Trans People Are One Of The Rarest “Diamonds”

Summary

Emma Holiday discusses the personal and societal challenges faced by transgender individuals, likening their journey to the creation of a rare and beautiful diamond through immense pressure and pain.

Abstract

The author, Emma Holiday, reflects on the profound transformation and isolation experienced in their transition as a transgender person. Before their gender awareness, Holiday led a life aligned with male roles and expectations. However, the realization of their true identity as a transgender individual at the age of 61 led to a sense of displacement and confusion, both personally and within their social circles. Holiday describes the struggle of redefining their identity and the societal barriers that exacerbate feelings of alienation. Despite the challenges, they emphasize the unique contributions transgender people make to society, such as compassion and understanding, which are often overlooked. Holiday uses their writing as a form of therapy and an outlet to connect with others in the transgender community, aiming to alleviate the loneliness that can accompany their journey. They also strive to educate cisgender individuals, advocating for acceptance and normalization of transgender identities.

Opinions

The author feels that society has a role in isolating transgender individuals due to their gender presentation, which can be perceived as a threat to social norms.
Holiday believes that the transgender experience adds valuable facets to society, including compassion, understanding, sympathy, empathy, kindness, and care.
The process of transitioning is described as a lonely existence, and the author hopes that sharing their experiences can help others feel less alone.
Writing serves as a therapeutic tool for the author to process their transition and to communicate the depth of the transgender experience to a broader audience.
The author advocates for cisgender people to understand and accept transgender individuals as normal people, emphasizing that this acceptance comes at no additional cost to society.

The pressure and pain we endure in order to create a new beauty

Photo by the author

My life was simple BTA (Before Transgender Awareness). I was in complete male alignment. I knew where I fit in and everyone accepted my role in their lives. Although it wasn’t a perfect storybook life, it worked just fine for me.

Then somebody threw my character right out of the script.

Suddenly I felt like Freddy Krueger in the middle of It’s a Wonderful Life. I didn’t fit.

I was a 61-year-old male. Except I wasn’t.

I was a husband, a father and an uncle. Except that role wasn’t clear to me anymore.

I was the male spouse to my wife and to all of the couples with whom we socialized. I was a male role model for my sons and my nephews. I was the rock that my wife, my Mom, and my nieces could rely on, and the guy that other people could count on in a pinch… until I suddenly felt like I was a stranger to them.

Society has done a wonderful job of isolating me from everyone. How are they to relate to me, and, me to them? Does my gender presentation mean so much to normal social discourse that by changing it I have eliminated the single anchor that gives me substance in their lives?

All of us present different aspects of our personality depending on the social circumstances in which we find ourselves. Being transgender simply multiplies those aspects. We now have to truly reconsider who we are and what we show to the world.

Unfortunately, many of those new aspects are not seen as attractive, nor are they appreciated by the world. The world refuses to see the incredible beauty that we have added with these new facets. If they would take a moment and simply look at the dazzling colors that we have added to our lives, they would, themselves, share in the marvelous new lights, dimensions, and reflections that we can now offer. And we offer so much.

We are one of the rarest diamonds. To create our “diamond,” we have had to undergo so much pressure and pain. Through that experience we now get to show many glittering facets that are desperately needed by humanity, like, compassion, understanding, sympathy, empathy, kindness, and care.

Trans people have added these facets to society in one of the hardest ways possible — through society’s rejection. Maybe someday others will see the light we throw off. And maybe they’ll see it not as a threat to society, but as a celebration of what we add to society, at no additional cost.

Emma Holiday

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 of my life. I need to understand and accept myself in order to move forward.

2. Being transgender, for me, is a very lonely existence. If I can share, with other trans people, some of the things that I feel and think as I go through the process of transitioning, 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 normal people. Because we are.

Thank you for reading my work.