This post is part of a series related to Transgender Awareness Week, click here to see the list of all topics I plan to cover.
You may find it hard to believe, but in many aspects I am pretty grateful for what being transgender has provided me. For better or worse (I lean towards better), I am the way I am today because of the experiences in my past that helped to shape my future. I may not have been born a girl as I preferred, but I sure as hell get to live as one now, and my femininity is something I will never take for granted.
Life looks differently after you’ve stared your biggest fear in the face, worked to overcome it, and get to see the other side. Knowing that all of my feelings were valid as a child is extremely relieving, and I am able to have closure on so many sad memories from my past. Being transgender comes with a lot of pain, but within this past year I have learned to look beyond that and approach this aspect of my life with the same fervor and positivity that I bring to most every other aspect of my life.
My company recently held an event focused on the topic of Gratitude, and I found it hilariously-timed because I had planned to write this post today. There was a story shared by someone that had recently gone to volunteer at a children’s hospital. Some of these children have cancer, and this person was going there unintentionally expecting these kids to have the mindsets of adults, meaning that they would be complaining about their diagnosis, or what they ate that day, or how uncomfortable the beds were.
But once this person arrived at the hospital they found the children to be in really high spirits, playing and laughing with each other, talking about how they love making new friends and eating jell-o everyday. The person sharing this story was baffled at the time, but their main takeaway was pretty insightful; and that is that you don’t have to be grateful for something in order to be grateful in something.
I think this mindset helped me have the life, and the transition, that I want. I truly believe that having a positive outlook and approaching my life with gratitude has made all the difference in the world. I certainly am not grateful to be transgender, but I have found a lot of reasons to be grateful in my situation to move forward in the best way possible.
I’m grateful that I am able to understand and articulate my feelings. I’m grateful that other people have the empathy and compassion to want to understand and help me in any way they can. I’m grateful that the education and the medicine exists which enables me to transition and live the way I should have always been living.
I was actually crying on my drive home from my laser appointment yesterday and I couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t sad at all really, despite the pain I love going to laser. Eventually, after some time I put my finger on it, I felt overwhelmingly grateful. I kid you not, I was crying for 10 – 15 minutes in the car because I felt so grateful to be able to do what I am doing in my life right now. To transition and to have done it so successfully, and to be able to share it with you to help others find inspiration or develop compassion are the passions I never knew I had until recently.
With that being said, I would like to specifically list some people or organizations that I am extremely grateful to have had as resources during my transition. Many served as inspirations to me, and maybe you will find some inspiration in them yourself. I would also like to thank you, for reading this blog and giving me a platform to share my positivity and information with the world.
- Yoga with Adriene (mindfulness & fitness)
- Mazzoni Center – for both health and emotional support
- Reddit (subreddits linked in my prior post about Support)
- Caitlin Jenner – the visibility she brought to our community was incomparable, and for me specifically that is when it started to click that just about anyone could be transgender (including myself)
- Ellen DeGeneres – I recently watched an episode of the Netflix show “The Nineties” where they focused on TV from that decade. They spent some time talking about when Ellen came out on TV and I felt so overwhelmingly grateful for what she did for the LGBT community, as the impacts down the line helped push so many other people to accept their own identities, including myself
- Instagram (@suddenlysamantha, @mikaelaville, @autumninamerica, and countless others)
- Trans-friendly organizations (PFLAG, WPATH, HRC, ACLU, Trevor Project, Trans Lifeline, National Center for Transgender Equality, and numerous local organizations)
- YouTubers (Gigi Gorgeous, Carloand, Elena Genevieve, Stef Sanjati, Heidi Phox, Grace Phillips, GenderFun, Christen Dominique and Ali Andreaa for makeup)
- My company – for providing some of the tools I used to work towards my professional and personal goals
- Last but not least – an understanding and patient family and group of friends