Gender Dysphoria - Letter 4

 

Gender Dysphoria

Dad and Mom,

Hello, hello, hello! I wanted to try to tell you a little bit about myself, and explain a few things, in the hope it will lead to greater understanding. So, here is what I hope is a good discussion about gender dysphoria, so you will have some more information. I’m not sure how much you know about the topic. Let’s be honest. Most people don’t have a lot of knowledge on the subject, which I suppose is understandable. There are a lot of misconceptions. Thus, I thought it best to explain. After all, we don’t always know what it is we don’t know!

I realize that knowing I’m transgender is frightening and confusing. It has also been like that for me over many years. I regret the pain this has caused you, and I hope you know I really mean it. I certainly don’t want you to be frightened, or concerned, or confused. I hope when this letter is concluded you will have a good basis of understanding of gender dysphoria and how difficult it can be to be a transgender person, as well as an understanding of why I could no longer ignore it.

Gender dysphoria, in a nutshell, is a condition of discomfort, anxiety, or distress where a person’s body doesn’t match their gender. Each person’s experience is a bit different, and thus not everyone experiences gender dysphoria in the same way, or with the same intensity. Gender dysphoria doesn’t go away, but it can often be treated to a point where a person can be content.

Another way to say it would be to use an example from a children’s book. Red: A Crayon’s Story is about a blue crayon that somehow had been given a label for a red crayon. Everyone could plainly see his red label, but every time he colored anything, it turned out blue, because, despite his red label, Red was a blue crayon. No matter how hard Red tried to be red, he was blue. Red experienced distress from this. I have also experienced distress, just like Red. Not from being a blue crayon, but from looking in the mirror and seeing something totally different, alien even. It’s no different than had I looked in the mirror and seen a purple lizard or Big Bird.

Gender dysphoria can result in some odd reactions and experiences. One example which comes to mind was occasions when I was in a locker room changing and had no top on at the moment a guy walked in. I would, without conscious thought, cross my arms over my chest. This is an action which as you might imagine got me laughed at in the Army. It was one of the first things Gail noticed as being unusual. Even as a teen playing soccer, I always tried to get on Susan’s team (she was the only girl in youth soccer at the time, or so we thought) because her team never had to play as the skins team (the team without shirts on). This doesn’t mean I never had my shirt off outside. I often didn’t have a choice. But it always made me cringe inside.

Gender dysphoria isn’t something made up. It’s very, very real. I have absolutely nothing to gain by lying about it, and potentially everything to lose by telling the truth. But Dad, you taught me a person’s word was important, and honesty was important no matter what. I am firmly committed to being honest. This trait has at times gotten me in trouble in the military, but it’s part of who I am.

Research has shown that Gender Dysphoria can take one of a few different paths. One of these is a realization later in life that the things you’ve been experiencing since you were a child which seemed out of place felt out of place for a reason. With introspection, this is followed by a realization of what the reason is. About 40% of transgender people follow this path. So, if it is any comfort, it’s not at all unusual for transgender people to come out later in life.  Recent research shows there are about 400,000 transgender adults in the State of Ohio, half of them over 40. There are even about 7,000 transgender people over 65 in Ohio!

I want to explain gender dysphoria in a way that makes sense but I am having a difficult time finding the words. I have a massively hard time explaining my feelings and experiences. The language to adequately convey it simply isn’t there. There’s no common frame of reference and trying to explain it is roughly like trying to find the words to explain, in German, how to get to a destination to someone who speaks Spanish. It’s like wearing left shoes on right feet, and right shoes on left feet. The idea seems alien to people because they don’t experience life this way, and the shoes simply don’t fit properly when most people wear them this way. The same is true for transgender people. We don’t experience most of life the same way cis-gender people (people who aren’t transgender) do. Going through life as a person who never experienced what I have seems so alien to me. I have friends who try to understand but when I talk to them it often seems that there is no way for them to truly understand without having had the same experiences.

The best I can think of to try to give you a glimpse is this. I’m going to propose a situation. Really, two interrelated situations. These situations aren’t real, but they are accurate. The people mentioned in the situations represent real people, and their reactions are realistic, too. These situations are blunt, and you might find yourself thinking something like “But this is dumb. This isn’t who I am at all!”. I realize this isn’t who you are. Please bear with me, and put yourself into the narrative, and actually imagine this. Please.

