Can I Find Love If I’m Transgendered?

by Xan

It’s almost a bit mundane, the “born in the wrong body” mantra. In my opinion, this phrase has become overused. It certainly lacks the power to express how difficult it can be to live with this reality. While it’s not quite as shocking or rare as it once was, I assure you that a very powerful stigma remains for those who are transgendered—the umbrella term for all those who do not conform to classic male/female gender roles. I use this term to include people, like me, who change their physical gender through sexual reassignment surgery. In short, I’ve always felt like a heterosexual woman. I was attracted to men. But, unfortunately, I also looked just like them.

Growing up, I was painfully withdrawn and shy. I loved dressing up in my mother’s clothes, dipping my hands into her makeup bag; I wanted dolls, not trucks; I would cry when I got dirty. I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way I learned that these were not acceptable behaviors. And I didn’t substitute boy traits in their place. Essentially, I tried to become androgynous.

At school I became friends with “the girls.” I was chunky and dumpy, which led to more than my fair share of teasing from “the boys,” who seemed so foreign to me. I can now see that I was in the deepest of denial about who I truly was. Finally, at the age of 12, while engaged in that most all-American of pastimes—watching Oprah—I figured it out.

She was interviewing Caroline “Tula” Cossey, a transsexual woman who had once been a Bond Girl, and I was transfixed. “Oh my God, that’s me!” I realized. But it was a very short-lived realization. Just as quickly, and unconsciously, I believe, I made a firm decision not to “allow” this to “happen” to me. EVER. To me, “transsexual” was a terrifying word. That wasn’t who I wanted to be. So, instead, I completely repressed any traces of my gender or sexuality for the next several years—no easy feat considering I was embarking on that roiling, hormone-laden rite of passage known as puberty.

It wasn’t until I was safely off at college that I was forced to acknowledge my issues. In a co-ed dorm setting, it’s almost impossible to categorically ignore bodies. As a psychology student, I spent hours upon hours in the library researching transsexuality and sexual reassignment surgery. At the time—1995—the term “transgender” hadn’t even been invented yet. Even then it was a much less acknowledged issue than it is today. Sadly, I admit, I was trying to figure out how not to be transsexual. Was there a magical cure? Could I take some huge dose of hormones to “fix” me? I was horrified by my situation. I had never uttered a word about these thoughts to a single soul. I was alone in my misery—and suffer I did. I did not want to be a transsexual woman; I wanted to be a “real” woman. And I was determined to keep my head under the covers until the scary gender mismatch was gone.