Amanda Asks “What is Reality?”

What if I told you that everything you know . . . isn’t real? Sounds very Matrix-esque, right? Sometimes that is how I feel being trans. As the years go by, it feels more and more unreal. You would think that the opposite would be true. You would expect being your “authentic self” is a good thing, that you’ve finally unplugged from the Matrix and are seeing things for the first time. Well, just like Neo found out, when you come out of the life you thought was real, the actual world is much harsher.

Take the blue pill, and your life will be forever changed. Take no pill, and you will stay in your dreamworld. Of course, the blue pill is estrogen in the trans world. In the Matrix, Neo had a meeting with Morpheus, who talked about how all that Neo knew, would change and that nothing was what he thought it was. Morpheus offered the blue pill to stay in the dreamworld and live out his life, or the red pill to see the world he was missing. Of course, Neo chose the red pill. I chose to take the blue pill, only that oval blue pill took me into the new world.

Was that a mistake on my part choosing to be “unplugged” from the “Matrix”? Sometimes I think it was a mistake, sometimes I think it was not. The world on the other side has been hard and strange. I lived for 41 years in “The Matrix,” getting along just fine, enjoying the occasional dress up session and then going back to my life. I was happy, relatively. My married life was tough, but I was in a much better place emotionally. I didn’t get to high or too low. I laughed a lot, even with my ex-wife. I enjoyed my hobbies. I had a house and I learned how to work on it extensively. I had a studio and a garage for the cars. It wasn’t a bad deal. But I chose the blue pill…

It was Spring of 2010, and my wife informed me that after 20 years of marriage, she was not in love with me anymore and wanted a divorce. I was shocked and pleaded that we keep things going and try harder. However, somewhere, deep down in the inner depths of my core somewhere, a little voice was celebrating. That voice was to grow stronger and stronger after that.

Throughout that summer, I started to give in to the inner feelings that I had. I just knew that I wanted to be a girl. But, being a girl in those days meant just dressing up and existing in the female gender. It was always a magical feeling. I had, for many, many years wondered what would happen if I finally got to have my own place where I could “be a girl” as much as I wanted. I wondered how much would I do it. Would it be at all times except for work, only on weekends, or just occasionally?

I would get that answer finally when I moved from my beloved home to my relatives place about 7 miles away. There, they welcomed me and let me stay as long as I needed. They needed someone to watch the house in the summer when they went away. It was difficult to hide my dress up sessions. They were limited to a few days a week. I was in someone else’s home. I didn’t want to be running around the house as a girl as they came home from a dinner out.

My relatives left for the summer of 2011. My divorce was final and I was totally free. I had the house to myself except for maybe if one of my cousins stopped by. I got my answer to the question finally. How much would I “be a girl” if I could as much as I wanted. The answer; every waking AND sleeping moment. That was kind of a big deal. I began to seek out others like me. I had passed on this for years because I knew I would find some. I knew, unlike others, that there were others like me. I just didn’t know what I was exactly. I knew I loved being a girl, but was afraid in my heart that I had “the serious one.”

Was I actually a transsexual? That term sounded really scary and clinical to me. Then, I heard the softer term, transgender. I liked that better. It was less specific. A new friend of mine, basically my first trans friend, told me that she thought I was trans. I liked that term too. It sounded cool and not clinical. “Hey man, lay off…I’m trans!”

Maybe I became enamored with the trans life. I wasn’t sure it was actually for me or if I was truly trans. How does one know, really? It’s all guesswork and feelings. Doctors and therapists can only go by what you tell them. There is no blood test to see if you are trans. There are tests for being XXY or intersex, but sadly none for just being trans. I wish there was a definitive test to see what your severity is.

Since that summer of 2010, I have never willingly dressed as a male again. But what did that mean? What the HELL did that mean? Did that mean that I had it BAD? Did that mean I must rush of to the nearest therapist and acquire my letter for hormones to start modifying my body? Did I need to go through the torture of electrolysis, which is like getting your face stung by a bee about a million times? I did exactly that.

Now, here I am, 6 years later, sitting in a room in California, dealing with daily anxiety but living “authentically.” I was unplugged from The Matrix, and now I’m not sure I am that much better off. I’m sitting here in shorts and a tee shirt, overweight from my anti-anxiety meds and from comfort eating. I have a French manicure on toes and fingers. My hair is long and a nice color blonde with some nice swept bangs. I am looking at myself in the mirror. “Am I happy?” “Am I better off than I was in 2010?” “What am I doing?” “Am I really going to continue with this all the way to having my silicon bags shoved in my chest and my genitals turned inside out?” ”What in the fuckity-fuck?”

Lately, I have been missing the old days of feeling good and just “being a girl.” I remember that happiness I felt when I looked into the mirror and saw the change. I remember having friends and having fun. There was no pressure of surgeries and beard removal and transition. It was just happiness. I feel like the shine has come off of my apple. Occasionally, I feel the sensation of happiness with my femininity. Am I just seeking the next level or the next “high”? Maybe I was happier before transition. Yes, it was hard to go back and forth and being back in “drab.” But, without the drab, you don’t have the happiness and elation. Like sunshine after a thunderstorm, like the first warm spring day after a frigid, long winter, there needs to be a yin and a yang. If it’s all one, then IT becomes drab.

Oh, I’ve really gone and done it now. 6 years of full time, employment, hormones, 100 hours of electro, name change, document change, etc. I only own one old hoodie from the old male days. Everything else is all girl, all the time. Maybe, it’s the anti-anxiety drugs affecting me. Maybe I am depressed. I know this is a subject that makes trans people uncomfortable. You are not SUPPOSED to question things. You must rush off to the surgeon of your choice and get your genitals turned inside out simulating a vagina or at least be in anguish that you cannot afford it, or can’t get to a doctor, or are too unhealthy for the surgery. As I step back a bit, I see all of this in a new light. Right now, it all seems so ridiculous what we put ourselves though just to simulate being female.

I know the world sees me as 100% female, but I do not. I am some kind of male/female hybrid. I’d rather be cis. If someone came up to me and said, “What if I told you that you could be cis, or non-trans? Take the red pill and you will become a normally developed male or female without gender conflict. Take the blue pill and stay like you are.” I’d choose red. I’m not living an “authentic” life like they promised me. I’m living the simulated life of a cis female.

Tags: featured, Identity, Transgender, Transition, Transsexual

Category: Transgender Body & Soul