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Anniversary, a new year reflection

  • Posted on December 27, 2012 at 8:33 pm

I started this blog one year ago. I wanted to tell my story as it was writing itself, I wanted to share my poetry, and I wanted to offer a concept of normality about the gender spectrum.

What a year it has been. In an early blog I did write ‘I don’t need to be a woman. I never really can be.’ The subtitle of my blog was ‘reinterpreting gender for a better fit’, and I was at pains to place myself in the centre, with a healthy balance between living one gender or the other depending on who needed that of me.

Meanwhile some people were taking one look at me and saying: ‘No way! She’s a classic transitioning one!’

That story is well told in the poetry collection I published in March: Realisations. I still read it and perform it and share it, as a closed book, but also a very emotional and poignant reminder of the traumatic thing it is to come to terms with being transgender.

So it was, that I applied in March 2012 by Deed Poll to change my name and gender marker for good, and as far as I am concerned, I transitioned then. The story of how it went is on here.

There is very little support though, for what ultimately is a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and even that term has been heartily discussed among psychiatrists and trans* people alike for its appropriateness, this year. Basically it is down to self-help. Somehow we meet each other, and if we are lucky, it’s a useful meeting. YouTube, feminisation secrets websites, borderline suppliers of herbal remedies and hormones, places you don’t normally associate yourself with because it’s easier to visit a ‘drag supplier’ than find genuine mastectomy prostheses. And it is expensive and painful, even before surgery. Despite 1 in 4,500 men and 1 in 8,000 women having diagnosable gender dysphoria.

So a year ago I had been toughing it out, convinced I could tread a middle ground, be dual gender, and keep my family. Yes, that is a pretty big reason to delay facing the truth. And the price of failure? Well, two things, I guess.

First (and mercifully we were going to therapy as a couple at the time) I reached the brink and looked over. It was a place devoid of everything, including light. It wasn’t inviting, but it seemed the only answer. If those who loved me and whom I loved the most could not live with me as a woman, and if I couldn’t live as a man, then by removing the common denominator (life) it would all be resolved. The frightening thing was that I knew how I was going to do it, and it was easy. So easy. I looked over the edge a few times. Now, I feel my record is blemished forever. ‘Have you ever felt suicidal?’ appears on forms sometimes, on your medical record, elsewhere. And if you answer ‘yes’, there may be a penalty, an impression, or just a knowing look and a Note. I have a Note. But at least I didn’t pay that price. The wind blew back just strongly enough to overcome the vertigo.

Second, I knew quite early in the year that I had already written the biggest cheque of my life. I had signed it. I had delivered it, and I was just waiting for it to be cashed. Very soon my account would be emptied. I wasn’t going to kill myself, but I was going to bankrupt myself. It isn’t often you have to write ‘Please pay from my personal account: my family; my marriage; the person I love most in all the world, all my life; and my home’ – in exchange for simply being true to how you were born.

I wrote on my blog about authenticity, about being seen as selfish or as deceiving, and I protested (as I still do) that I am looking through the same eyes I was born with and as when I fell in love, that I am still feeling and loving with the same heart, and giving from the same soul.

And I know now that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it matters not one jot. Being the bio-male really does trump personality, companionship, commitment. And love. If you aren’t sexually attractive any more, you have become inappropriate. ‘You might “be the same person”, but I am not having any woman make love to me (even if the outcome is pretty identical)’. The only resolution to living behind this thick glass wall, looking at the one I loved and could no longer touch, was either back to the first price tag above, or starting again on my own.

So this blog subtitle changed to simply being ‘observations of gender dysphoria’. There was no better fit. I was a woman, and I really could be. The observation bit is important to me, and I do try to see from others’ point of view, though of course I can only do it as myself. You can judge whether my empathy and intuition are sound or not. Along the way I wrote about fairness, truth, justice, fear, self-knowledge, continuity, being a trans* father, being ordinary – and quite a lot about love.

I digressed into the awful realisation that ignorance is no defense under law, and that if my gender had been known, every wonderful act of love (that I always felt was in my heart a feminine space) would not have been consented to: was it all rape? Is that too blunt? That my own wife had only ever had sex with a transsexual woman? And that she would never knowingly have given consent for that? Because now it was known, doing exactly what had been invited before, was more than inappropriate.

Sadness, exile, yet becoming accepted universally as a woman socially and at work, and in public performance, featured on this blog, and finally put paid to any efforts of rational persuasion that I am still me, not trying to love differently, and still deserving of the same love and intimacy – but came through in the end to an intensely happy realisation that I have arrived at a place where the final administration can proceed smoothly, and over time. I even ditched the prostheses, and am getting my hair coloured so as it grows and appears a bit, it will blend. Then in a few months, the miraculous ‘shorter trim’ can appear and another prop, hopefully, be left behind.

