Thanks for visting Beck’s Cafe and thank you for your questions and comments; we welcome them! Gender Identity Disorder or Gender Dysphoria is a uninvited dilemma for many of us. You might hear the term Transgender as well. That’s the common umbrella term covering the condition of imbalance between a person’s body and brain with their gender expression and gender feelings. Transgender is a spectrum from those who identify as crossdressers to those who identify transexual. Equal numbers of Male-to-Female as Female-to-Male transgender people have been estimated in the general population.

To answer your question directly, the answer is, “maybe”. Those who have less intense gender dysphoria generally find they can alternate between their two gender expressions of themselves, masculine and feminine, to obtain balance. Those who identify transexual have an intensely dysphoric disconnect between their physical bodies and their brains and often find physical transition is the only way for them to find some peace within themselves. Some do try to find, as you mentioned, some place in the middle not identifying either male or female. Those that do sometimes refer to themselves using the term genderqueer or andrgenous. A friend of mine said to me once, “You know Becki, it’s cheaper and healthier to address our issues and accept ourselves than it is it to go on Prozac” Amen Sis!

Finally, thank you Drew for putting up such factual information on exercise and weight loss on your site, http://baye.com/ If any of our coffee swilling readers want to lose some pounds or just become healthier, please do yourselves a favor and visit baye.com, you’ll learn alot!

~*Becki*~

I’m wondering, do you have to be one or the other? Is it possible that some people might be happier being somewhere in between, or something altogether unique, or alternating between the two depending on how they feel at a particular time?

I think you are right about GID being one of those things that can destroy your life unless addressed. I spent time this past weekend with my gender therapist and spouse discussing much of where I’m at, and where we are at. We didn’t come to any conclusions. We just know we love each other and that our loss would be very hard on both of us and our children. It doesn’t mean loss is inevitable of course, but since my coming out it has been a very rough four years for us both in trying to work through our relationship and what this all means for both of us. In some sense we’ve grown alot closer actually, which is a nice result (and something I’d always wished for).

Your post above hit a continual theme in my life, that loss might blossom into life (a’ la a grain of wheat falling to the ground first before it sprouts). But we don’t know. We never *will* know for sure really. What I am going to do is prayerfully sit with this for a bit and see how I feel. I know that to some that will sound passive or neutral, rather than taking decisive action, but, I’ve found that just “sitting” with some things for a time works for me to be able to digest them and sort through.

I can’t solve your problem for you – I doubt anybody can. Other than you, that is. But for what they’re worth, here are my perspectives on the issues you raise. In the next paragraphs, when I say “you”, I don’t mean *you*, particularly – I mean anyone who faces this situation.

Gender dysphoria / gender identity disorder / pick a term you like – can destroy your life. Particularly if you don’t face up to it, or find a way to reconcile yourself to the particularities of your own gender identity. I *know* this – because that’s what happened to me. But the trap is to assume that finding a way of dealing with your gender identity will magically make everything else turn out right. Because there’s no guarantee at all that that will be the case. If the method you use to reconcile yourself with your gender identity is unpalatable to some (or all) of those close to you – there’s a problem. And if you have other issues – then making progress on the gender issues may bring those other issues even further to the foreground.

But, here’s the kicker – how will you know, unless you try to find out?

There is no easy answer. But there is always hope. And I know that, too – because that’s all I had left when I finally faced up to the reality that if I didn’t proceed with transition, I would not be able to go on. Faced with that choice, it was a no-brainer for me – in a sense, whoever I became, as a transitioning trans person, would still have the potential that a corpse does not.

I was lucky – *am* lucky – because many of the other problems I faced just melted away as I proceeded. They were symptomatic of my gender issues. I also managed to find some new ones to replace them with… but, hey, life would be boring without a few challenges!

I completely understand the point of view that says that dealing with the minutiae of transition can seem incredibly selfish to others – and maybe it is. But so is suicide. The flip-side is that *if* you deal with your gender issues, and *if* any other issues you have are symptomatic, then who knows how much more of a balanced, rounded, caring, generous, loving person you might become? And if that happened – would the people who might have though of transition as selfish still hold that view? Would you?

Bottom line – you don’t know for sure – you *can’t* know for sure – what will happen if you begin to transition… if you begin hormone therapy… if you open up to more of those people who are currently unaware of your situation.

To put it bluntly, you don’t know how much *more* of a person, with all those qualities you aspire to, you might actually become, if some of that doubt was cconverted to action.

“Nobody said it was easy” – ain’t *that* the truth. I hope you don’t think I’m talking out of turn.