My Letter : My Life

Imagine, you go to work in your dress shoes, black suit, buzz-cut hair, red power tie, and nobody pays you a second look. But, the second you get home, you kick off your shoes, and don high-heels, the suit is replaced with a dress, your short wig is taken off, and you let your long curls fall, and your tie is in the closet, with a necklace in its place. Such hiding of true feelings is not an unheard concept in the transgender world. Millions of transgender people will never express their true feelings in their lifetime. This is similar to The Intruder by Andre Dubus, Kenneth Girard a

I remember that summer I had been away from home for weeks, but I had been lost for much longer. Day after day I spent by the log fireplace with a blanket, looking at the comforting wooden walls surrounded by a serene silence, my family right beside me. It was agonizing. I longed for a distraction from myself, but in this peaceful place, all I could do was think. At this point of my life, I was enduring the painful process that all people must inevitably endure in their lives, the process of self-discovery. And recently, I had made a breakthrough. I had discovered, some way or another, that I am transgender.

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been attending most Transmissions meetings. Transmissions is a community-based club for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people and allies at Rutgers University. In this reflection, I’ll be speaking about the meeting I attended the previous week, where the main discussion revolved around internalize and externalize transphobia and self-care. This was a very sensitive topic for myself as well as most others who attending the meeting.

Gwen, is a Caucasian transgendered female between the ages of 31-40 years old. She initially came to counseling to quit smoking. After conquering this goal, and suffering from withdrawals, she still was not happy with herself. As her life took a whirl spin, she also lost her job. She experienced periods of depression from living as a male and often thought about transitioning to the opposite sex. She became a bit confused, and often put it off because she was confused about really made her happy in life. Gwen’s mother notice the unhappiness she was experiencing within herself and offered her support in assisting in transitioning to the opposite sex.

I did not file a Federal tax return for the year 2014, because I have not worked during the year. I am retire and my only form of income is Social Security. Since I made no income for the year of any type, I was not required to file an income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service.

My client for this week’s assignment is a transgender women named Gwen. Gwen has come to the counseling session because she has agreed to share her story with others in the hope that her story will help and inspire other transgender individual who are struggling with their assigned gender. Before beginning her transition from male to female Gwen describes herself as a very different individual, one who was going through the motions of life, but finding little to no pleasure in her daily activities (Queer Theory in Action, 2011).For example, Gwen daily routine before the transition was work, go home, eat and then bed. She would use sleep as an escape from her unhappiness with her life. Also, before Gwen began the transition she was very depressed

This type of feeling like you don't belong in your own body is something on one should have to go through. Yet, people are constantly suffering through this traumatic experience. To express how unfortunate this may be The editorial Board possessed a strong diction throughout the piece using words such as “distraught”, “barriers”, and “sobering” along with many others to express how unimaginable hard this can be to live with. Overall, this is one of three argumentative appeals called logos. The authors tries to prove the negligence of being denied proper medical treatment to transgenders through compelling word choice. She does this partially because this is one experience that can't be easily shown to those lucky enough not to have this unfortunate “condition”. In other words, you can't make a person a transgender to explain what people who are trans have to go through. Because of this, the words the author uses is her main source of power to indirectly show the audience how difficult it must be. Certain words draw the audience in and allows them to feel what actions can’t, which is close as the author could can get to showing how much of a struggle this can

She could tell me a five page essay on her mother and then find a switch in her mind to talk about how she’s carried her own stick her whole life and how it’s only made her into the woman she is today. I’ve never seen her break about anything except when she talks about her mother. There was a time I’ve seen her at her weakest and strongest. A time I’ve never seen such a vulnerable array of feelings that captured who she was. Three years ago, her father had told her that she was going to meet her mother for the first time since she’s left and I vividly remember everything that happened. She had called me and her trembling voice quivered over the phone as she ranted on about her mother and what she had to wear and what to say. I remember the texts and the woman that came to pick her up. She was everything all at once, like being haunted by a nightmare and seeing that nightmare in real life. But to make matters even worse, it turned out that that wasn’t her mother. It was her aunt. Her mother wasn’t ready. “I don’t think she’ll ever be ready.” she had muttered this to me barely managing to hold back her tears over the miniscule FaceTime call and I honestly believe that I was in more pain and rage than she was. She first shared this with me in fifth grade. I remember just wanting to find her mother for her and in my naive state of mind, I thought I could do it for the longest time. But she accepted it and I had to as

