Death By a Thousand Cuts

Why didn’t I “know” sooner? Why did I wait until I was forty to proclaim my identity? It sounds fishy to some. A mid life crisis. A perversion - a grown man lusting after the bodies of women, of girls. Believe me, I know the doubts and the suspicions and the judgments. I’ve had a hell of a time dispelling them within myself, and sometimes I just don’t know where the line ends. Nothing hurts like a lie with a kernel of truth in it.

I do lust after young girls bodies. I want one. I want to be pretty, delicate, rosy cheeked and precious. An old refrain, it echoes in my mind from many of my earliest memories. An unruly dissonance, a fleeting shame, a turn of the head - refocus, too dangerous, too strange... look away, stay quiet. Hold it in.

The first time I saw the movie Frozen with my young daughters I went into the bathroom after and sat forlorn in a stall, heart too numb with grief and pain to cry. Too angry and sad to ‘Let it Go’. I knew just how Elsa felt, and yet I was so angry at her for wanting more. This was four years before coming out. I watched the movie last month and cried buckets. It felt wonderful.

I peeked out at the world in my art and stories. My long hair and cute ear rings. T-shirts passably guyish, but with a soft delicate design. That pair of jeans I found outside a dorm room in the garbage. Girls jeans that fit me. I wore them till they fell apart, along with my Mom’s flannel shirts.

As I unravel my fears, the fears that held me back from my truth for all this time, I still face the daily onslaught of .gender dysphoria’. Why is this in quotes? Well, it is hard to pinpoint any one pain as a pure product of my gender identity. A girl with delicate wrists and dancers grace will trigger me. Am I just jealous or is it gender dysphoria? There is enough simple, cisgirllike jealousy in the mix that the shoulds will start to roll in on top of the first cut of gender longing. You should accept your own body. You shouldn’t be jealous. You should be grateful for what you have. It is selfish to want medical treatment for body image problems. You’ll still be jealous of her when you have ‘transitioned’. You’re too old. Too ugly. Not worthy.

Fifty percent of trans people attempt suicide. Is it really any wonder?

This can happen hundreds of times in day. The glance in the mirror where I see my stubble and thick chin, the hair on the back of my thick fingered hands, comedically masquerading with their delicate rings and clear polish. I would wear color, but that would upset my wife, who is still trying to acclimate to the hell I’ve imposed on her world balance. A first cut of incongruence followed by another and another and another. The self recrimination. The fear. Shame. Guilt. Frustration. Envy. Longing. Loss. Hopelessness.

Some days I crawl home on my belly so grateful to slide into my girls jeans and paint beautiful faces like the one I wished I had that I cry on the drive home.

When I went to my last doctor’s office they called me by my new name the whole visit (a note in my medical file kindly put in by the transition clinic). E. They called me E!! Underneath a veneer of anxiety over what the other people in the waiting area might have thought of a clearly masculine individual with such a delicate female name, a wave of sheer warm pleasure wrapped through me. My shoulders relaxed, I breathed out, deep, letting go of a heavy burden. A sign of what my life might one day be like.

Such a simple thing. A name. My name. It makes all the difference. A salve that begins to heal the thousand cuts. Hope for the hopeless. I’ve decided to come out at work before I am even close to passing, just to hear that name and to never have to hear Mr. N. again. Ever. They call it a dead name for a reason. I’m going to murder it. Not with hate, believe me, it is a mercy killing.

I should have used my real name when I ordered Thai food on the phone. My natural voice is already high pitched, and I have naturally fallen into a passable female resonance and intonation (one of my transition gifts, along with my unusually soft face and small height).

“Your Name?”

“E.”, I didn’t reply.

I regretted it after. A starving woman will mourn every grain of rice that misses her lips fallen to the cracked and barren earth, lost forever.

Have you ever been so hungry that you didn’t care what you ate? Days without food? You would have gladly opened up a can of dog food and eaten it with your fingers and it would have been divine.

That’s gender dysphoria, at least for me. So hungry I will risk everything to know the taste of a real meal. A hungry ghost, bit by bit coming to substance and light.

Am I destined to always be part a ghost? Is it too late, or too hard, or just impossible to escape? I don’t need fillet mignon, but a girl can still dream, and still be disappointed.

I am so grateful for all the support and help I am finally receiving. I have endured the thousand cuts. I am starting to heal. The thing is, sometimes healing hurts more than the original wound, and sometimes, there are scars.

Please don’t judge me by my scars; they are beautiful, not weakness, but the mark of my strength.