I’m trans, came out just a couple of months ago. I don’t post about this on Lemmy very often (if at all), but it’s been a struggle. My dysphoria - in a nutshell, the incongruency between what I see in the mirror and what I want to look like as a woman - has had a profound effect on me. I’m pushing fifty, and I can honestly say transitioning is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.
I have good days and bad days. Today is a good day, but on the bad ones I feel as though I look like Quark in the DS9 episode “Profit and Lace.” I’ll tell myself all kinds of awful, self-hating transphobic things like “you’re just a man in a dress” or “ugh what is that thing” or “freak” or “you’ll never be a real woman.” What a repulsive thing to say to yourself, how terribly unkind. I have specific issues with my facial hair, which are being addressed, but things like that take time. It’s like I’m fighting a battle against my own body, something I think most people can’t easily relate to. It’s hard to be patient while living in this (emotionally) painful in-between state, not knowing if I’ll ever be happy with myself. If it weren’t for my incredibly supportive wife, I’m not sure where I’d be right now.
Yeah, today is a good day. For now, at least. I feel safe and comfortable posting this here, you guys have always been a supportive and accepting community and I’d like to say thank you for that. Maybe I should start posting in the blahaj instance rather than bombarding you guys with this. Anyway, I’m gonna sign off for a while, I got my hands full at work today and gotta focus. Thanks for letting me vent.
Congratulations on coming out and in becoming your honest true self for all of us see and appreciate.
I ride a motorcycle and I love being able to be on two wheels, fixing my bike, riding fast and in going out on the road alone for hours. It’s a meditative thing because once your in your helmet out there under the hum of your engine and nothing to distract you, you can forget the world for hours and hours.
Anyway, in all the times I’ve met and talked to many, many motorcycle riders and heard their stories, one of the most inspirational was about Mike Duff … probably one of the greatest motorcycle racers from Canada who dominated the racing scene in the 1960s … he was known as one of the greatest. He was a man’s man … a wife, two kids, a dog, he was an engine mechanic and tuner and he rode a bike like a maniac. He’s in the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame as the only Canadian to ever win a World Championship Motorcycle Grand Prix.
But all his life he felt and he always knew that he was someone else.
Very late in life, in 1984 when he was about 45, he came out as trans and went through reassignment surgery and has been known as Michelle Duff since then. I have a few friends who knew her in the 90s and apparently, she never lost her touch for motorcycle racing and even as an older woman, she was still night time racing with younger guys on the highways of Toronto. She’s had her share of troubles but she is happy, strong and free.
One story about her that always struck a cord with me and with every motorcycle rider is that her internal struggles and issues with her identity is what drove her to become that maniacal motorcycle racer when she was younger. She couldn’t make sense of the world so riding a two wheeled machine fast enough was what made the world liveable for her. It amazes me when I think about that every time I ride.
Here she is in one of her last appearances as a motorcycle rider
https://youtu.be/MzvaqPLxiR8
She is truly an inspiration even for someone like me … I hope her story can help you too.
Wow, I’ve never heard of her before. What a story! Thank you for sharing that, IninewCrow. I’m gonna go look her up.
That is something that resonates with me, I totally get it. I’m still having some “aha” moments here and there and putting things in my own life into perspective, but yes, I can totally see how her identity issues pushed her to be that legendary maniac rider. Wow, man. Like, it’s different for everybody, but the feeling that something is off usually manifests as an emotion (anger? fear?) and gets channeled somewhere. For Michelle Duff, it was the bike. For me, it’s way too late at night and I’m high and it’s been kind of an emotionally tasking night. Suffice it to say it does help me frame and understand some parts of my crazy youth.