Mom

You’re a woman named Judy. You have been your whole life. But everyone you’ve ever met is firmly convinced you’re a guy named Jude. No matter what you do. No matter what you say, everyone calls you Jude and refers to you as “he” and “him” and “sir”. But you know it’s not true. You KNOW it! You know full well you’ve always been a woman. Yet, you have a beard. What in the world!?!? 

Your voice is weirdly low, to the point that when you sing or speak, it’s pitched at a baritone level, which you can’t stand because your voice should be much higher. You’re taller than the women around you. You have some male pattern baldness, which is noticeable to those around you. Your chest and arms are much more muscular than the girls around you. Worst of all, you have male genitals!! You look in the mirror, and you just want to cry, because the person you see is NOT YOU! 

Every time you and a woman arrive at a door together, you get glared at if you don’t hold the door for her. People at church keep asking you to come to the church workday, and mow the lawn or clean out the landscaping, and you can’t stand either of those activities. Even more oddly, people keep trying to talk with you about cars and engines, and you have no knowledge of the topic. Looking back, you start to realize it’s always been this way, and the things you see about your life experiences don’t remotely match up with who you really are, and they never did. You know inside exactly who you are, and you’ve been that person your whole life, but nothing matches up with this.

Your closet is full of men’s clothing. Every morning when you get dressed, the clothing available to you makes you feel like a stranger in a distant land. One thing which really bothers you is that you must shave your face daily. People you know are always inviting you to go hunting or fishing, and you have no interest in these things. You want to talk about the things you find interesting, like quilting or flowers. Whenever you try to talk about your reality and what you experience, people mock you. But you’re not a guy at all. 

The dissonance mounts until it has become a loud noise you can no longer ignore. You must tell someone, so you do. Then you tell someone else. Unfortunately, people start to talk a bit about you. You’re not asked to stop coming to quilting, but they react oddly, or even rudely when you do attend. Your friend Sally tells you “Oh my, what are you thinking?” She won’t talk to you anymore until, as she says, you get your head on straight. But the worst part? When you tell Dad you’re actually a woman, he looks at you like you’re nuts, because clearly, you’re a man. Nothing is right. Nothing.

Dad

You’re a man named Gene. You’ve always been a man, but everyone around you thinks you’re a woman named Jean, and even your pastor tells you you’re a fool for thinking otherwise. You’re called “she” and “her” and “ma’am”, and no one wants to listen to your opinions because, well, you’re a girl, right? Even Mom thinks you’re a woman. But you know it’s not true. You KNOW it! But you have breasts, and the male genitals you know you’re supposed to have just plain aren’t there. 

Every time you speak, people don’t even blink, but you are horrified, because your voice is high and girly, which isn’t even close to right, as your voice should be much lower. Men hold the door for you all the time, and motion for you to go first. Your physical strength is much lower than it should be, and you’ve no idea why. You should be stronger. You look in the mirror, and you just want to throw things, because the woman you see is NOT the man you are! 

Looking back, you start to realize it’s always been this way, and the things you see about your life experiences don’t remotely match up with who you really are, and they never did. You know inside exactly who you are, and you’ve been this person your whole life, but nothing matches up. 

The difference between who you are, and who your physical appearance says you are, is massive. More and more, this difference can’t be ignored. Finally, you have to tell someone, and eventually, a few more people, because you can’t take it anymore. But these people assure you with full conviction that you are in fact Jean.

You’ve been a man your whole life, and you know it without a doubt, but you find your school photo and you’ve got long hair and are wearing a dress in it. You ask for a new saw blade for Christmas, but no one gets it for you because, well, why in the world would you, a woman, need a new saw blade? You try to explain what you’re experiencing to Mom, but she won’t even begin to consider the idea, because you’re clearly a woman. 

