The Butterfly Transition

On the verge of ripping open my transgender “chrysalis” and finally being me…

The butterfly life cycle is a very unique occurrence in nature, even more so when it happens to you.

I am not suggesting that I share the magnificent beauty of a butterfly, far from it. I figure I am more like a moth but my vanity is more biased towards the butterfly association. Anyway, I am talking about the extreme changes that can occur in one’s lifetime. My transgender life cycle is exactly like that.

Butterflies go through four stages in their life cycle, and I have come to identify with each one. The four are: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis (aka cocoon but chrysalis sounds so much cooler) and, finally, butterfly.

Egg: When I was yet to be born, my brain was hard-wired female yet my genitalia developed male. Why, how, who knows; I just know it’s been established as a medical fact for me.

Caterpillar: I was born and to all the world I was a male. Until I grew enough to know the difference, I thought I was just me and I was just happy to be me. Eventually I found out that there was a difference, there were boys and there were girls. For whatever reason being a boy didn’t feel quite right to me but I didn’t make the rules. My parents guided me to boy toys and boy playmates, and specifically correcting me whenever I deviated from the accepted gender plan and played with girl toys or spent too much time playing with girls. I had an older brother who acted as my gender disciplinarian (he used the intimidation technique).

So, there I was, an awkward male caterpillar just chugging along the expected male caterpillar path, doing male caterpillar things. It didn’t feel right, and at times I strayed off that path on to the girl side of things, but constant reminders of the gender rules quickly corrected my path. Over time, the path felt stable and static.

I had no clue that my life cycle would take an unpredictably violent spin.

Chrysalis (I still like it so much more than cocoon…): Wham! There I was plugging away on a daily basis as a confused but seemingly happy male caterpillar when I felt something begin to change. I just didn’t feel right. The “male caterpillar” label didn’t seem to fit any longer. Something was happening to me that I couldn’t control. I suddenly didn’t feel like me anymore.

What was happening?

I had started the chrysalis cycle, a painful three-year process that dragged me through the most emotionally painful experience in my life. I don’t recommend it for anyone. The worst was the beginning. Ignorance, fear, shame and guilt all combined into an agonizing acid bath that I couldn’t escape from. It was all inside my head, 24/7. It bubbled and churned, tearing at the molecules of my soul.

Inside this chrysalis (see, so much better than cocoon) I began to change whether I wanted to or not. Gender dysphoria was like an internal fire alarm system screaming that something was wrong. It forced me to get help, and I was forced to learn so many new and incredible things about myself.

I discovered that Nature had played a huge joke on me. I was wired female but built male. But I wasn’t laughing, and it was clear that society didn’t appreciate the joke either.

I was a transgender.

I tried to reject the truth but gender dysphoria has the nasty ability to turn all of that rejection energy against you in a clever emotional judo move that throws you to the ground and knocks the air out of you. You have no escape. Over time, due to sheer exhaustion, I began to stop fighting and began to accept that, regardless of what the world says, this is my truth.

I now find myself actually on the verge to rip open my chrysalis and finally be me. Whether moth or butterfly, I don’t belong inside this cocoon any longer and, regardless of my fears, I feel this force pushing me into a world that I hope will be more generous than my fears.

I need to move forward. I need to be seen as me.

The wonderful news is I am not the only butterfly.

Emma Holiday

Please also read:

I have tied all of my stories to the above thread.

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.