady Gaga, let me leave you with this thought. “I’m on the right track baby, ‘cause I was born this way”.