Finally getting started on my Transitional Story

 So I am finally getting stuff together on my story. Atleast I have a hand written version and I am beginning to type it up and expand upon it. Well it will go as far as it can go before surgery. Still working on the whole insurance thing for that, but once surgery is completed, I will be able to finish work on my story. But I figured that in the meantime I had to atleast begin assembling it into a typed document. 

Mostly I wanted to feel that I was working on accomplishing something. Feel that I have been lacking in the accomplishment area of my life recently and this is my way of dealing with it - So below is the beginning of it - I will most likely share as I go, but not all of it, lol

Becoming Gia

 

A Transitional Story

 

By

 

Gia Watson

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

What is Gender Dysphoria?

What/Who are Trans People?

 

I hope by the end of this book you will have some answers to your questions and those of you who are not Trans will have gained knowledge that we are really just regular people trying to live our best lives.

 

There are many books and sources out there, some written by Trans people, others written by those involved with the Trans community. All are worth checking into and will provide a variety of information and material that would be useful for anyone to know, either Trans, Ally or just someone who feels they have something to learn. I encourage people to read and learn as much as they can, and all the books are worthwhile, for every journey is different. We all have a different experience, different perspective and we go through many different paths to get to where we need to be in life. All are helpful. This book is about my journey, my story and my experiences. I will try not to be too boring, too whiny or too all knowing, although that last may be a bit difficult as I am a bit of a know all. Well, more than a bit of a one actually, lol. I joke, a little. I am opinionated and I am passionate in defending my opinions, all of which are well grounded and well through out. But I am also awake enough to know that my opinion is just one of many and that all are equally valid. Regardless of what you believe, I do hope that the telling of my journey is helpful.

 

Like I said, this book is about my particular journey. I plan on covering my personal history, my denial of who I truly was, how long I fought it through to my final acceptance. From then I will include coming out and learning about who I truly was and am. That is not a simple journey. It is never as simple as saying I am Trans and then just living your best Trans life. There is far more to it, so much to learn, so much to unlearn and discard. This is true of everyone in life be they Trans, Cis, Gay, Straight, Pan or anything else. Our journey’s and various paths can and should always teach us something. The minute we think we have learned everything about ourselves is the minute it should all be over. But I hope that you will be able to see that if you embrace your journey with an open mind then you will begin to see there is so much to learn about your own self and you will find the joy in that comes with discovering who you are.

 

All life is a journey, each of us have our own, but I believe that we never truly know ourselves until we have to figure out just who we are. All too often that is during a crucible in our lives. Until we come to our fork, our trials, our crucible we rarely know who we are or where we are going.

 

If it turns out that you are Trans, or gender non conforming, non binary then you have an amazing journey ahead of you, if you are at the stage where you feel you can start on this path. You will encounter support, acceptance, tolerance (although Tolerance is not a good thing in my mind) and you will encounter objections to what are know you have to do. And you will also experience outright adversarial opinions, denial, abandonment, along with family and friends who think they have the right to force their perception of your identity upon you. But I want you to know that despite all of that this is still your journey and you can live your truth.

 

From just about anyone, even those who support you, you might here that transition is the absolute last thing you should do, and only to be undertaken when you have exhausted all other options. What is important to keep in mind is that to many, transition equals surgery. That is not always the case. Any surgical part of your journey is a decision for later on and one that should be made between you, your therapist and your medical practitioner. Also I would include those family and friends who are truly supportive. However, in my opinion transition is a journey of acceptance and there is no need to avoid it. Essentially it is your acceptance of your true self, whatever that may be. I have no more right to tell you who you are than anyone can tell me who I am. This is for you and you alone to discover and that is the true journey of transition. The earlier you begin to tackle this journey, the stronger you will be - again my opinion. But believe me, for any journey of self discovery you need to be in a strong place. Transitioning really involves daily self reflection and exploration of your authentic self as well as often fighting for your right to simply exist and attain medical care. So I certainly recommend that it is begun as early as you think it should - again your journey, you decide when you are ready.

 

I will end this section with this - My single biggest regret in life is and always will be how long it took for me to even begin my journey, to take my first step on the transitional path. I constantly wish that I had found the strength to begin this much earlier in life. And I know several other Trans people with that self same regret. But such is life. I did not begin until I was 40 and now must accept that. My late acceptance and the changes I have missed out on have impacted how I see myself as well as played a part in what kind of woman I think I am, not too mention my style - but that is an ever evolving thing anyway.

 

So if you are ready, then so am I. The following chapters will lay out everything that I have experienced, as best I can remember it. I did keep journals on and off, kinda wish I had been more diligent about those, but for the most part I can recall most of my journey over the past, nearly 7 years.

 

 

 

Chapter 1 - Beginning

 

 

I guess the best place to start is the beginning and my past. When born I was assigned male at birth, but I remember from a very early age simply feeling out of step with that assignment. But lack of information and knowledge made it more than difficult, almost impossible, to figure out exactly what I was feeling.

 

To provide context I was born in 1975 - many younger people might forget that we had no internet back then. So here I was, way back in the dark ages of technology, feeling out of sync with how I was perceived by society and my family but I had no idea why or what was causing it. Years passed before I had any inclination of what it might be. But even then I was terrified of what it could possibly mean and I was 40 years old before I fully accepted the reality of who I really was.

