Getting into Gender Character

Hiding from the world when you are transgender requires constantly getting into character. It’s what an actor does on the stage, except I have to do it all the time. I have become a method actor in the extreme.

Classical actors know they are playing a part, and once the camera stops rolling, they step out of character. For method actors, the world becomes their stage and more often than not they stay in character day and night, whether or not they are being filmed.

Well, it’s exhausting.

When you are transgender and you haven’t come out, you overlay your gender character over your gender reality in order to survive. You started when you were a child. Over time the character dominates your reality. You forget who you are and, at some point, you become the character. You lose yourself in the role life is forcing you to play and your reality never comes up for air.

You finally hit critical mass when your brain, responding to the grueling fatigue of constant acting, says “ENOUGH!” and hits the alarm button.

That’s when your gender dysphoria kicks in. As time passes and you try to continue in character, the alarm bell gets progressively louder and louder until it is screaming 24 hours a day, every day, all day.