More and more projects are appearing which attempt to document personal narratives of transgender people. “We should be the ones to write our own story. And we should be talking about the living as well as the dead. We should be offering young trans women just starting to think about themselves as such the hope that they will be able to live long and happy lives” (Thom). Through the newfound accessibility the internet provides, I found a number of new but growing sources of trans oral history available. From personal blogs and video diaries to anthology collections, these resources show actual faces, telling real stories of survival and perseverance. The anecdotes they tell don’t even have to be particularly happy ones; any shared experiences can create a sense of community and camaraderie. For trans teens, having access to people who are struggling with the same obstacles as they are results in the creation of this community, producing the feeling of “I’m not alone”. One specific example I found is called “To Survive on This Shore”, a compilation of photos and interviews of transgender people over the age of fifty. For a teenager who has been told their life expectancy is 23 years, seeing a photo of someone from within their community like 53 year old Charley saying “I am such a whole person now, for going through this. I'm more happy with life,” may just be the encouragement needed to keep them alive. Personal narratives give

observed. An ISFP can appear very competitive and become difficult to lose (Joe Butt, n. d). An

When I was three years old. My grandma took me to her house and made me learn how to write everyone’s name. Including my name that was the easiest out of the 30 names I had to learn how to write. While my grandma was teaching my how to write. I learned that I was writing in

I sat in my bed, my hands shakily holding my phone. I had stared at the number, wanting to press call for what seemed like an eternity. After finally pressing the call button I felt a wave of relief. But as soon as I heard the voice of my best friend and a muffled greeting from the other side, it felt as if my lungs were tightening, preventing me from speaking. She asked me if something was wrong, but the only thing that managed to escape me were the heavy sobs that I had been holding in for months. I knew she would love me no matter what, but I wasn’t sure if I could love myself. The tears continued to roll down my red, splotchy cheeks as she attempted to guess what was making me so inconsolably upset. When she finally asked, “Are you gay?”

The typical narrative of gender non-conforming individuals I have been exposed to is that of a “man born in a woman’s body”, so while I found myself at a disconnect from my assigned label as a girl, my limited understanding of gender left me confused when I found I was no more personally connected to a male label. Recently however, I have learned that it is possible for someone to fall past the traditional narrative of transgender America; identifying as neither man nor woman, both man and woman, or somewhere between the two. Gaining this knowledge allowed me to realize with the discomfort I find in being called “ma’am”, unease in being referred to as a “daughter” or “sister”, and disassociation with conventionally female pronouns she/her, that I could identify my gender as agender or more broadly,

I became accustomed to hearing words like 'faggot', and 'tranny' from other children in the classroom, sitting isolated at the lunch table, and being the subject of hushed whispers from not only my peers, but the adults whom I had trusted. It didn't occur to me that I was such an anomaly for wanting to be male until high school, when my family members made the executive decision to enroll me in a home school program. It was during this period that I would discover the word transgender in a news article about same-sex marriage. As soon as I delved into researching what being transgender entailed and the concept of gender dysphoria, I knew that I was not just confused, nor alone in my identity. There were other people like me, and that let me feel complete for once. In the months when I was grasping the concept of my identity and who I was, I began to realize what I had to

Regardless if someone agrees or disagrees with what someone does with their life, most people understand that life is precious no matter what. One controversial issue that appears in many people’s life is gender dysphoria, which is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as, “involve[ing] a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify” (“What Is Gender Dysphoria?”). In some individual’s opinion, the solution for gender dysphoria, which is when individuals transition to the gender they identify as, should not exist. People going or wanting to go through this transition identify as transgender, shortened as trans. Regardless if people agree or disagree with the transition, the