Seizing Your Transition

I just read three excellent back-to-back blogs and the theme of each, respectively, was:

1. Seize every minute available to you (Carpe Diem).
2. No time left "to work on transitioning."
3. Transitioning may not be what you expect.

I can't say I worked on transitioning. The only work I actually did was to try to understand it and the risks I was going to take. I probably did more work trying to keep from transitioning because of those risks.

Instead of working on tranitioning, I increasingly took advantage of opportunities to experiment, to try things out, and to ease the road in front of me when I did not feel like going back. I reveled in each change, and was frustrated under certain circumstances, and I took the next opportunity to correct the frustrating scenarios. My transition has been a series of "why-not?" experiences. I pushed myself out the door more and more frequently to live as a woman for longer periods of time.

Transitioning between jobs, I viewed as a negative opportunity. The prospect of losing my work credentials based on personality and performance was enough to make me veto that route. But I made the conscious decision to be, as I felt it, "free."

Even when I was by myself at home between jobs, I seized the moment to be "Sophie;" even though the moments were only on the duration of a few hours. We are all free to spend moments as ourselves, even if it's in our own minds.

Transitioning is more an act of setting yourself free than a job.

Since I went full time outside of work for six months before transitioning on the job, working on my presentation skills, I did have encounters with people who felt that women were only good for one thing, and I had to fight for my dignity in those cases.

Unlike Jamie, I do get asked quite frequently what I do for a living. And I did find it a little inconvenient talking to the person from Vietnam doing my nails, who asked things like, "Is your husband bigger than you," and "You're married to a man, right? Does he know you're here?" which made conversation rather difficult for me, since my wife is definitely female.

One of the things that helps is that I am in a profession that accepts intelligent, degreed women--software development. I know that as a woman, men subconsciously grade you on how feminine you present, and I enjoy taking the requisite time to doll up. Yes, I do have to play with the double entendres that are sometimes spoken around me, but I ply my wares in those instances by playing hard to get or turning their double entendre into an embarrassing moment.

Even when you go full time, the fear of not passing still crops its head up from time to time. I know I pass by the way people treat me and my image in the mirror after a shower. It's a female image, with only one thing out of place that I don't look at anyway.

I am expected to be not only pretty but more social as well. It doesn't hurt that some people consider me a genius to boot.

As far as sexual attraction is concerned, I can honestly believe someone when she says that lesbian relationships are not what she has been lead to believe and prefers relationships with men. Right now, however, from where I'm sitting, I am finding the reverse to be true. Like other heterosexual trans women, she does not quite understand how someone can identify as female and be attracted to women. She doesn't believe that another woman would willingly have a lesbian relationship with someone who was born with male parts. But when that someone turns out to be a bisexual woman, and a little on the dominant side, the potential for a relationship exists, because they (and maybe you) are more interested in the person behind the body.

What I would have difficulty believing, though, is someone who claims to be a male-bodied woman, refuses hormones, prefers women and prefers them submissive. Maybe these people do exist, but the traits seem by far too male to be anything other than female impersonators. Lord knows, I've seen my share of dominating male types.

Hugs and God Bless,

Sophie