As I’ve realised, there’s no good segue for this but…

I’m transitioning gender.

That’s the shortest of it. I’m yet to find a good way to drop it in conversation. It’s the conversational equivalent to biting down on an ice cube.

I am now going by the name Jaye and using female or gender neutral pronouns.

So what’s the rest of this?

It’s a bit of explanation, a bit of education.

So far the people I’ve told have been lovely. That’s not to gloat, but it’s gone a lot better than I had initially expected. However, I can’t talk to everyone one-on-one. It’s just not logistically feasible. Amongst the people I’ve already told, there’s been some common threads. So this is going to act as my approach to telling the wider network of people that have come in to my life.

• Maybe we’ve met once.
• Maybe we see each other daily.
• Maybe you’re across LGBTQI topics and know what it means to transition.
• Maybe I’ll be the first person you know that’s transitioned in your life.

I’m writing this so…

1. You know what’s going on
2. You feel comfortable the next time you see me

I want to caveat that this is about me and no one else. Everyone experiences life and emotions uniquely. I’m not writing this to explain any other trans person’s experience (though some elements may be relatable). This is me at a certain point during my transition, the way I express myself in the future may be different to what I expect now. Also, this may bring up emotional or mental health issues of your own, related or unrelated to gender. I urge you to talk to someone and use whatever resources are available to you (Australia’s Mental Health Care Plans are a great place to start; just talk to your GP).

So let’s get started

the serious(ish) bit

What are you doing?

I’ve come the conclusion, over many years and working through internal thoughts and feelings, that for me to live a content and happy life that I need to live as a woman. The process to come to and decision to act on this conclusion has been the most important aspect.

Why are you doing this?

I’m doing it because it’s who I am and I’ve come to peace with that. Since a young age I’ve had the feeling that something was up. Feelings of wanting to do what girls are doing. Feelings of admiration rather than simply attraction. For whatever reason I held back expressing that at a young age and lacked the ability to articulate it. I remember telling a cousin at some young age my ‘big secret’ that “I want to be a girl”. I don’t really remember the response from this except for knowing I never told many people. I continued on to teenage life. These feelings never left entirely but articulation past thinking of myself as a weirdo wasn’t forthcoming. It wasn’t until my early 20s when a close friend gave me the opportunity to confide in them and so started the process of hating myself less. From then, a slow process of discovery and self-doubt began and finally led to now.

The above isn’t to say that I’ve hated life up until this point. To not acknowledge the opportunities I’ve been given in life would be insincere. I would never blame anyone for it taking this long for me get to this point. I enjoy and have enjoyed a great many things in life. However, parallel to this I’ve struggled with my identity and finding meaning in life. I’ve kept pushing forward but you can tell when you’re standing in a shadow.

I’m more confident now than ever that to be me I need to stop spending the mental energy fighting my mind and my body. To do this I’m undergoing some changes so that I can find some harmony.

I’m not becoming a different person but improving my self personally which will reflect outwardly. I sometimes use the analogy of someone losing weight / becoming fit. It’ll take some time (months, maybe years) before it become’s clearly visible to anyone outside. And that person over time will probably start presenting differently (clothes that fit) and feel more mentally well. But the underlying person hasn’t changed, they’ve just taken an action to better themselves.

So what’s actually going on?

As of early November 2017 I’ve started taking hormones that replace the testosterone produced in my body with oestrogen. This is called Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). The easiest way to think about it is that I’m going through a second puberty. Just like puberty, it is a slow process and varies from person to person. Changes could still be occurring over two years down the track. So depending on when you’re reading this you might not notice much when you see me or you might notice a lot.

The main visible physical changes are softer skin and fat redistribution (i.e. breasts, rounder face). Also, and often not front of mind for people, are the mental / emotional changes as a result of the hormones and as a result of the physical changes. It’s not really a new fact that hormones affect your emotions. For me these emotional changes have been subtle so far but welcomed.

The mental / emotional changes that come about with the physical changes are due to the reduction in the feeling of dysphoria (put simply, not liking your body or not seeing it how you internally feel you should perceive it, in this case on gender lines). This doesn’t mean simply not liking your genitals and it varies from person to person. Some people don’t like their genitals but there are more subtle physical dysphoria elements for example not liking how angular your jaw is or how rough your skin is. (This being from a person transitioning to become more feminine. Those transitioning to become more masculine may notice other things.). Saying ‘not liking’ is problematic because dysphoria is a deeper sense of unease than that makes out. A simple analogy might be a constant ringing in your ear, and despite being able to zone it out it’s still always there. While my dysphoria isn’t crippling I know that I’m feeling like I’m seeing more of myself every time I look in the mirror now along with feeling more like the person I want to be.

