I found myself at counselling again today, I’m fed up with this constant cycle of fighting to be accepted as simply me.  No matter how I present, what I wear, how my voice doesn’t match my body or clothes, just fighting to be accepted as a human being.

I keep trying to push this door and that and then sitting there again in a place of neutrality stepping back from the burden of stigma and prejudice I feel.

All the same, I am tired of it all, I mentioned today I just want to be the authentic me and grow in comfort in society to find allow my confidence being me to grow, but all these professionals nod and shake their heads in the right places and realise they can’t or don’t have the skills to help.

What is authenticity anyway?

It’s defined as “of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine”.  Does being transgender make me a fake?  Does wearing a wig and makeup make me less than genuine, it feels like it does.  Or is it more that, just as I age I change, as I wear makeup or wear a frock I change, I move further away from the person I was.  The combination of ageing and struggling to be me in the world is the part I struggle with the most, I don’t feel I have lived a peaceful and calm life in the real world ever really in my life.  I see my partner thriving as a wonderful woman, caring in her nursing role, she picked herself up from nothing and made something of herself.  I have gone the other way, made something of myself and slipped back because of this, slipped further and further down the slippery slope of life.  Maybe I have to let go of who I was and evolve my way to a new version of me, is that still authentic?  Is a new adaptation still authentically me?

People never really doubt who they are, they have spent a life time being themselves, their gender never in question.   I see people and speak to people who can’t even define what it means to be a woman or a man but call themselves that anyway and with passion defend the very identity they wear.  They have every right to defend that identity every right, but the crushing debilitating inability to truly define who they are with reference to stereotypes they have grown up with brings about a collapse in their very personhood, my Mum did it only the other day.  they always finish by saying “Oh I don’t know I’m just a woman”  Or I am what I am and that’s that, it doesn’t matter.

The truth is none of us are the same each day, we all grow and evolve, but I presume I am clutching hold of the old me the male me, gripping on for dear life all the while missing the opportunities of the new me in the scary world I wasn’t ever schooled in.

You see I never wanted to be transgender but if you are trans you know, you don’t have a choice and the medication changes not only your body shape but your mind too.

I fear I have to accept the old me of the past the person I could have been has gone, died a long time ago in many ways.  This me this neutral me is here today, the next version of me can be here tomorrow, the version of me that simply has the ability to fit in is for me to work out.

But how without another set of fears and a cycle of rejection and upset?  I have little enough support around me living how I am now, let alone trying to find an authentic version of me that simply fits in.

Someone today said it’s like someone fighting the prejudices of racism.  It’s harder than that, someone who suffers racism goes home to people similar to themselves, people who struggle with the same problems, I am home alone 100% of the time, I am alone in company, nobody I know gets it and therefore nobody I know can help guide me.  All they can do is draw down from the playbook of their lived experiences, and their training in their profession and see if a framework fits.

It’s funny the young lady today at the CBT session knew her experience in life, her knowledge of the topic and the thin therapy of CBT would struggle to make a dent in the problems I have.  Problems that hit me each and every day, I honestly don’t know if I have dealt with properly the big events of my life as anyone else would because this huge weight of dealing with this transgender nonsense is the primary burden I carry.  Did I deal with a full-term stillborn baby, my adoption, a terrible marriage breakdown, the loss of a career, loss of friends due to prejudice, etc etc.

I am not an angry person at all, never had one fight, but I am angry at this … I want it to stop and I want to get on with my life comfortably being at peace with the authentic version of me.

In more ways than one I can do almost anything in my daily life and to many I am living the dream but it’s ‘small change’ when you struggle to live with yourself in a personal nightmare.