You’re not permitted to attend the men’s gatherings at church. Women keep inviting you to go shopping, or to sew with them. These are things you’re not remotely interested in doing. Your closet is full of skirts and dresses, and women’s shoes. You’re expected to wear them. Yet, you don’t feel remotely like yourself in them, and you have no desire to wear them. So, you “dress down” a little bit. Yet, you sometimes run afoul of dress codes that require a more feminine look for “women” like “Jean”. If you’re younger at the time, you are fired because your boss is a Christian, and believes since you’re a woman who claims she is a man, having you as an employee is sinful for him. Uncle Sean, your brother, would rather pretend you don’t exist. Nothing is right. Nothing at all.

Both of you

Your birth certificates and driver’s licenses have these same names. Jude and Jean. Dad, your birth certificate says you’re a female, and Mom, yours says you’re male. The State of Ohio refuses to update them to reflect the information you know to be correct. You understand the identity everyone else sees is wrong, and the more people call you Jude and Jean the more it presses down on you like a massive weight. 

Eventually, you must try to change things, because you can’t go through life being battered like you have been. You start trying to dress in clothing that more accurately seems to be you. You change your hair a bit, and Dad, you cut a lot of hair off, because it was long. You notice friends start to spend less time with you, once you start talking more about you being Gene and Judy. 

Mom, people ask you why in the world you’re trying to wear a women’s top, for goodness sake. Dad, people see you in Kroger wearing a man’s flannel shirt and hat, and security starts following you around the store because since you’re dressed like a guy instead of a girl, you’re clearly up to something. You’re probably a shoplifter.

When you buy stuff at the store, the cashier might be just fine, or they might treat you like you’re a pariah or a freak. You have no way to know in advance. When you go to the bank to deposit a check or do anything else requiring an ID, the teller at the bank loudly demands to know why your ID says one thing, but you look like another thing, emphasizing the word “thing” very loudly.

Dad, people from church are now avoiding asking you to do anything in the church building, or for anyone. Mom, the Pastor, asked by the Elders, asks you to stop sending cards in the name of the church altogether, though you've been doing it with their permission for over a decade. They don’t say it to you, they've made up a transparent reason, but the real reason is they feel they can’t have someone “like you” doing things in the name of the church. 

A few people who know you tell you it might be best just to stop saying the things you’ve been saying and embrace who God made you to be.  They tell you that who you know yourself to be in your soul is sick and twisted, and a perversion. God would not make or want, someone like you, they bluntly say. Mind you, these people saying these things are people you’ve gone to church with for years. But now, when you go to church, people won’t make eye contact or speak with you.

Your mail carrier intentionally puts your mail in other people’s boxes. Mom, the quilters now tell you you’re not welcome anymore. The guy down the street who used to wave and say hi won’t look at either of you because he thinks you’re seriously nuts. If you have an auto accident or get pulled over by a cop, you get pulled out of the car because your ID, voice, name, and appearance don’t match up. You go to buy shoes, and the sales clerk at the store who moments before offered to help now laughs at you when they see what shoes you want to get.

The church pastor holds a question and answer session (announced from the pulpit, right in front of you) with the congregation to talk about how they’re going to handle the “issue” (when you’re not there, they call it the threat) the church is experiencing from the things going on in your life. You are told that they are actively praying against you because they love you. You walk past groups of people in the church hallways, and conversation stills until you have passed by. 

After a series of Board meetings to discuss “the issue”, you’re both asked to stop attending the church because of your “sinful” lifestyle of insisting you’re not Jean and Jude, not to mention sometimes wearing the wrong clothing. You are clearly sexually immoral, they feel, and they’re obligated to expel you from their congregation. If you repent, they say, and acknowledge you’re really Jude and Jean, they’d be open to talking to you about maybe coming back. Otherwise…

Every time you try to use a public restroom, you have a moment of panic because, in one restroom, you might well be verbally accosted (you’ve had it happen), and in the other, you might well be physically assaulted (you’ve had it happen). Someone might even follow you into a restroom with a video camera, angrily confronting you and posting the video live online to talk about how horrible you are for even going in there. At Cracker Barrel or the Salvation Army Store, an employee stops one of you and accuses you of going into the wrong restroom. They threaten to call the police unless you leave and don’t come back. It’s about time decent people stand up and stop people like you, she declares.

