Does transitioning make you happy?
Writing this in 2023 when trans identities are under political attack, when the media is actively questioning transition narratives, matters because within the trans community at large we are turtling up and getting spikey about transition narratives. TikTok, Twitch, Twitter et al have brought trans identities to the fore in ways that even Facebook, MySpace, and Tumblr could not. The curation of self, the ease of access to this content by all parties, and the weaponization of flaws by all sides. When we talk about transition happiness for me it is both the internal fulfilment of self and the happiness we have as part of the communities we belong to. Happiness is such a personal thing that no two versions of happiness ever quite align, yet there is enough common ground to say that transition happiness depends both on those around you and personal expectations.
I stand by my assertion that being trans, coming out, and living your fullest life is never the issue. To even ask the question does transitioning make you happy belies the unasked question that transitioning somehow is a bad thing that will make your life miserable. The reality is that transitioning from one gender to another or somewhere in between can be both euphoric and bring with it a whole set of other complications. I have long argues that most of the issues trans folk face are societal, with the community at large’s reaction a root cause of much of the unhappiness; yet, there is also a degree of self-immolation, self-loathing that you will never be enough of your desired gender that also creeps in around the edges. So, the short answer is that while transitioning may make you happy, the reality is more complex.
The long answer is much more nuanced, depending on many factors. First of these is the community you have around you. If you have supportive people in your life who accept and affirm your core identity then much of the battle has been won. Yet, even with all the love and support, often it is our own inner demons that trip us up and make trans folk doubt themselves. A core reason for this is that most of the women or men (cis or trans) we see in the media project a certain image that we all societally are conditioned to aspire towards. Trans folk in particular have a sense of expectation to be archetypes of their gender in order to survive and be taken seriously. If you fall short of those expectations in some what it can batter your self-worth.
Indeed, most of the trans folk in the media are slim, young, mostly white , middle class, have a degree of education, and are well spoken. Some have done sex work, some have been abused, some have committed crimes, some hide their personal realities. All of them curate their image only revealing a sliver of their lived reality. The facts of their lives are as spoon fed to us as any other celebrity and social influencer. What happens away from the camera and feed is private. This means that any trans person or prospective trans person viewing those streams, images, and stories only gets to see what that particular person wishes to show you.
My writing is a good example of this. I share a fractal of my life with you. You only get to read about what I want to write about, what I think is important to me and what I think you will be interested in reading. My personal happiness is more or less a contentment with myself, yet as readers of this blog will know I have had my personal mental health issues that I have chosen to share. This curation of my identity into content is true for all trans folk who make content for us to consume. We get to see what they wish to share, and in doing so we assume that their lived experiences are what trans lived experiences should be.
In reality, all genders have messy lives, the roughness of daily life is something cis folk just accept as part of the mundane everydayness of it all. Cis folk come in all shapes and sizes, some femme, some masc, others a hodgepodge of shapes and features that can be read either way. Trans folk are corralled into a slimed down version of gender because the outliers of gender norms are never taken as the exemplars of self. If you lined up ten cis women and asked the average person to spot the trans woman in their midst the average person would scrutinize and then select a person based on their own prejudices. It is arbitrary because we all have our own expectations of what gender and gendered identity should be.
Losing my hair made me confront the reality of being othered in ways that I had long since passed by. I lost all my passing privilege, being seen sometimes as a woman other times as a man. My voice fluctuates between femme and masc, my body language the same. At no point did I lose my inner sense of self, I am the woman I feel, the woman I am. Society may read me differently, but my happiness does not depend on other people’s affirmation of my gendered self. Not everyone has this luxury, as personal safety, personal mental, and general well being mean that conforming to an ideal is better than having to battle everyday for your very identity.
This complex entwining between the expectation of others and the expectation of self mean that happiness can only be defined on a personal level. I have unfortunately known too many trans people who have committed suicide who on the surface had successful and happy lives. Happiness on the surface does not always bring inner peace, but this does not mean transitioning was the wrong thing for any of us. It just means that we need to be honest about what happiness actually means in our daily lives.
