I Am So Many Things…And Oh, I Am Also Transgender.

The breaking of my gender dysphoria fever.

I have been consumed by my discovery seven years ago that I am transgender. It was the most explosive moment of my life. It set in motion a total and scathing analysis of every facet of my being, my life and the lifetime of relationships that I hold dear. There was a lot. I was 60 years old. It has been totally consuming to the point that it put everything and everyone in my life into a second-class category and that made sense.

I was hurting, in pain and entirely alone.

I needed to heal.

I have written extensively about my experience here on Medium. Over the last seven years, I went from ignorance, to panic attacks, to understanding, to rejection, to further understanding, to another start of accepting, to a desperate, last attempt at rejection, to negotiating, to reverse rejection (hating being perceived as male), to another reevaluation, to negotiating and re-negotiating, to an extreme emotional shutdown, to finally a break in my gender fever.

A lot, right?

What do I mean about my gender fever breaking?

I stopped putting everyone and everything in my life in the second-class category. I feel like the intensity of my gender turmoil has stopped boiling over. It is kind of on a simmering and I am so OK with that.

I just want to be more than transgender.

I am more than just transition pain.

I am me.

I see me, I feel me… and I like me.

I feel like I am breathing again and that feels great.

But I am not done transitioning, not by a long stretch, but on my terms not anyone else’s terms. I feel that transitioning is a continuous process and I find that exciting. There is so much still to learn and I don’t want my life to be static. Discovering that I am transgender has opened my eyes and opened new doors. It has stripped away a lifetime of ignorance and self-hate. Accepting that I am transgender has been empowering and has made me stronger and less vulnerable to attack.

I know what I am and no one, absolutely no one, can take that away from me.

I love my transgender and LGBTQ communities with all of their beauty and imperfections because what I care most about is their heart.

It is huge.

I also know what my privileges are, and I will not apologize that I was born with them. Like being transgender, it was a random part of being born where and who I was. I now am less ignorant and significantly more aware of who is hurt by those privileges, and I understand my privileges better. The key and my choice are what do I do with those privileges. I have always shared my good fortune and I will continue to do so where I can, with all of my heart. That is the best I can do with my privilege.

This has been a brutal process, but I feel right.

It has taken a long time.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me so far. It’s not over. I just hope it gets to be more fun. There is so much joy to have and to share.

Emma Holiday

Thank you for reading my work.

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Writers note: If you have read any of my writings on Medium you will have noticed a definite theme: the incredible pain of gender dysphoria and all the difficult aspects of just being transgender.

My writing has three specific goals:

1. Writing is my therapy. I have a very limited outlet for my thoughts so I write to find a way to process the most profound experience in my life. I need to understand and I need to accept myself to move forward.

2. Being transgender, for me, is a very lonely existence and if I can share some of the things that I feel and think as I go through the process of transitioning with others who are transgender and, in some way, lessen their pain and sense of loneliness, then all of this public exposure of my personal thoughts is not a waste.

3. I write to help cisgender people understand that all trans people want is to be simply understood, accepted and treated as a normal person. We are