Your kids react with anger toward you and begin going out of their way to remind you what they think about how wrong you are. Even though you know 100% for certain you’ve always been Gene and Judy, to absolutely everyone else who knows you you’re Jude and Jean, and they insist they’ve always thought of you this way. They bluntly refuse to listen to you when you try to tell someone, anyone, about what is happening. Even though you’ve told them honestly about what you’re going through, they send you birthday and anniversary cards addressed to Jude and Jean. 

Mike, whom you've known for 45 years, stops by the house, and when you come to the door, he shakes his head, tells you you’re a sinner and an abomination. You need to find Jesus, he declares, and he won't speak to you again until you do. Should you pass away before them, you’re told by family members, they will make sure your tombstones say Jude and Jean. People also tell you that if you do anything to help your situation, other than repent and live as Jude and Jean, you’re dead to them. Lots of people feel this way, but many don’t say it. They just show it with their actions. Mind you, most of these people treating you so badly call themselves Christians.

You know what is true. You do. You know, but you can’t prove it. You have no objective evidence. How in the world are you supposed to prove it?!? You have no concrete proof to point to, to demonstrate to anyone that what you know to be true, really is true. The only thing you have is your own innate knowledge of yourself, and who you are. You know who you are. You know what you experience. You know, but it doesn’t matter. No one listens to you. No one. It’s been this way for you for years now. Years. Decades. It’s gotten to the point where you know it’s going to continue for the rest of your life. Every day. Forever. There’s literally nothing you can do to change it. Can you imagine?

Here’s the thing. It’s not science fiction. It’s not a notional, made-up situation. It’s reality. Imagine living this way. Imagine having no choice but to live this way. For life. It happens all the time to people like me. In one form or another, almost every one of the things in the “Jean and Jude” scenario has happened to me. Many people would like me, and people like me, to disappear. But that just isn’t possible. I started being honest with people about me because I had o choice. I couldn’t hide any longer.

This is why so many transgender people commit suicide. The dissonance and condemnation builds and builds, over a period of years, and the total lack of understanding among the people who supposedly love them is literally horrible. I don’t say all this to try to get your sympathy, but to make the point that I very much know what I’m talking about.

Gender dysphoria is debilitating. Yet, people with gender dysphoria can receive medical treatment to help them. Yet, most Christian leaders tell their congregations that doing things to treat gender dysphoria is a sin. Some of them even teach against simply having a meal with a transgender person or hugging a transgender person or being friends with a transgender person, saying it is sinful to do. They sound amazingly holy when they say these things, but they couldn’t be more wrong. The thing is, gender dysphoria is very real. It’s a physical thing, not a spiritual thing. 

Many Christians say it is sinful to give a transgender person treatment for their gender dysphoria, because “that’s not how God made them” or “God made them as a man!”. As in, “He’s a sinner for trying to change his body to a woman. He needs to repent and be a man because God made him a man”. Yet Christians are fine with correcting a little girl’s cleft palate, or the damaged heart valve of a newborn infant, or the webbed fingers of a three-year-old boy, or a birth defect eye issue like Sharon’s Duane’s Syndrome, despite this being how God made those children.

Honestly, half of the women in churches in America have altered their hair color. That’s not to mention the number of women who do hair removal. No one condemns these women to hell for these things, despite God having made them hairy or brunette, or both. Christians are fine with a guy being circumcised, which is not biblically needed (in fact, scripturally, it is a very bad idea to do it), and certainly is not how he is born. But nobody tries to throw him out of church for “rebelling against God’s creation”. They certainly don’t insist he reattach his foreskin! People have moles removed, cataracts removed, get hearing aids, and get vasectomies. All these things make them different than how God created them to be, and Christians don’t cut these people out of their lives or refuse to talk to them.

People wear braces on their teeth, and no one says “That's wrong. God made them with crooked teeth! How dare you change it? Sinner!” People get knee replacements or hip joint replacements, and no one pickets against their right to vote, or receive medical care, or marry. People are born with all sorts of issues, or suffer medical situations later in life, and churches gather together and hold hands and pray desperately for God to change the situation by healing the physical defect or problem that person was born with, or genetically set up for. 

