Here’s why being transgender is awesome!
If you follow my blog, you probably also follow a bunch of others like it, and I fear that many who are not trans themselves or are still closeted, will get the impression that being trans is just one long sob story. I recently complained about this after watching ”The Danish Girl” that it was too sad. I think many people might go away from the movie thinking; it is so terrible being transgender and I feel bad for them. I don’t want anyone’s pity, because my life isn’t sad, it is awesome.
Many people have written me since I wrote about online dating, to cheer me up, but that was just half a day of feeling down followed by happiness, and that was weeks ago. It is not something that lingers in my mind. I share things that I find interesting knowing someone else might also. It isn’t because I need cheering up, even if it is about me struggling with something. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the intention people had when they wrote me.
There’s a lot of focus on looks when it comes to transition, understandably so, but it isn’t the part about my transition that I appreciate the most, it is the change in my personality. I desired friendships with women way before I understood why, but I just wasn’t able to. I was always holding up a big emotional shield, always trying to seem as manly and cool as possible, which would ultimately drive them away from me. I let all that go, so now I can have relationships that are much closer than ever before, with guys as well. Even things in my personal life that has nothing to do with my gender that used to bother me to no end, is no longer something I feel ashamed about or that I should cover up. Like still living with my parents and so on.
I think that should be an important note to any closeted trans people out there who feel that they are too old, that they wont look great if they transition, that it is simply too late for them. Transitioning should never be about beauty or becoming handsome(looking at you trans guys), it is about losing your inhibitions so that you can become the person that you really are, to have the friendships and connections that you couldn’t before.
I have recently realized that I have become cool. I was neither cool nor interesting before, just funny enough to keep around. In the start, I just thought people were being nice and did their best to be open and respectful, and that it would pass once they had asked what they needed to know about my transition. That is not the case however, in reality being trans gives me immediate respect and interest with old friends and even with strangers. People want to be around me and get some of that ”magic”, from what they see as a brave and courageous person. Even if they aren’t aware of why exactly they like me, they will always go out of their way to say goodbye to me even if we only talked briefly at a party. This not just me blowing my own horn here, because I don’t think it is specific to me, I think it goes for most if not all trans people.
I was actually a bit sad that I ended up ”passing” when going to see ”The Danish Girl” in my head I was going to give out of high fives and nods to people for being ”the star” of the movie. Instead I just blended in among the many women watching the movie. Many trans women want to go unnoticed, to just be one of the girls, but personally I’m still in love with being transgender, I still want it to be part of who I am. Even if being transgender makes dating more difficult it sure as hell makes my social life more interesting.
I have a pretty big crush on a guy in my class at school. A crush isn’t exactly logical, you start appreciating things about someone that would seem mundane to others, the way they talk, they way they listen, even simple ideas they have, seem like they are coming from a borderline genius. I never had a crush before though, not because I haven’t been attracted to people before, I just don’t think I was capable of it. It isn’t just the hormones making feel a greater range of emotion, my chronic unhappiness meant that I couldn’t feel anything else, and I didn’t even know I was unhappy until I started becoming happy.
It is extremely difficult for me to stay sad these days, because when I become sad, it in turn makes me happy that I am now able to feel that emotion. It is a real sadness, not something constant and never ending, but something with a reason, something I can point at and say, this is why I am sad. I cried for the first time in 15 years recently, but after I got over it, I simply felt euphoric, it was my Pinocchio moment, I had finally become a real person.