You might have questions about what happens with genitals / surgery and what not (one person I’ve told did initially ask if I would grow new genitals; this is not the case). I’m going to leave it at the below.

My general rule for asking about my genitals: if you ever asked about my genitals before I told you about me transitioning then you’re allowed to ask after.

So what are you?

I’m still your child, friend, sibling, relation, acquaintance, team mate, employee, housemate and a person. Yes, this is a big change for me and maybe you don’t get it right now, or even agree with what I’m doing by some personal moral standpoint. What I want to reiterate is that I’m still the same person, and if our relationship was based entirely on me being male then I don’t think our relationship really makes sense, before or after this announcement.

There is a bit of language to get across first. There’s two terms that you may or may not have heard. Trans and Cis. Cis is a prefix that denotes a person identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth (i.e. always been happy with being a man / woman). Trans is the opposite, the person doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

There can be trans-women, trans-men and trans people that don’t identify with a particular binary gender (binary meaning two options, in this case male or female). These people may identify as non-binary or potentially another label. Trans is a broad header for a very diverse group of people, each with different and valid experiences. People use and place emotional value in labels differently. The above is an attempt to provide some extra context and below is my approach to these labels.

I am a trans-woman and a woman (Think of this as someone that has transitioned and now identifies as a woman). I make the distinction because the prefix ‘trans’ isn’t necessary to describe my gender. It’s only necessary when the context of speaking about my gender has something to do with my transition (or topics specifically regarding transgender issues). Admittedly, being quite early on in the process of transitioning, I feel a bit incredulous calling myself a woman as I’m still socially presenting as male most of the time. Time and support will help me jump these mental hurdles and I know calling myself a woman sincerely and authentically is at the end of this endurance race. With that in mind, I understand that it’s a shift in your perception too and will take time as well.

To reiterate though, these labels don’t define a person and who they are. It may be an interesting facet to them, especially at a glance, but people are multi-faceted and will shine light at all angles if you use a broad enough beam. If someone was to say that everything you do was because you were a man or a woman, you would become frustrated. This doesn’t change when you transition.

So what do I call you?

You can call me Jaye. That should be easy enough right. It’s just the first letter of my name. You can call me by my initials (JB) if you like too.

If you’re talking about me after you’ve said my name you can use singular she/her/hers pronouns or they/them/their pronouns. I’m quite happy with either, at this early stage especially. You can refer to me as a person or a woman. Over time I might decide to go by just one or the other.

Personally, I’ve been moving my vernacular to use they/them/their pronouns by default. I feel as though if we want an easy way to remove some subconscious gender bias then we should try to reduce gendered language. I think this makes a lot of sense in a business setting. It also scans so much nicer than reading ‘he/she’ in writing. Give it a shot, it will feel weird some times to say or write ‘they’ because it’ll seem like you’re talking about multiple people. Try rewording or using their name instead. Some people might also accuse you of being impersonal or hiding detail. Really it’s just a product of history that we can’t address each other without having to discern this personal detail about a person.

It will feel weird to call me a different name and use different pronouns. Don’t worry, it sometimes feels weird for me too (really nice, but weird). Give it a go, get it wrong, get it right, and soon enough you’ll get there. But by trying, you’re showing me a great amount of respect and I truly appreciate it.

So what do I do the next time I see you?

I always think this is something important that is missing from big announcements a lot; especially ones that are relatively uncommon. (Everyones pretty aware you can say ‘Congratulations’ if someone announces an engagement or a pregnancy without too much issue).

In this case though, do you say ‘Congratulations on transitioning, have you got boobs yet?’?

It’s a hard one (not so much the above statement but you know what I mean), part of me just wants it to slide by and just to let it happen. It’s a long process so I’m wary to have expectations placed on me by outside parties. On the other hand though, I don’t want people to feel like they can’t acknowledge it (other than awkwardly jamming ‘Jaye’ into every sentence where they would have never said my name before).

I fully acknowledge that ‘no good segue’ runs both ways (hard for me to bring up, hard for you to bring up). It can be really hard to bring up and talk about for some people and I struggle to always broach it because I don’t want it to become the only thing I talk about.

So I haven’t really answered what I’ve asked. If you want, you don’t have to do anything differently the next time you see me. Just roll with it and act like you normally would, I wouldn’t consider that rude, especially if there’s more pressing matters at hand.

That said, it is really normal to want to acknowledge news. You can do it whichever way you like really. Go the good old clunky way and find a conversational pause and shoehorn it in somehow or send some sort of text based communication (my usual approaches). Or ask me how I’m going, or mention something about this article like you appreciated it or you think I use too many big words when I write, or that I missed an oxford comma in the first paragraph of the ‘So what are you?’ section. I’ll respond as best I can and we can go from there.

Until the future.

Jaye