My employees at work are delighted for some reason when I refer to my transition as “my little switcheroo”. To give perspective, they are equally delighted when I leave for the day and say I’m making like a shepherd and getting the flock out of there. More likely the delight is in my departure rather than my corny witticisms. The reason I bring this up is because I have a friend who is executing the very difficult switcheroo times two. To be clear, male to female and back to male again. Let’s talk about that. This entry has been vetted by him, just so you don’t think I’m pulling the ultimate dick move.
To give some history, he identified as transgender some time ago and began formal transition in recent times. By the way, I’m going to flip-flop pronouns a lot here, so try and keep up. He now is living as a he, but when he was living as a she, I’ll call him her and she. Good lord, I’m already more lost then if I woke up wearing banana pants. Screw that, let’s go with ‘he’. He got as far as coming out at work, going to battle on the bathroom issue, changing his name, and living full time female. I think we can all admit that in the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty far, and required no small amount of chutzpa. I’d say cajones, but you know.
Over the summer he reconnected with the love of his life. She had tolerated his female side, but generally preferred him seven shades more butch. As star-crossed lovers are wont to do, they re-committed and bought a house together. Feeling more at home as a male in the relationship, he made the epic decision to transition back and now going through the undoubtedly onerous process of detransitioning. Name change again, frequent visitor to the men’s room at work, and what must be the worst, uncoming out to people. I’m not even sure how someone does this without a PowerPoint presentation and Rubik’s Cube for handy visual references and analogies. Here I will say that it must take major cajones and big brass ones at that; the kind that roll down ancient mountains and try to crush Indiana Jones.
Now that I dropped this little bombshell on you, I can feel some of you starting to bristle from here. Easy there hoss, let’s talk this through. Some are of the opinion that a single instance of detransition makes every trans person out there a suspect of future waffling. Some think we are arming the opposition with cause to believe transition is a lifestyle choice and not a medical necessity. Some will be inclined to predict dire consequences resulting from a future realization that a grave mistake was made. Those who fall into any of these fun little pools are probably going to argue strenuously with what I have to say next, but hear me out. I think these assumptions are wrong like Chong without a bong. Hard to argue with someone who uses obsolete rhymes, isn’t it?
Here is how I see it. Transition is a journey, a road, a path one takes to find the way home to feeling comfortable in one’s own body. There are as many roads as there are people. Some are straight, others curve, some go in circles, figure-eight, rhombuses, and even loop-de-loop. The whole point of traveling this rocky, ankle-breaking path, in heels nonetheless, is to make it to a safe place where obsessing about our gender identity takes a backseat to a life more ordinary. It’s really the whole point of it, isn’t it?
Most of us in the trans community have embraced the idea that gender is a spectrum. Where we fit may be more masculine, feminine, in between or off the scale altogether. We embrace each other as transgender, gender neutral, genderqueer, two-spirit, and even bi-gender (which is what this person identifies as). How we arrive at the sweet spot is our own journey, and one that often involves landing hither and thither a few times before finding Goldilocks. In that spirit, I find it impossible to wish him anything but joy and happiness for taking a very long and hard journey and embracing what he is meant to be. How can we do otherwise?
Finally, it’s worth remembering that people who incomprehensibly pour their energy into denying our clearly established existence and any semblance of human rights will continue to do so. Someone finding their way and ending up somewhere different than you or I is not going to make a spit of difference. In honoring our brother-turned-sister-turned-brother’s journey, we only validate the twists and turns our own takes. As for his future, who can say? Only he can determine what that is, and we can safely acknowledge that he’s put far more thought, care, and effort into understanding that than the rest of us combined, just as we have for ourselves.
Michellelianna 