I Joined a Transgender Help Group

And rejected the nicest thing anyone ever said to me

In panic three years ago, I started writing on a transgender help/chat site. There my loneliness, caused by discovering that I was transgender, started to melt. I found others who were dealing with the same issues as me and, in some cases, worse, who wanted nothing from me. They were just willing to listen and share their thoughts and open their hearts to me, a complete stranger.

Over two years, it became the only place, other than with my therapist, where I could honestly and without any reservation, share my fears, doubts, pain and the occasional panic attacks with sympathetic friends. They were internet friends and I liked the arms distance anonymity it gave me. Social distancing made me feel safe.

Over time I found myself reciprocating their support, their caring and a love that was just simply an extension of friendship, no strings attached. In this process, I was fortunate to be told the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me. I will always smile whenever I think of it.

Bridget, a friend on the site had just sent to me a series of compliments that I couldn’t accept. The following is my reply and her response:

September 13, 2020, 03:36:05 pm »

“Bridget, that was an amazing lovely thing to say but how can you glean all those positive things about me with just what I have written. For the last three years my voice has been the words of a drowning person in a deep emotional ocean filled with others screaming equally to just survive. I am just screaming my pain and fear louder than them but, regardless, thank you.”

September 13, 2020, 05:26:07 pm »

“Emma you’re absolutely right.

But it takes a special person to be dealing with so much and yet still have time for others. To go out of your way to want the best for them. To make them feel better. I’m not talking about here; I’m talking about the things you’ve said to me privately. The times you’ve put everything you’re dealing with aside to offer a shoulder to someone else. Namely me. Privately. Had I never started reading your journey, I would never have had the opportunity to get to know you, more privately. To be able to talk to you off the grid, as it were.

I stand by what I said, Emma. You are a truly beautiful person. And I’m not just talking about how you look (although I still maintain you have a smile that would stop traffic and you’re utterly gorgeous). I’m talking about what’s inside you. Everything you’re going through… things that would break other people… but you still have it within you to be there for others. To be a source of kindness and strength. That is a very, very rare thing in this world. It’s something precious. And something you need to see, and understand. However hard things might be… you have it inside you to deal with it. You do. You have the depth of emotion… the compassion… the strength and gentleness of who you are.

You are never confrontational. You try to mediate… to be the mother. To diffuse situations that others would charge into headlong, sword raised. That isn’t you. And if that isn’t a testament to who you are then I don’t know what is.

I always equate people to water. That’s my element. It allows me to make sense of things. Emma, you feel like a glacial lake. Calm… serene on the surface, but deep. Powerful. And… timeless. You are someone who doesn’t need to assert themselves. You are someone who people come to, to bathe in your calming waters and feel the gentle serenity you give off. But you’re way more than that. You’re someone who has depths no one… not even you… have ever fully explored. A latent power that I don’t think even you are aware of.

Sometimes the glacier of the world around you breaks off a huge chunk and there’s a tumultuous crescendo on your surface as you try to assimilate that…but deep down… you’re still. Calm. Waiting.

Sorry, I know I am weird. I just get feelings from people, I dunno. I think you have a lot more inside you than even you realize. And you show it in the things you say. How you are with other people. It’s something that drew me to you.”

An amazingly beautiful thing to say to anyone, right? And what was my reaction? Panic!!! Rejection!!! Anger!!!

I immediately shut her down and totally rejected her compliments. I was upset being called “gorgeous”. I was afraid of her warmth. I felt like an impostor. It felt so wrong. I even felt a little dirty and the only reason I could come up with was…

I reacted like a guy.

I have spent a life time complimenting women without expecting a compliment back. Guys are supposed to be stoic and humble. We are supposed to be gallant, always the gentleman. We are the protector, the shoulder when needed…the rock. We don’t need anyone.

Rocks are not “gorgeous”. We are not “glacier lakes”. I am not a “mother”!!! I am a kick ass mother fucker. I am a tough guy. I am a solid rock. I don’t need you!

Wow, how tragic.

Three years of intense therapy. Three years of brutal self-examination, to finally accept that I am a trans woman. In the process, I have finally let my male guard down. I have finally let others, like Bridget, to see the real “me” for the first time and my immediate reaction is, I hate it. I hate them. I closed up shop and shut her down.

How sad. How truly sad.

Not only have I suppressed accepting that I am transgender all my life but I have aggressively rejected the best part of my humanity because it wasn’t “manly” enough.

Don’t you dare tell me I am not a guy!

My male wall was so defensive and so massive. My male ego was so aggressive. My rejection of heart so deep.

And I was so, so wrong.

I am sharing this to expose how wrong it is for me to feel that I can’t feel or care or share human warmth, that being a “guy” wasn’t being a human being, being a rock was a fearful way to hide being human. It took me recognizing that I am female to realize it.

How sad but at least it wasn’t too late.

I read Bridget’s words now over and over again, each time trying to open up my heart even further, trying to let that part of my heart and soul out of the dungeon that they were locked away in all my life.

It turns out that I like being a calm glacier lake.

— Emma Holiday

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.

Thank you for reading my work.

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