Notice how many people in churches wear glasses, including both of you. No one says “They should just understand. Not being able to see things clearly is how God made them. Getting glasses is rebelling against God’s plan!!!” After all, in the old testament, anyone with an eye defect of any kind would never have been permitted to enter the temple. 

Diabetics like myself and both of you take metformin, and often use insulin to mitigate the effects of high blood sugar, yet they aren’t diabetic because they asked to be, or decided to be. We have a friend, Kara, who recently nearly died as a result of Chron’s Disease. Christians all over the country were praying for that dear woman, and no one was saying “Well, God created her to have Chron’s Disease. It’s wrong to try to treat it.” No one yelled “Sinner!!!” at her husband Dave, for making sure she got medical care. No one protested outside the hospital. No church groups have mounted letter-writing campaigns to insurance companies to try to get them to deny coverage for Kara. No church groups have tried to enact religiously based laws to outlaw the treatment of autoimmune conditions such as Chron’s.

Dad, you have one leg somewhat shorter than the other. This is not at all an uncommon thing, and it is how God made you. For much of your life, you have had your shorter leg corrected by means of a lift in your shoe.  Why? Because you’d have had a lot of back pain throughout life without a lift. You’d be miserable at times. You had to treat the issue. You were born as you, and I was born as me. I didn’t morph into something different. 

Thinking back, what would you have said to anyone who told you you’re a sinner, for rebelling against God’s plan for your life by wearing a lift, and you needed to repent and stop wearing the lift, or be cut out of their life? After all, God clearly intended for you to have rampant back pain for life, right? Christian friends told you all the time how blessed you were to have “a thorn in the side just like Paul”, right? Of course not.

Many Christians say transgender people seeking medical care should be denied care despite overwhelmingly massive numbers of statements from medical doctors and psychologists that what transgender people are saying is real. They point to their religious beliefs as a reason to justify forcing other people to not get medical care. These Christians who insist treatment should be denied gladly advocate doing to us what, really, is torture. Yet those same Christians don’t think for a moment there’s anything odd about treating blood issues, broken legs, or cancer, or about giving shots. In fact, people who believe shots should not be given are considered by many to be bad parents. So, it’s only “It’s how God made them, to change it is a sin!” if it involves people like me.  Anything else, it’s absolutely fine to treat or change. The word to describe this mindset is “hypocritical”.

Living as a man when everything inside you is screaming "this is not correct!" is a debilitating way to live. It’s beyond stressful. It’s emotionally distressing. It’s constant upheaval. It can at times be terrifying. It’s always being afraid you’ll do something, or say something, to give yourself away. You’re always afraid you’ll screw up and someone will notice something. 

It’s wondering every day if today is the day it all comes crashing down around you. It’s looking at the people around you, and thinking “How would they react if they knew? It’s one day arriving at a point where you begin to wonder the same thing but in a different way. How will they react when they find out? Not would. Will. Not if. When. How WILL they react WHEN they find out? Because you know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out or figures it out, and then you could lose absolutely everything. 

I could have kept going this way for longer, but it was awful. I decided to do something about it. I decided to quit hiding and be myself. I don’t have to live with the incongruity, the dissonance, prevalent in every aspect of every moment of my life. I have cried out to God so many times asking why I was made this way. I have spent many nights over the years asking God to take this off of me. And the only answer that God has given me, over and over, is that he loves me as me.

I’m still your child. I am still me. I know you feel like you’re losing your son. I know there is some grief there, and I would say this is a natural reaction. You can’t help your feelings. But you haven’t lost me. I promise. I’m still your child. The same heart that started beating in the 1960s is still beating as I write this letter. Now, I’ll admit I am probably not living the life you dreamed of for me when you were young parents. But you still have the person who has been your child all this time. 

Do you remember when you told God you just wanted me to be healthy and didn't care about anything else? When I was a child you said you loved me forever. If you close your eyes and just listen to me, I am still the person that I have always been except now I feel that I am a better person. In the past, I closed off major parts of my life and got close to almost no one. I have had few close friends because the closer people get, the more likely it would be that they would find out about the real me. I knew I could never deal with the rejection that would have resulted.

