The Early Years- Dicovery, Fear and Guilt

It is now just over four weeks before I undergo a procedure that only a few years ago I thought I would never be undergoing in my life as I continued to live my life inside a shell I had created to hide my true essence of who I am and always have been- Melissa. I thought that in the few weeks that remain before I undergo my Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS) at the skilled hands and vision of my surgeon, Dr. Christine McGinn, I would take this opportunity to reflect back on the various periods of my life, asses my final thoughts as I enter these last stages of my physical transition although I fully realize that my spiritual and emotional journey is far from over and will continue for a great part of the remainder of my life long after the GCS which will also be performed along with my breast augmentation ( BA) by Dr. McGinn.
These procedures will not make me a woman…I already am a woman and have been one my whole life. I just received the wrong indoctrination by those who raised me as well as society based upon my physical appearance. I don’t blame anyone for the wrong indoctrination – they were doing what they believed was right Becoming a woman is not as simple as one day you are a male and then you wake up and you are female. I will finally have the body physically that will correspond with my true essence. However, the surgical procedures to be performed by my surgeon will not simply make me a woman. I have always been one but the journey will go on long afterward for me to relearn all that I did not learn in my previous life inside the shell and a journey to grow as a woman and a person! The surgery will assist society in recognizing me as a woman since it is stuck in its binary thinking so documents such as birth certificate, driver’s license and many others will now reflect me as a woman. These procedures merely correct, along with my previous FFS in January the incorrect body parts and put my body in tune with my spirit.
In this week’s blog I will discuss my early years of life, which for me, was one of discovery, feeling alone and living in fear of this deeply held secret I carried inside of me. Next week I will discuss the middle years of my life in my denial, repression, anger and refinement of the shell that hid my true essence of my soul. Needless to say, that will not be a pretty one but I would not be where I am today without that dark period. I will take a week off the following week to discuss my travels to Washington D.C. with Paula and my friends to lobby for our rights and dignity as transgendered people as part of the NCTE’s Transgendered Lobby Days. However, I will then discuss the more recent periods of my life in the subsequent blog where I evolved from the shell and finally emerged to live my life fulltime as Melissa – my true essence. The last few days before I depart for my surgery I will give my final thoughts as the big day in my life approaches which will change my body radically to what it should have always been in my life as well as discuss and give thanks to many wonderful people who helped me in my journey and who have helped me reach this point in my life.
I was born in 1960 and I grew up in a house my parents moved to when my mother was three months from bringing me into this world. Mom always wanted a girl. Especially after my older brother’s birth I was told that my mother prayed everyday for God to grant her wish to have a little girl she had desired so much in her life. Maybe my soul and brain received the messages and prayers but my genetic code obviously did not and I was born and classified in our binary system of thinking of society as “male”. As far back as I can remember I never fully felt that my body fit my image of how I saw myself and felt I was a girl. I recall an episode when I was about age 6 or 7 years old when I received the wonderful but only occasional delight of getting to play dolls with the neighbor girls. I loved those times so dearly and my father would have died if he knew what I was doing. One afternoon, I found myself alone in the basement of my neighbor Diane who let me occasionally play dolls and house with her. Her clothes were sitting folded on the dryer and it was not long before this uncontrollable urge to remove my boy clothes and to put her’s on instead overcame me. I stood there trembling in her clothes and clutching one of her dolls and while the feelings of guilt and shame overcame me for those few brief moments I had a clarity of who I truly was but did not understand why I was like that at all.
The episodes repeated themselves again and again. I felt so ashamed and so full of fear, anguish and guilt. I hid the feelings very tightly. There was a kid in my school who was picked on mercifully because he was gay but I lacked the courage to stand up and defnd him for fear of having the scorn turned on me.The indoctrination as a male worked against my inner feelings but still I knew I was “different”. Since I knew nothing of this and knew no one else who talked about anything like this I feared I was so alone! Why was I like this? Did I do something wrong? When opportunities were no longer available from my classmates and neighbors I sought out to emulate my mother by dressing in her clothes – a process which occurred at least a few times a month –pretty much from the time I was about eleven or so until late in my high school years. I was so sacred I would be caught but I could not stop myself from doing this ritual over and over. I dearly loved expressing my femininity and often wondered what girls my age would be doing in their lives. I still lived in shame and fear and still felt I must be alone or one of the few who were afflicted by these feelings. My parents continued to raise me as their “son” and not their daughter. As the years went on, more and more indoctrination occurred against my true soul and essence.
It only caused me more guilt and shame but as hard as I fought to fight off the feelings that kept pouring out. When I was twelve I discovered the terms cross dresser, transvestite and transsexual from a psychology book I found in our library. When I was 13 I dressed from head to toe as a girl with all the accessories and I discovered my name was Melissa ( It just sort of came to me as I looked at myself in the mirror that afternoon as I stood before it and seeing a reflection that seemed so right.) When I was fourteen I almost told my parents who sensed something was eating at me but I could not find the right words to express what I felt or even how to begin and I thought they would not love me anymore when I told them. So I lied to them. I made up another story of what was bothering me .The lies came so easy and freely and soon my life would be filled with them…..the early years of my life gave way to a period of denial, lies and deceit to myself and others as well as emersion into typical “masculine” things that I believed would rid me of these feelings that I was a girl. The lies and denials and deep repression of Melissa would leave me imbedded in a tightly wound shell that would take decades to erode…………...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Wife Was Right

The wife was right……although not on everything. My wife, through the assistance of my young, tech savvy college educated daughter, found my blog last week and did not like what she read. She was hurt and in tears and apparently my sister in law and brother in law (the one I labeled homophobic) were also snooping around reading it and perusing the pics as well. My daughter was upset as well about my comments on some of them about members of my wife’s family. Last week’s blog had sharp pain in it and it was written on a day I cried for two hours after I get alleged of being Attila the Hun and son drives off to be seen maybe someday down the road. I was hurt and it showed. I revised it after I had time to calm down but not before the wife had written to me a comment. I could tell she was under the same hurt when she wrote hers. I think both cried a lot last weekend. Now I did disagree with some things she raised about my “lifestyle” and the fact she contended my letter to her mother was “flippant” as it was similar to one I wrote other members of the family. She felt I needed to talk with her mother in person. But I know I would not have made it through that one. I love her mother and as I mentioned I got along better with her than I did my own mother and my mother-in-law loved me like a “son”.

