Potential, positivity and possibilities.

Anyone looking in to my life through a window over the past few years would have, I suspect, had an entertaining time. They would have seen so many twists and turns that in a sense, it would have made a good screenplay.

There has been much change, much loss, much gain, massive change. There has been trauma, joy and wonder. One thing for certain, although my life on a daily basis is not exactly a riveting sequence of events, over these past couple of years, amidst the mundane things of life has been shifts within me, and in my circumstances that are nothing short of monumental.

In many ways it has felt something of a roller coaster of good things and bad things. Like two sides of the coin with one being good consequences and the other negative ones. But of course it’s so much more complex than any kind of binary description can ever do justice.

About a year ago, I sat down with my partner and began the process of coming out transgender. It marked a moment in time, a moment where I allowed myself to verbalise something of the things within me that I had, in very real ways, been too scared to do. Suddenly the words were out there, they had been spoken and there marks the moment my transition really began.

It was as if this moment was a moment when suddenly all bets were off. It was a moment of opening Pandora’s box, and realising it couldn’t be closed again. It was open and flooding out came everything. All of it, all of the things held down, all of the things pushed down, all of the thoughts, feelings, desires. It was all laid bare, ready and waiting to be paid attention to.

I did pay attention, and I have been pushing forward in transition ever since. I could do nothing else. It was like unstoppable force met immutable object and the immutable object was swallowed up by the unstoppable force and onward we went.

Some have said my transition has been very fast. Well I guess it has so far. It has now slowed, I guess the speed thing, was in the accepting and taking on the reality that I was indeed a trans woman. Once I got to there, I couldn’t pretend anymore and so very quickly, within a few months I was presenting full time as my true gender.

With hindsight I can see how this was a hard thing for my family, but also, I can see that as time has gone on, the end result of where we are now would not have been able to be any different.

Fast forward to now, and here I am, I have endured much pain and loss, I no longer have a life partner as they were unable to continue to be with me, I have had to move out of the family home and begin making a life for myself all over again.

It’s been really fucking hard. I lost my role as carer for my daughter, and with a part of my parental identity. I’ve spent hours with counsellors, doctors, psychologists and so forth managing my transition and my mental health. It’s been tough, but I am emerging through it, and new possibilities arise.

It certainly hasn’t been all bad either, amidst the pain has always been the possibility and positivity of being the real me, of moving forward. People who have known me for long periods of time have commented on the weight that used to be obviously holding me down was gone, that I appeared lighter, happier and more confident.

And it is true. Of course, I don’t pretend that coming out and transitioning is all peaches and cream, because it isn’t. The reality is that every day as I live my life as a visible trans woman that I endure risk, that I am in a state of hypervigillance. A state where every whispered words between others is questioned, when each double take you observe leaves you wondering if you remain physically safe or not.

But in all of that is the day by day feeling of being more me than I have ever been. As time passes and I feel more at home in my own skin the possibility of success seems closer and more real than it ever has before. In pre transition life or since transition began.

Today is a good day. I got some great news, and for the first time in a long time, I feel genuinely excited about a possible employment opportunity. I feel genuinely positive that I an autistic, trans woman in the midst of transition, might just be able to smash down all those barriers to employment and begin to earn again, begins to be able to feel like a worthwhile contributor to society again.

For so long, far too long, it has felt largely and mostly hopeless. That I was destined to be reliant forever on government assistance, that by way of being autistic and transgender there were just too many barriers. But today, yes, today, and onwards I believe, or at least I am beginning to believe that, yes, just maybe, true acceptance is possible.

I can be accepted as an Autistic person and not be a drain and blight on the communities in which I am involved.

I can be accepted and not just tolerated as a trans woman in the communities I move in and out of and through.

Yes. More than tolerance is possible. Acceptance is possible, and who knows, maybe celebration is truly possible too.

When the possible drifts past, grab onto it with every fibre of hope and dreams you can. Not with the bullshit of positive thinking, but with every fibre of you being the best you can be. By being authentic, real, open and honest.

Yes, today I feel it just really is possible, because in a range of experiences over the past few years, I have been the most authentic me that I can be, I have stared Pandora’s open box and begun to answer the questions with an honesty that I had always hidden.

All I can say, I guess, is, be the best you that you can be, and that means, staring down the hard questions, the uncomfortable ones and being open, honest and real. It means being the you that you reserve for those dark and secret places within you, it means opening that secret place up a little and it means trusting. Trusting that you won’t self implode yourself to utter destruction.