I am not a freak

I am on my 18th month on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). I am still not sure whether I will fully transition but it seems like the inevitable outcome. My personal life and the pandemic have colluded to slow that decision-making process, so in this neutral gender zone I have been trying to purge six decades of binary brain-washing and it’s not easy.

According to Wikipedia, transphobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes, feelings or actions toward transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence, anger, or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who do not conform to social gender expectations. The toughest type of transphobia is the one that is inside the head of someone that is transgender.

I have personally felt, and still feel to some degree, that fear, aversion, hatred, violence, anger, or discomfort is within me as well.

It is not pretty.

It tears you apart from the inside out…and then you have to hear the same ugliness from others. They include family, friends, the media, politicians and religious zealots. It’s a stacked team against me. Every time I hear a transphobic statement, it reverberates through my soul. I feel the pain. I feel my vulnerability. I question, yet again, am I doing the right thing, am I hurting others unnecessarily, am I hurting myself, will I be happy, what am I, am I a freak?

It is a nasty internal world with unquenchable emotional fires raging throughout my waking hours.