"Why would I transition my Gender and not the rest of my life?"
Transition can seem often like a big, overwhelming, chaotic journey and it's easy to get stuck in the weeds and discouraged along the way. Self-doubt creeps in and suddenly you're thinking things like:
What if I don't look the way I want to look?
What if it doesn't "work"?
What if I never feel like a woman/man/a gender that feels good for me?
What if I never feel legitimate?
What if I regret it?
What should I feel?
Is it ever going to be enough?
These thoughts are all extremely common and self-reflection about what path forward feels good for you is important. And I've often dug a little deeper with clients to get to the root of what is going on and it's often our old friend, fear.
So, let me ask you this:
Why are you transitioning?
This may seem like an obvious question. You're transitioning because you feel like the sex and gender you were assigned at birth aren't congruent with the gender that you feel the most authentic in. Duh. Stay with me.
Simon Sinek talks about starting with why in his now famous TedTalk. While Simon is talking about leadership and business, this concept applies to our personal lives as well. Simon talks about the "Golden Circle."
From Simon Sinek's "Start with Why"
Most people start with the "what," which for us is "Transition." Then we move to the "how" of what transition means to us and how we want to live it out. This can mean social, medical, and/or legal transition.
But what if we started with the "Why?" of transition instead?
Because here's the thing,
Transition isn't the point.
Transition is about focusing on gender intensely for a little while so that you can go on and live your life as the most authentic, lit-up, actualized version of yourself possible without having gender dysphoria (or a sense of incongruency about gender identity or expression) being the thing that defines your days.
I think that is best captured in this statement from a client, "Why would I transition my gender and not transition the rest of my life?"
I've had clients make all of the following changes in their life during or "after" transition (I put after in quotations because I think that transition is a process of self-actualization and, like self-actualization, we are never "done" transitioning into the best version of ourselves):
Move
Get new roommates
Live alone
Quit a job
Start a job
Go back to school
Get out of a relationship
Get into a relationship
Make an artistic project
Do a live performance
Set new boundaries for themselves
Explore their sexuality and relational structures
Find a sense of meaning in volunteering
Find their voice and start doing speaking gigs
Start writing
Start singing/playing an instrument
Deal with Trauma/Anxiety/Depression/Attachment stuff in a new way
Build a kinship network
And so many other things!
When our old buddies, Fear and Self-Doubt, start to creep in, ask yourself why you're transitioning. What would feeling good in your own skin and being the most authentic version of you allow you to do? What hopes and dreams have you put on hold? What could you give yourself permission to do?
Can you take one tiny step to move closer to one of those things now? I'd love to hear what it is! Write me back and tell me!
Interested in diving deeper?
