In the Closet and In a Wedding??

You may remember that recently my friend Dana and I began a podcast.  We have been having lots of fun recording it, and sharing out bit of weirdness with the world.  We recently received a great question from a listener.  I was emailing her back today and thought, hey, maybe I should share this with a larger community to try and get more opinions.  So I'd encourage you to reach out and give me your thoughts.

Hello!

My name is J, and I'm a hetero cis woman who absolutely loves you two. Your podcast is wonderful and I truly enjoy listening to your conversations. 

A little background on why I'm asking this question, I live in a very conservative area of the Midwest and there is not a lot of exposure for the trans community here. My former roommate and current best friend is a trans woman but due to our environment and personal struggles, she has not been able to openly present herself as a woman to society. I'm the only girl friend that she really is herself with and since we're so close, we both really want her to be involved in my wedding this fall as a bridesmaid. So here's my question: what advice would you have for us to help make her feel more comfortable being in front of a large group of my friends and family in a dress when she struggles with her body dysmorphia and fear of being vulnerable in public? 

Thank you so much for sharing your friendship and closeness with your listeners, I hope to hear back from you!

J

Thanks so much for writing to Dana and I, and for listening to our podcast.  You are super kind and sweet with your compliments towards us, so thanks for that.  In regards to your friend, wow, you are super sweet for wanting her in your wedding!  That is so nice of you to put yourself out there to help her! So cool!  

Dana and I will be recording again late this next week and we will for sure discuss this.  Dana has lots of experience in speaking with many trans individuals and I'm sure she has her own thoughts on this matter.  Being as it may be at least a couple of weeks for our discussion to make it live on our podcast I wanted to try and write to you personally now and attempt an answer to your question.  

To that end - in general, in order to become more comfortable being in front of people dressed as oneself, your friend would need to begin doing it now.  Over time, comfort, joy, and relaxation can come about.  I personally began by going to the movies, museums, and other locations where no one knew me.  I was also super fortunate to have my wife by my side most of the time.  I would encourage you and your friend to get out together and begin exploring if the realities of doing such a thing is what both of you actually want.

For me, when I was fully in the closet, the idea of being a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding would have been amazing!  It still is actually! But when I was closeted, actually being that bridesmaid was a minefield of terrifying unknowns.  How would I actually look in a woman's dress?  Would it work with my body?  Would anyone who saw me ever really take me for a woman? What if someone I knew saw me?  What if my family found out?  What if my work found out?  What if people got mad at me?  What if people tried to hurt me?  Would dressing as a woman at my friend's wedding take away somehow from her day?  

The reality is, I would have never felt comfortable in actually being in that wedding until I had transitioned, or at least had come out to my circle of humans.  There would have been a terrific desire to do it, and an extreme sadness if I didn't, but I would never have felt comfortable doing that while I was closeted.

There may have been some things that have helped me to feel more comfortable though.  As you stated in regards to your friend, she has two main issues, 1 - body image concerns, and 2 - social concerns.

For issue number one, body image, that can be combated in a few different ways.  The first way that I dealt with my own body insecurities was learning how to dress it.  Clothes come in many different cuts, fabrics, styles, etc.  By trying on vast amounts of different clothes one can eventually find something that actually looks good.  I have found this to be true, regardless of one's personal body "type."  Thus for a wedding, the right bridesmaid dress can make all of the difference.  Many AMAB (assigned male at birth) humans have wider shoulders, thus a dress that shows more shoulders is often not flattering on their bodies, for example.

Another helpful tactic is realizing the vast variations that exist in bodies.  Not every AFAB (assigned female at birth) human has shoulders and hips at the same width.  Not every AFAB has greats breasts that show their decolletage.  Not every AFAB looks undeniably like an AFAB.  Variations happen, and are totally natural and expected.  Not everyone looks like that standard female image that media tosses in our face on a regular basis.

My personal body image issues have also been helped by working with my therapist for the past two years and bugging her constantly about the evil voices in my head that try and convince me that I will never be seen as anything but an AMAB desperately trying to pass as an AFAB.  In addition to talking to her about my own body image issues, I have tried to talk to many other people about it.  I have spoken to college classes about it, my wife extensively, my sister, my coworkers, my friends, and total strangers!  I believe that insecurities are wounded by being brought into the open, and that they thrive in the darkness of our minds.

Another small, but powerful, thing I have done to help with my body image issues is to take a large number of pictures of myself.  This may seem counter-intuitive as humans with body image issues tend to not like their images at all.  But, over time, with lots of practice, and learning about the medium of photography, I have been able to see myself in a totally different way.

Lastly, the largest thing I have done to help with my body image issues, is to have changed my hormones.  That has helped the most as that has actually changed my body to be better aligned with what my brain thinks my body should look like.  Thus I am beginning to feel like me, and not like I am playing a version of me.

 Okay, so, for issue number two - social concerns, I have a harder time in coming up with more options.  The first, and by far the easiest, is to dress in one's preferred presentation and go to locations where it is all but assured that you won't see anyone who knows you.  That limits the potential side effects of your entire world discovering your secret.  But it also allows one to begin to interact with other human beings while dressed in a manner one is not familiar with.

Another option to transgender people is to come out of the closet.  It does not mean one has to transition.  People can open up about their gender variance even when they are not sure what it may mean.  I came out to my sister as a transvestite about fifteen years ago.  A few years after that, I came out to some friends and described myself as a cross dresser.  After that, I came out to some other friends as gender non-conforming and non-binary.  It was not until a few years later that I began telling people I am a transgender woman.  Anywho..... when you begin to open up, and come out of the closet, it helps to ease the social pressures.