And so I arrived at Christmas with all the reminders, redrafted scripts of grief, opening my space to others who needed it for similar reasons, and ultimately when they had left for home, feeling terribly lonely.

But I did cook a full and quite perfect Christmas dinner for the first time ever. And yes, I did set out a Gantt chart so I would get it right: (do not genderise that! The multi-tasking was fine).

Soooo … deep breath, and let’s begin 2013, and see if we can avoid the trauma somewhat, let go completely, negotiate sale of my old home, navigate divorce, and keep myself together throughout again. Because contrary to everything I protested last year, and rejection for being different, there is only one me, there only ever has been, and this is what I am.

Sadly, in terms of finding those essential, safe, daily, dependable hugs or kisses (*sigh*), one ounce of truth seems to linger from one past blog, ‘We cry, we dance’:

In the land where all is pink and blue
the purple has no face.
We cry, we dance, we love like you—
but cannot find our place.

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It still works!

  • Posted on December 9, 2012 at 10:10 am

One phrase that will always be with me, and which characterises the family life I used to have, is ‘it still works!’ Coined by my son, it was frequently used in our home. When we thought some battered toy, item of furniture, even clothing, or appliance, was beyond it – no, it still worked. There was no need for a new one, no replacement. So what, that it looked well knocked-about and repaired many times? What this really meant was that the item was well-loved and familiar, and as such was never over-protected. Instead of being preserved, it had been well used.

Closer to my son ’s heart than mine, this week I heard that three Pacific-class steam locomotives in the speed-record ‘Mallard’ family were coming back to the UK from the USA for restoration. Then, that some 60 Spitfire aircraft are to be recovered in the Philippines, where they have lain buried in crates since the second world war. Yes; they still work. Or they shall do, once fixed up.

Yesterday I was sitting thinking in more poetic mood, about museums. Brightly-painted machines that used to work: not just function, but do work. Some even seem to still work, driven several times a day perhaps by compressed air in place of steam, no longer attached to gears, or belt and pulleys and things that cut, beat, polished, drilled, pumped, lifted or moved. They used to be somewhere, in the sense of really being, not just turning over. In the days they were used for purpose, they were polished and oiled, cared for, but pushed to limits. If parts wore out, if paint flaked, if oil gunked up, they were repaired. This engine has a cracked boiler? A gasket has blown? A bearing has gone? It still works. It just needs one of these or one of those.

And costume exhibitions in museums. Do you ever wonder who was the last person to wear that dress, petticoat, hat, shoes? Which lasted longer, the person or the vestment? Was it laundered and put away, to be found later, or retrieved, as it were, from the laundry basket, as last worn? And then you notice the tears and repairs. The lace with overlays, replacement not-quite-matching design, seams taken in or let out, shoes with multiple leather patches. And you recognise the value of clothing, loved and useful items that still worked, that were worth not replacing.

And yet we also know the feeling when we learn that some monstrosity of a building achieves listed status! OK, so it was an example of architecture of its era, maybe the first, or paradigmatic, but why?! It never worked well, it was a bad design, a bad concept and it was awful building construction. A reminder? Surely not because ‘it still works’.

Everything has its day. Even Mallard, even the Spitfire, the petticoat and bustle, the concept-built block of concrete flats, the button-boots. Maybe it would still work, but no-one wants it to. Not any more. We might want to show it still could, but it will last longer in the memory to be in a museum. And we want it to. We also recognise the slippers that have been comfortable so long, the favourite bra that just fitted better than the rest, the coat with the cuffs that are telling you respectability matters as much as warmth.

And so it is that what still works is a function of familiarity and commitment, with fitness for purpose. A well-loved bear, behind glass, is still a sadness, whereas whalebone stays are a relief. The analogy I am struggling with is, of course, obvious. Am I digging up, preserving, restoring, replacing or placing behind glass – or indeed archiving out of sight – the most precious things about which I was still saying: ‘it still works!’? Right now, there is the wonder of the well-oiled machine, the grace of the Spitfire, the familiar comfort of the petticoat, the familiar skyline – and the sadness in the bear. But I am feeling some relief about the whalebone and realising some things just didn’t ever fit. It relates to me, it relates to my marriage, my one big love affair.

All these other things have been replaced by something that works, and works better. I am hoping the same is true about love and partnership.

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With my body

  • Posted on October 20, 2012 at 8:33 am

She was infatuated; in love. He adored her. Life was out of this world: made in heaven. They loved, they played, they rolled, they eventually decided. One day, as he was filing her birth certificate, it hit him. This was not her 25th birthday coming up. It was her 23rd, eight years since they first ….

