I have a few questions I want to ask
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 10:49 pm
I was thinking today about the early pioneers, Christine Jorgenson, April Ashley etc and how very difficult it was for them and the others who blazed the trail. When they did it, they truly were leaping into the unknown and without any help whatsoever and very little understanding outside of a handful of specialists like Harry Benjamin. It still was far from easy when Julia Grant made her move decades later. To do what they did at that time, those early transitioners were clearly very driven indeed. In our modern times, now that so many have gone before and we have the internet, although transition is no picnic and post-op life is still challenging, it is undeniable that the challenge and obstacles now are a tiny fraction of those faced by the early trail-blazers. So it made me ask myself...... Had I not had the information and support available now, had I been in the same situation as those early transitioners, WOULD I have done it? Trying to be honest with myself, I'm not sure that I would. After all, it took me 50 years to do it in the modern circumstances. I could function as a male so however uncomfortable and alienated I felt I wasn't completely crippled like some - e.g. so dysphoric about their genitals as to be unable to have sex in any form. I think that the crux of it though is that I was far too weak a person to have made the bold and determined moves that the pioneers did. Over time, my personal inner strength grew, my dysphoric despair increased and the difficulties of the path to transition substantially decreased. Eventually those three things reached tipping point. But the reality is that quite apart from the difficulties of getting to my current status, if I was physically and psychologically exactly as I am now post-op, but outside my flat was the world of the 1950's I wouldn't last more than a few weeks.