I am the same person. I’m just finally comfortable being me. I haven’t changed nearly as much as it might seem. So much of what you think about me as a person is tied to maleness, and this is understandable because the world focuses on that. But if you take gender out of it, I’m exactly who I have always been. The present is the same; just the wrapping paper is different. But now it is a wonderful, vibrant wrapping paper!

I still like the same things. I’m still overwhelmingly in love with (my wife). I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, and I still am. I’m still a Christian. He is my King. This is not going to change. Don’t let the obvious physical changes distract you from who I am as a person. Instead, get to know the parts of me you don’t know. You didn’t feel you’d lost Doug when his name changed. He didn’t go away. It’s the same thing with me. I’m still me. I’m not a stranger. Having said that, I’m sorry for the pain the feeling of loss you have experienced has caused you. In order to have peace, you’ll have to acknowledge your feelings and accept them, and then resolve to love me anyway, as me, despite those feelings. That’s how peace comes.

It’s interesting how much we talk in our churches about the love of Jesus. Yet, scripture never records Him saying “I love you” to anyone. Rather, He showed them, and us, His love with His actions. He didn’t love them because they were perfect (they weren’t). He simply loved them for who they were. He also said the second greatest commandment is to love those around us as ourselves.

Meantime, there were the Scribes and Pharisees, the religiously arrogant, who existed to condemn those around them who weren’t like them. Does this sound familiar? These are the sorts of people in the scenario I described above who judged you as being a perversion, a freak of nature, and turned their backs on you. These Pharisees and Scribes were the only people in the Bible Jesus spoke against. They thought people were born blind because of sin. 

We know differently now. They thought spitting in the mud on the Sabbath meant you deserved death when, in reality, it is the thoughts in the heart that bring eternal death. They made false accusations against Jesus, lying in order to show their zeal for God. Does this sound familiar? They thought of themselves as righteous, while in reality, their righteousness was as filthy rags. 

They thought Jesus was full of evil because He wasn’t the Messiah they wanted Him to be. Instead, He is the Messiah we so desperately need. They thought helping someone in need made someone a sinner, while at the same time, they believed their legalistic attitude and rules made them better followers of God than anyone. Yet Jesus taught them helping someone in need was a high calling, and angered them over and over by breaking their rules, because all He saw was the real people right in front of Him who had needs, and because He knew the rules of the religious elites stood against who He was and is. That’s radical faith and love! But there are just as many thoughtless ideas and theories about people like me; theories from modern-day Pharisees and Scribes who have no idea what they’re talking about.

Todd Agnew, a fairly well-known Christian singer, has a song containing the following words:

My Jesus would never be accepted in my church

The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet

But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud

Did you ever wonder how many churches would recognize Jesus if He walked into their church this next Sunday? Or would they be more concerned with whether He’d get the carpet dirty? Hebrews 13:2 says some of us have entertained angels without realizing it, so one never knows. But the thing is, Jesus wasn’t the sort of person who hung around with the religious elite. He surrounded Himself with the people the religious elite held in disdain. He came as the Savior for everyone, especially for those who were, and are, considered to be “less than”. Thank God!!

I need to be who I am. But it’s more than this. I’ve reached a point where I don’t just need to be me. I want to be me. I like who I am! I like what I’m starting to look like. Though I’d like to take off some weight. I finally can look in a mirror and not feel like crying. I look in the mirror and smile because I’m finally starting to look like me. My self-esteem is through the roof! The Pharisees of 2019 can condemn me if they choose. They judge me based on my appearance and based on their perceptions. Scripture says man looks on the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. My eyes and heart are fixed on Jesus, no other hope have I.  I KNOW in Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep my soul, which I have committed unto Him.

I just want to live my life. I’m not a threat to anyone. The modern-day Pharisees claiming I’m evil doesn’t make me evil. In fact, just like in Jesus’ time, their words are the best possible testimony that I’m a child of God!

It is my hope that the example and comparisons I proposed are helpful and provide at least some frame of reference. I hope that the thought exercise I proposed brought some clarity to what can be confusing.

I love you. Be well!