 

They met at a ball. It was a charity do for people who had missing pasts. Children placed in care, often with troubled childhoods, so they had a lot in common. But something, just something, drew them together and they instantly connected. Cautiously, over years, they began to trust, learned to be vulnerable again. Their love was deep, if watchful, so some years later they decided to marry, and work together in the meantime to find their families, or at least their mothers. What a coincidence in the end that they had the same maternal surname. Even born within a year of each other in the same town. The same street.

 

She stared out of the window on an incongruously bright and calm morning. Hints had become games, games had become serious. Not the sex in woods, on hilltops, the lounge floor, at the kitchen sink, to which she had not merely consented but colluded. No. This morning he had gone to work after the most awful weekend. She reckoned up five thousand, maybe more – times they had had sex together. And now he had gone right over the edge and told her that there was no other description for it. He was, in truth, a woman. Wrong body. Same heart and soul, but wrong body. And he, she, was going to start putting it right. What had he known? What might she have known or guessed, in what he asked for, the way he was? Except that if she had known, five thousand time she would not have given her consent.

 

With my body, I honour you

The simplest and most heartfelt of the marriage promises. Right at the centre of nurture, commitment and fidelity. I think I did. In fact I think I did it well, and having heard how others have fared, often better than most. I was honourable in all my loving and cherishing all through, all the way to the very last time. But like the other two stories, it raises the question, not altogether philosophical, of legality. How should each story end? With under-age sex? With incest? With rape?

‘If I had known …’ Of course. And the verdict at this point with each may very well be that, between the consenting parties, no further action need be taken about the past. They are not so different, especially if I am so certain about what I am. But what of the present? How many times was the infringement done? When did one party knowingly act illegally? Is it for any third party to bring charges? A parent? A keen lawyer? And if one party were to be famous, perhaps a journalist should uncover it – in the public interest, of course.

What a dawning realisation it was to me. It’s OK, I have gone through the no-blame bit of counselling, I’ve explained that for 40 years I simply did not know how to describe or understand myself, and until rather late in the day I could always demonstrate doubt, or at least plead duality. But in the case of all three stories, you cannot unknow the truth. ‘If I had known, I would not have consented.’

With my body, I dishonour you

The new truth is that as a woman, everything I feel, desire, do as I always did, thousands of times, had switched instantly from honour (even the old word, worship) to defilement. The welcome of what I offered from my heart, the expression of my soul, the ultimate vulnerability shared, the desire – had become repugnant. I understand. Of course I do (and haven’t I a hundred times mentally switched the roles to imagine how I would feel?) and of course I must, because in the end, if it isn’t my fault, it is my cause.

When you are the one turned off, repelled, when your love evaporates in a moment, when you realise and shrink from ever doing again what you once did so urgently, the decision is very straightforward and unequivocal, and you can never again imagine the awfulness of repeating it with the new knowledge.

When you are the one against whom those gates slam, and through which you can still see, it is altogether different, and I cannot expect anyone to know how it feels.

Don’t misunderstand; I do not blame. I just still stand, somewhat bewildered, because all my intent, always, was honourable. It just became inappropriate. It was just wrong. And this is my problem; not guilt, not being let off the hook, but still being the same person: same heart and soul, same eyes and hands, same love and kindness, same need to give.

And I just can’t imagine how life can ever be the same again with this new knowledge. My birth certificate isn’t right. I was born in the same street to the same mother. And I always made love in my heart as a woman. And I want to be made honourable again.

 

In poetry: Losing my touch.

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One day

  • Posted on October 15, 2012 at 12:01 am

One day you will say:
I was married.
To a man who could do anything.
He could draw, paint and make things.
He even made our bed and everything
was fixed.

He was kind.
He wouldn’t even argue properly.
There was no drinking, no mates
to lead him astray on Friday nights.
And no woman to delight him
more than me.

He taught me
that my body could be wonderful.
He worshipped at my fount and gladly
gave without taking in return.
We shared everything and learned
what life was.

He was mine.
And I thought I knew him so well.
Someone who had a mind about life
who knew what was important.
And who would fight a cause just
because it was right.

One day you will say:
I was married.
To a man who loved me simply
for who I am, and who never gave up.
But I had to bury his love and leave
everything behind.

He was kind.
He taught me and he was mine.
But inside he was a woman, like me.
And I cannot love a woman who fixes
everything, makes beds, worships me,
is not a man.

I have learned
the importance of a man who cannot
do everything, fix anything, has mates and
who will forget me Friday night, shun causes,
love me for what I am—and will allow me to be
the woman.

2012 © Andie Davidson

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The column

  • Posted on September 15, 2012 at 8:50 am

There was once a beautiful domed space, full of light, airy and welcoming. Everyone who visited it liked it, remembered it and found it a safe place with always-open doors. It had withstood time well, weathered, mellowed and strong. As you entered, there was a peace, but it was a working space, and alive.