However, I am a better writer than an orator and if I had tried to explain details to people in person from the beginning I probably would have failed I tried to put great detail in my letters- far more than I could ever explain in initial conversation. I always ended each letter by telling them they could feel free to contact me and I would try to explain more and talk with them but at least they would have the knowledge set forth in the letter before we started. No one called me although I did call a couple relatives and friends myself. No one really knows what to say so they don’t. The other part of wife’s reply which was cruel was her addressing me as “him” and “he” throughout after writing the letter to Melissa. But I hope that was due to her well founded anger and hurt and maybe some old habits.

The rest of the reply to me was basically true. I was not always the best person in my old life living under the shell. Although I know why, that does not justify any of my actions. I never physically assaulted anyone but I was filled with anger and frustration many of times and unfortunately my family got some of that venting and that was wrong. My anger stemmed from three sources I believe. First was my family heritage. My father was known to blow his cork now and then and my mother could fire pitch forks with the best of them and dealt with anger issues. My family heritage was that of the feisty German and Scotch – a mix that is considered lethal in some places. My brother dealt with many of these same issues himself. I remember once he lost a tennis match and went into such a rage he broke his racket into tiny pieces and screamed and cursed. He warned me about the fiery mix but I did not head the warning well. The next problem for me was my work. I hated it. I have no idea what drove me to go into a high demanding pressured- filled job with a lot of stress but that is something no one with my family heritage ought to get into and all that playing hardball did was make me feel like crap and feed my anger even more. Now I had two strikes against me through my lineage and my work stressors and then we throw in this little “transgender problem” and all that guilt, repression, denial, secrecy, frustration and pretending in my shell and I have now added a third strike from which most people would have exploded into violent rage considering all these factors. But I never reached that point. Sure there was anger in my voice and some yelling and tossing a few items, although not at anyone, but I am surprised I did not explode into pieces. As I said, my wife was right – she and sometimes the kids caught the blunt of this anger and frustration and I was wrong to do that and I can only ask that they forgive me and understand someday.

Those stressors have been reduced. I cannot ever change my family history but like my brother did before me, I will have to work hard to address that family background and work to keep calmer like he did so much more in his years after college and marriage. Secondly, I changed jobs and now do something I truly love and should have gone into when I was young like I originally wanted to before someone or something pulled me into another path. I cannot undue the years but I can enjoy my remaining ones by doing something I love and something which gives me great joy and satisfaction. I did a good deal of community work and volunteering like my father did all through my life and I need to continue that as well. It is good to help others and if everyone actually did some things to help others in life no one really would have to do a lot. Finally, I ripped through my shell and left it in pieces. I am out to so many people now and everyday I feel better and better about myself because of all these disclosures. The hormones have reshaped me emotionally as the testosterone is slowly contained and estrogen pumps its way into my body. This action has allowed me to fully tap into my feminine feelings and emotions that were always there but tucked away for many years only to occur mostly in private moments. Instead of much anger, I now feel sadness and I cry. Freedom did come with a price such as the loss of many in extended family and most importantly my immediate family and wife. My wife is a gentle, caring, loving, compassionate person with a warm heart and she did not deserve what she dealt with over the years although there were many good points as well in my own defense. It’s too bad she never really got to know the real me very often. The full emergence of Melissa- my true soul and identity and my career change into one I so enjoy all came in recent years after we have drifted too far apart. I wish her much peace and happiness in her new life…. I truly do. I hope she wishes it for me as well.

As for me, I much work to do on my new life. Hormones and surgeries do not change your core person or change whether you will be a better person. All too often those of us who are TS think that simply changing one’s body to fit one’s inner essence of gender and identity is the answer to all our problems. Believe me it does help when you no longer struggle with presenting your true identity and gender- but regardless of what gender organs you have you still have to be a good person. You have to strive to care about others, work well with those around you in your job, your families and people in general. You still have to learn and practice patience and kindness and living a calmer, more peaceful life as short as it is in this world. Although my continued transition will occupy my agenda for the near future and I will remain focused on the same, I must remember that although I now live my life fulltime as Melissa. I must still strive to make Melissa a better person -full of love and kindness and passion and tenderness and caring and live my life far better out of the shell than I ever did in it. My wife was mostly right- she usually is …she is an intelligent person and in her are many of the qualities I desire to live by as I live my life as who I really am. When that occurs peace will be found and life more enjoyable not only for myself but all who interact and know Melissa!


And now for a bit of work update. I came out to my Board of Directors and they were all supportive and are very happy I will stay on as Melissa. They will change all the printed materials, magazine, slideshow and website to reflect my new name and new picture. They look forward to seeing me at the next Board and Chapter meeting in September as Melissa. It will be my first venture out professionally as Melissa. My groups I do work for on contract basis are fine with it as well and love my work and will assign work to Melissa just like they did as Russell. There is still a long road to go but the seeds are there and I am anxious to roll up my blouse sleeves and get to work on these career developments. Doing work I enjoy doing as who I truly am …that is definitely a good thing for sure!