Now that I’m a month into taking The Real Possibility of Joy to the world – or at least to those editors/producers who feel it may be on interest to their audience – what are the themes emerging?
First is that no one knows anything about gender transition except those of us upon whom it has been thrust. This is important news. It is too easy to lock yourself into your own little world and think that, somehow, the wider world understands it. Nope. Ain’t so. I have had to take many a deep breath and count to three before patiently explaining that a transsexual woman is not a transvestite – and even that ‘transsexual’ is an adjective and not a noun. There are both transsexual men and transsexual women.
My hate mail has brought me back to that hoary old cliche that a transsexual woman is simply a gay man without the balls to admit that he is gay. (Joke intended.) C’mon! Gay men do not want to be women. OK? Gay men are men. Lesbians are women. People are people.
BTW. The numbers (when kept accurately, as in Sweden) indicate that there are as many transsexual men around as there are transsexual women.
No, I didn’t go through all this just so I’d feel comfortable in designer frocks. There are plenty of TS women who choose not to dress like I do. And, whilst on the subject of what may have made me make the change…it WASN’T because I was sexually abused as a small child. Lots of us had quite benign childhoods. Mine was nasty, but that was just the luck of the draw. It may have affected my sexual preference and my ability to relate, but it didn’t affect my gender identity.
Mostly, though, what comes through is the astonishing and beautiful acceptance of my story, of my life. All my life I had anticipated rejection, so to suddenly find acceptance is the most precious thing. That it took me so long to achieve is my only sadness.