One thing marked it out, that after a while became less a wonder, more a curiosity. Attractive in its own way, it nevertheless got a bit in the way, like being stuck in a church or the wrong seat of the theatre, leaning this way and that to see. It cast shadows in strong light, came between people, and in the end was protected, lest the wear and tear of time and touch constantly coming in from outside should weaken it. Circled at first with a polite rope, then with outward-facing chairs like the bench around a village tree, it was almost venerated. It was an upstanding testament to strength and endurance.

This single alabaster column was the central feature, well-polished, reaching to the top of the dome, supporting the tracery that allowed so much light to stream in. It stood alone and strong, making the whole place safe. Every day its owner and occupant would sweep carefully around the base, replace the chairs, maybe sit down a while, secure.

Then one day (as in all stories like these) a stranger arrived, looked around, tilted her eyebrows and disappeared. A short while later, the owner clattered the dustpan in the bin, downed the broom, and sat, back to the column, in a stream of sunlight.

‘Why?’

A soft voice from behind repeated the question.

‘Why?’

The owner turned, but only saw the white, shiny, beautiful, familiar column.

‘Who’s there?’

Strange voices in familiar places are unnerving. The owner turned to the left, but when they turned back, an elegant woman was already quietly seated, eyes resting on the sunlit floor.

‘The column.’ she said. ‘Why the column?’

The owner’s eyebrows knitted a moment, puzzled at such a naïve question.

‘It holds the dome up. Without it, under its own weight, or the wind, the dome might fall in. And then there would be less light, I would fear the rain at night, and it would be cold!’

The woman raised her eyes to the dome, to the slender balcony running around its widest point.

‘Have you ever been up there?’ she asked, quietly. ‘I’m an engineer, so I can’t help myself! And when I came in just now, I was really curious.

‘You see, as I stepped inside, I was in a shadow, so all I saw was the white column, and then the sound of the place made me look up and see the wonderful dome you have. The place didn’t seem to be in disrepair, so the column clearly wasn’t a later addition. It was almost as if the place was built around it.’

She paused.

‘And so I went exploring, found the little tower and spiral stairs, and went up there.’

There was silence. The woman was not about to continue. It was as if her explanation was sufficient in its incompleteness. There was more; but the importance of it was not for her. She could wait, or she could leave, because she understood, and that was all that mattered. The sun turned, the shadow followed, like the hand of an enormous sundial marked on the wall. Eventually, the woman calmly rose, hitched her bag.

‘I must be going.’

The owner, confused now, protested. ‘I don’t understand …’

‘The stairs,’ the woman replied, looking her directly but kindly in the eyes. ‘You must climb the stairs. You may understand, but you must see for yourself.’ And she was gone.

Sometimes you wish strangers wouldn’t enter. Sometimes you wish they wouldn’t leave. And sometimes you just don’t know. The owner found the stairs, just one set of footprints in the dust, going up, coming down. The steps were unworn, but dark, and it was easy to become a little dizzy. Then light, gleaming from above, from the dome – and out onto a very narrow, very scary balcony with just the dome arching majestically from behind, up and over, its stone beams wider than they ever seemed from the ground. Strong, yet light; robust and with a detail never seen against the light.

The alabaster column rose like an eternal tree to its centre. Its top, too high to see, was fuzzy around the edges with the dust of years, the one part of it not shiny in the light. The dome arched over it, around it, but not touching it. The majestic white pillar of grandeur, so protected, so central, so essential – was a monument only to itself.

The elegant woman engineer never returned. Somewhere, the owner imagined, she would be lying full out under some light-filled dome, staring up into some wonderful, inspiring and free space, worshiping the arch, the dome, the perfectly spread load, the strong appearing so fragile.

As time passed by (as it does in stories like these), the chairs were displaced and the curiosity of the column became an annoyance. Research didn’t appear to give it an importance or a protection, and without notability, it became just an obstacle. And for anyone who asked why, there was never really a convincing answer, just a faith. But it was familiar, and if the owned kept moving around, there would always be a place in the sun.

All the owner needed was someone to sit down with them; someone who would look up, and see a magnificent alabaster column supporting a fragile dome, and feel safe.

Or trust. And a demolition team for a few hours to safely take the column away.

 

The worst part of stories like these is that they have a moral. Maybe a beautiful dome won’t fall in by pulling down a central pillar. It’s about daring to wipe your finger on the top, and convincing yourself that what you thought held everything together wasn’t quite what it seemed. It all depends on which is the more important: a pillar that looks important, or the freedom to gaze upwards in wonder, freedom and light. Belief – or trust.

Just thinking …

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