Family and friends of a transexual
By Stephanie Castle
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No one who has travelled the transexual route can deny
that it is fraught with challenges, obstacles and a host of
perplexing and agonising problems, not the least being the handling of
interfamily and other close personal relationships.
I am leaving aside
the matter of spousal relationships. Having had two divorces caused by
circumstances unrelated to my transexualism, I can only say that
little that has been helpful in any matter touching on the subject
came out of either event. Marital break ups are beyond the scope of
this article, and in my own case my transexualism did not enter the
picture - it was a secret I had carried around with me all my life,
buried as if in a concrete sepulchre.
I knew it was there - attached
as if by an unseen umbilical cord to my mind, unheeded, unwanted
and unwelcome, but always thrusting to get out and be acknowledged
by me as my other self, the feminine me that I am now bringing
into reality.
I was brought up in the best traditions of the
British 'stiff upper lip'. One was expected to bear pain,
discomfort and mental agony without complaint and always with a
smile. It was this attitude which won battles and wars for the
Empire, but invariably it also bred generations unable to express
themselves, and to whom the honest venting of feelings was
regarded as weak, effeminate and downright sissified. If I had
been able to uncork my own deepest feelings at the appropriate
times the course of my personal marital history might have been a
lot different, possibly a lot better, and I might well have dealt
with the challenge of my own transexualism much earlier in
life.
The failure of the second marriage altered many things. I
went through a period of deep soul searching from which developed a resolve to stop
kidding myself. I am transexual. I had been aware of
the condition without being able to understand it from about the age
of four. My perplexity gave way to an understanding of it as a
definable condition by the time I was nineteen, but my idea of pride,
family
honour and duty did everything possible to bury it, even though at
times I was seething internally like a volcano with anxiety and pent
up desire.
With the fresh circumstances of my new status as a soon to
be single man I decided on a total change in my approach to my
life. My feminine self was at long last let out of the closet of my
mind and given increasing free rein.
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