Sister Golden Bear mentioned in an earlier thread that she has something worth celebrating this week. She was kind enough to write up something for me to share. So, without further ado: happy anniversary, SGB! So this week marks the fourth anniversary of me starting to live as a woman, as my true self. Fortunately, …
Guest Post: Sister Golden Bear’s Transition Anniversary!Post + Comments (86)
Ironically, I didn’t really have much time to celebrate at the time. I was due to fly to Buenos Aires on New Year’s Eve for five weeks to do a series of surgeries to feminize my facial features. Yes, part of it was vanity, but part of it was survival. Life is far harder for trans women who don’t “pass” (a framing I hate), i.e. don’t look plausibly cisgendered. Since I hadn’t been blessed by the androgyny fairy and have a body that’s bigger and bulkier than the vast majority of cis woman (my peasant ancestors were built for the plow), it was important to me to have one visible part of my body that wouldn’t mislead people about who I am.
Trump’s election had thrown a huge wrench in my plans. I’d originally planned to travel to Buenos Aires under my male passport. Not ideal, but practical because I’d just gotten the court order changing my legal name and gender the day before, and it would be touch and go whether I could get my password changed before I needed to leave. But there were serious rumors that one of the first acts of the Trump administration would be to prevent us from changing our gender on passports — which posed a danger visiting a number of countries—and I wouldn’t be returning to the States until after the inauguration. So I booked the airline ticket under my new name and gender, and gambled that I could get the passport changed in time. I managed to do so with only two days to spare.
It’s been a long journey since then, partly because of multiple surgeries to make my body congruent with who I am. (I’m extremely privileged to have been able to do so. This is something many trans folks can’t afford to do.) Partly the lengthy recovery from those surgeries, but plus other personal medical issues and personal tragedies. (My mother died less than two weeks before I was scheduled to leave for another major surgery in Thailand.) Partly it was truly learning to move in the world as a woman—moving into the second-class status that women face definitely made me an even more ardent feminist.
I was looking forward to this year as The Year Everything Came Together, where I’d finally moved through all the transition-related stress and would be able to restart my life again. But obviously 2020 had different plans for me, and billions of others. It’s frustrating having the rest of my new life put on hold, but one day the pandemic will end, and I look forward to making up for the lost years—the so many lost years—living my life authentically.
*At the time, the general advice was to give one’s co-workers 2-3 weeks to adjust to the idea before coming to work as your true gender.
**Why Buenos Aires? Because it’s a specialized surgery and only a half-dozen surgeons in the world are excellent at it. I personally think my surgeon there is the best of the best, plus the favorable exchange rate meant I could do it for less than half the cost of doing it in the States, even including airfare and staying in an apartment for five weeks there.