 

Some might dispute this, mostly people that deny the authenticity of Trans people, but honestly I have memories from as young as 7, perhaps even younger. And in all those memories I felt out of sync. I have spoken with some Trans people who recall feeling that from the age of 5 and I do not dispute it, since I absolutely do remember those feelings. But I had no clue what caused them. It was all so confusing, I mean I was only 7 and had very little idea of how society operated. I just knew in every fiber of my being that when they addressed me as a boy, it was wrong. It all felt wrong.

 

My entire childhood was not full of sadness and depression. I was a kid after all. Such weighty matters of identity and how I was perceived could not monopolize all of my attention. I had fun too and yes I enjoyed playing sports, particularly real football (I use that term intentionally since I talk about the sport where you use your foot, not carrying an oblong shaped ‘ball’ around) - anyway at 7 I was in primary 3 - we used to have play time and yes I’d run around with the boys playing football. It was fun. But even then there was an undertone of something. I didn’t want to be recognized as a boy, but ofcourse had no idea where those thoughts came from. So I ignored them as best I could. But closing upon puberty my feelings only got more intense and more difficult to ignore. Despite all my attempts to fit in, I was always out of place in a group of boys. I was not nearly as rambunctious as them, had a far easier time forming friendships with girls and all that. But that was not proper for a young boy back then. Boys had to be boys. And I tried. Oh how I tried to embrace every thing that was boyish.

 

In Scotland around that age they have a few organisations for younglings, the one I attended were called the Shipmates - my older brother was in the Boys Brigade, which was the more grown up version. I am sure it has somewhat changed by now and from looking it up, I see that it is now Anchor is from 5-8 years of age, Juniors 8-11, Company 11-15 and Seniors 15-18. Joining that organisation allowed me to hide my oddity and try to be boyish I thought it was the thing to do. For much of it I was successful in fooling everyone. That is one thing you will find in common with oh so many Trans people. We are all good at fooling people and ourselves. We have practiced so long at it that its almost second nature. So I continued doing boyish things.

 

From that point on I tried not to give my feelings any voice, always ignoring them, thinking they were wrong, that I was wrong and that it was something I was obviously making up. For how could a boy really feel like a girl? How could I have been born in a boys body if I was not? These thoughts rampaged through my mind and I had no answer to them, but truly all I really yearned for back then was to be a girl, be perceived as a girl, have a girls name, clothes and be all around a girl. But that was just not to be and since it was obviously impossible I quashed the thoughts, knowing that if I ever aired that I was such a weirdo then my parents would freak. My friends would deride me, perhaps bully me and who knows what strangers would think and do. The thought of all that happening truly terrified me.

 

Years passed where I kept my thoughts to myself and often I was successful in convincing myself that it had been a phase, despite the fact that those feelings would always come back. Each time though, I would stubbornly refuse to look at them “They are just a phase, you are just being weird” was a constant litany running through my head. This was successful to some degree. But it was my 13^th year when I reached a truly significant point. That was the year that I first bought women’s jeans. I cannot speak for every Trans women, but for me, this was huge. I had denied my identity so long that I completely tied my gender into a type of clothing. I mean lets face it clothing is genderless and jeans are jeans after all. But the simple fact that they were designed for women and sold to women made them female in my mind. And it was the escape I needed.

 

That year it had gotten obvious to me that something needed to change since I had already gotten to the stage where I would traipse around the house in my Mums winter boots. Oh how I loved knee high boots, still do as a matter of fact. And back then it was my outlet, a release to the frustrating voices in my head. Somehow wearing something designed for women would help silence them. But it never lasted long. And then I found my way into the nylon drawer. But let’s not talk too much about that. It happened, not something I wish to over share. That being said, I knew that I needed something more than just a couple of women's things I could wear while alone in the house. So I finally did it. I ordered a pair of women's jeans from a catalogue and OMG it was every bit as liberating as I had hoped it would be.

 

The day they arrived, never had I felt such excitement. My hands shook as I opened the package, and ran the material through my fingers. They even felt different than the regular boy jeans I had worn. They felt softer, but also just right. Rushing to my bedroom I had to try them on immediately.

 

Pulling them on my legs felt sooooo wonderful. I don’t think I can fully explain it. But as the soft material slid up my leg, my mind just felt everything fit so much better. It felt right and whole and perfect. Truly it was almost as if the jeans themselves had an actual gender. I know it was just my mind being convinced that wearing clothing designed and sold to women was what I needed to do, but right at that moment what I was wearing truly matched my internal identity. Rubbish I know, but that is how it was. I had associated women’s clothing with that particular gender and it just felt that I should be wearing those clothes. I ached for more and those life altering pair of jeans really awoke a need in me, so it ended up causing more angst than it solved - that's life there too I guess. And still I was unsure of what all this meant. Still no internet, not much of a library or information source in my small town either. Honestly I was thinking that I might just be a weirdo that liked to wear women's clothing. So my struggles continued.

Anyway this is all I have typed up at the moment. As I said I will share more from time to time.