Coming out is not an easily undertaken event.  It takes large amounts of bravery, and support.  It can lead to horrible rejection and large amounts of ignorance.  But, it can also lead to freedom.  The freedom to actually be able to be oneself, in front of anybody, and everybody.  It can lead to a deep sense of closeness and belonging within a community that most transgender people have never felt.

In short, I don't know of anything that can guarantee your friend will be able to be in your wedding and be totally comfortable, however, there are lots of things they could begin to do that would allow them to be in your wedding and feel more comfortable about it.

I hope that in some small way my words will help you and your friend.  You truly are an awesome human being and a fantastic friend.  Thank you so much for being so kind and caring to others.  Your friend is very fortunate to have you in their lives.

Thank you!!!

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Love others!

Photo Credits:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ndphotog/5249048185/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bridesmaids.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/micadew/5917572890
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bride_and_Bridesmaids.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/44522791@N00/15721070587
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1bridesmaids_crop.jpg

TransCisTer Radio - My Podcast!

I don't remember when my friend Dana first mentioned to me the idea of she and I doing a podcast,  though I do know what my response was, sure!  I didn't really know a whole lot about podcasts, as I don't generally listen to many of them.  I understood the basics, it is like a radio show, and I have listened to plenty of talk radio in the past.  What I didn't know, was, how exactly does one produce a podcast.  No matter though, I so appreciate my friend Dana, and I'm always trying to find new ways to help educate the populace, thus the idea of one day, putting on a podcast appealed to me. 

My friend Dana is an awesome human.  I met her at my somewhat local LGBT+ resource center in Visalia, called The Source.  Dana runs the transgender support group at The Source.  She is a fabulous human who wanted to help bring some resources and support to the trans community of the Central Valley of California.  It became very apparent to her about the lack of transgender assistance in our area when it was obvious that her oldest child is transgender.  Life certainly changed when he transitioned at around fourteen or fifteen.  Yeah, as I said, she is an awesome human being! 

I certainly admire her, and thus I felt super honored when she asked me to do the podcast with her.  The one thing we both knew would be an issue, is when exactly are we going to find the time in our crazy lives to add in one more thing to do.  We were both super interested in doing this, but the reality of our lives is that they are truly super busy!  Both of us have full time jobs and then we tend to pile other various bits and pieces on top of it.  But I don't really think that to my loyal blogging community members I need to explain just how busy my life is.  You may notice from my super slow amount of blogging that I already have too much going on to possibly add anything else.  And you may possibly be right. 

Be that as it may, I am not going to let a little thing like not having enough time, dictate whether or not I am going to try and do a bit more for the transgender community.  The older I am becoming, and the longer I go into AT (after transition, as opposed to BT) the more I am understanding that I am an educator.  I've always understood that I have had a job as a teacher, but I have not always understood my relevance in the world as an educator.  Recently I have been able to have several opportunities to try and help educate about the transgender community, and possibly reach cis-gender humans!  That is faboo!  I mean, I love having so many readers from the trans community, it is truly quite lovely!  However, the trans community is super small, last estimate I heard was about 0.6% of the population.  Being so tiny, if we want to have equal rights, we need to have allies!  So, yeah, when I am presented with another opportunity to try and help educate about my favorite topic, then of course I will go for it! 

Eventually Dana and I did find some time to record ourselves.  Of course we had no idea of what we were really doing.  We did have a computer, a microphone, recording software, lots to say, and some time with each other to just chat.  And chat we did.  We babbled on for about two hours!  Thankfully, with some help from the fabulous Brian Poth, also from The Source, we were able to create a few episodes out of our blather.  Dana recorded some bumpers, and picked out some music.  I learned how to do editing and mixing.  And hey, what do you know, the next thing is that she and I have our very own podcast! 

Welcome to TransCisTer Radio!  Do you like the word play within that?  Brian and Dana came up with the name and graphic to go along with our show title.  Personally, I love it! 

So..... with all of that being said, I would truly appreciate you going and checking out our show.  It is also available through:  Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and iTunes!  Wow, it feels so official!  We currently have four episodes up.  The first three are the first time Dana and I recorded ourselves.  Surprisingly it works as three separate episodes.  Episode four is the first one where we tried to follow a somewhat standard format, with actual timed segments!  Wow! 

Things are moving along with this podcasting thing, apparently.  What type of schedule are Dana and I going to attempt to keep with this??  That's funny.  Schedule?  Ha!  She and I?  Yeah, probably not going to happen.  Unless we get famous, then maybe we could stick to a standard schedule!  Haha. 

As with most things that I find myself doing, I want you to know just how vast my insecurities are about doing it.  I have about ten years of blogging behind me at this point, but when I first put up this blog, I was terrified!  Now though, not so much, even with the increase of blog readers I have.  With podcasting, what am I the most insecure about?  Uhhh..... my voice.  I feel the best I have ever felt about my voice.  I currently am gendered properly over the phone, and even when I am not putting Herculean efforts into my appearance.  So, how I feel about my voice, and the realities of my voice are two different things.   Apparently the realities of my voice is that in hearing it, others take it to be feminine.  But, when I hear it, it does not sound feminine enough.  Which is where pretty much all of my insecurities lie, in that I am just not female enough, in my opinion.  Which basically means, I am unjustly, a super hard-assed bitch to myself, as most women are.  Ha-ha, her.... point being, is that even though I am super insecure about it, I am still trying to put myself out there.

Alrighty then!

Love you!

Love yourselves! 

Love facing your insecurities!

Love educating!

Love you!

Seriously, are you sure you're taking the time to love yourself properly?