I sat in the waiting room staring at the oriental rug on the floor. Deep in thought, I wondered how I would answer when the therapist asked me why I was there. I imagined that he would fix his eyes on mine and challenge me with the question, “so who are you, really?”
The answer is a complex one. How could I fit it all into a 50-minute session? I am wonderfully constructed and yet terribly broken. I am, at the same time, both very strong, and very weak; very put together and completely neurotic; extremely confident and yet woefully self-conscious. I am a woman masked by a male exterior. I am an angel and a whore; a monogamous creature and a promiscuous daemon. Who am I really? How the fuck should I know? That’s why I’m paying a therapist.
Here’s what I know for sure. I am currently presenting myself to the world as Edward, a highly successful hospital executive with a wife and a 23-year old son. I live the suburban dream in a Cape-style house surrounded by the proverbial white picket fence. My friends know me as warm, loving, witty, and intelligent. I go out of my way to extend a helping hand or to comfort those who are in pain. By all outward appearances, I seem quite happy living in a vanilla world.
But the sad truth is, I am altogether miserable. I am a phony, a fake and a fraud. Other than the fact that I am a kind and grace-filled person, everything else is an illusion. I am really the very opposite of a vanilla male. I am female, for one thing. I may have a pathetic penis dangling between my legs, but I am no man. I prefer to think of my 4-inch piece of flesh as a sensation-laden clitty. I don’t want or need a dick.
I don’t want or need the drab boy clothes that hang in my closet. I am more comfortable being draped in silky lace or exquisite satin. I would happily shred my business suits and ties. I’d rather slip into sexy lingerie, dresses or skirts, and slutty, spikey heels.
I don’t want or need the gender roles that have been assigned to me.
I don’t want or need the sexual lifestyle of a boring, monogamous heterosexual male. I’d rather find my feminine self in the soft embrace of another woman or in the throes of an aggressive encounter with a hard, muscular male with a rigid dick.
I am a transwoman. I may not have all the anatomy (yet!), but I do have the soul, the identity, and the psyche. I am Anaissa.
Now bring it on, Therapy Boy!
[When I next write, I will probably avoid a discussion of my actual therapy session. Suffice it to say, it was a good, albeit painful start.]
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