Growing up trans, I dreamed of transformation. I imagined all sorts of ways that I could instantly become female. Like a caterpillar emerging from it’s cocoon, I would be a new and different person.
These feelings are shared by many transgender people, and they are flawed.
I know transgender women, who long to transition, but expect to become this new and different person. Many are held back by the mistaken belief that they must become a completely new person.
Friends and family of transgender people go through a mourning for their lost loved ones. They believe the man or woman they knew is gone, replaced by a gender opposite new person.
My wife went through this process, mourning the loss of ‘Jeff’. Then one night she said ‘ You have not changed, not really’. I smiled and said ‘I’m still me’.
Transitioning does not mean you become someone else, you can't. Your mind, you concisness, your thoughts, hopes & desires are still the same. If you loved hot dogs, batman and bicycles, you still will. You can not, and should not try to, escape who you are.
Transitioning just means showing the world who you are, and always have been, on the inside.