Dianne Piggott
10/30/2013
One year. Just one year. One
entire year. All of one year. One circle of the Earth around the Sun.
A year ago today I
left behind one existence and began a new life. The caterpillar and butterfly
metaphor is apt. The Phoenix is somewhat analogous. But what is it really? What
really happened? I stopped living as a guy and started living as a gal. That's all,
nothing much. I just stopped being a man and started being a woman. Everywhere
and all the time. No more back and forth, no more hiding anything or fearing
discovery. Just getting up and throwing on a blouse and slacks and going to
work.
OK, well, I'll admit
that there was a lot more to it than that. I was blessed to have a picture
perfect transition at work. Well presented, fully supported by management,
fully supported by my wonderful co-workers. Plenty of hugs, love and tissues
for all. I was closer to my 115 co-workers than ever before because I was now
an authentic me. After a short couple of months I was chatting with a friend at
work. She looked me in the eye and said, "You know, I can't even remember
you as a guy anymore?!" And just like that we all moved on.
I had been out to my
social circle for months before my work transition. A ridiculously common thing
in trans circles where you are you everywhere except the office. It can
be awkward and uncomfortable and sometimes humorous. Once I was out at work,
there were odd occurrences also. I was at lunch with an office friend getting a
bento bowl and a past coworker came up to us. "Oh Hi D." she says to
my friend, "How have you been?"
We three chat and she asks if I worked with D. "Oh, yes, I'm in the
IT department." "Have you been there long?" the long lost mutual
co-worker asks. "Uh, yes, quite a while." As she left we laughed a
bit. This person had started well into my time there, and I had worked with her
often enough, and she left a year or so ago. So even as she cast about and
tried to figure out why she might just almost recognize me, suggesting mutual
friends and such, she never thought that I had been that dumpy guy in khakis
and plaid shirts in IT. This happened often enough to become commonplace.
And the flip side
happens often also. After the introduction to a new person they might say,
"Now, don't I know you from somewhere? Were you here last year? Did you
used to work with the Migrant Ed campaign, or public television???" I know
that the new acquaintance can't possibly recognize me from those places, or
anyplace, because I "wasn't" back then. I'm new.
Non recognition can
also be a bit daunting though. I recently made an appointment with our
investment broker. A change in employment meant that I needed to roll over a
401K account to our personal accounts. I waited in the lobby for the gentleman
for just a moment and he brought me back to his office. As he came out I could
tell he didn't recognize me so I supplied, "Ron, nice to see you, I'm
Dianne P." I have a distinctive last name so that is often enough to jog a
memory, but not this time. "Dianne P and Val M. We have accounts together
here with you." Still no sparks so as we sit down and he closed the door I
said. "I used to be [old guy name] and now I'm Dianne." At this the
respectable blue blazer and tan slacks gentleman comes around the corner of the
desk and grabs my hand and says, "Wonderful! Congratulations!
Excellent!!" We chatted a little bit as I brought him up to date with the
changes and that we were still married and that I'd moved on from my job of 14
years and here were all sorts of legal papers with a name change and such.
Our offices were close by
and we would sometimes bump into each other getting coffee or lunch, but he
hadn't seen me for many months, but I had seen him several times. At one point
he looked up from his keyboard and said, "You know, you are just so
obviously happy and confident now. Before, something was just not right."
Well we both had a laugh at that!
As part of our
discussion I told him that I was not going to be getting employed anywhere else
for quite a while because I was going back to college to complete a bachelors
and get a masters. Honestly, I think he was more impressed by this than by my
more obvious, but less effort filled, changes. So yes leaving a career of 30
years in an "in demand" field to go back to school. Why would I do
that at fifty something years of age? If I can make this change, living my life
in a sometimes problematic way that is rejected by many people, that implicitly
marginalizes me and condemns me to a life of... something or other, then why in
the Hell can't I go back to school and get a masters and set up shop as a
counselor? I certainly know a thing or two about change, about self-realization,
about hard decisions! And I know about pain, and about coming to terms and
coming out, and doing what needs to be done even when it hurts.
So yes, two rebirths
in one year! A new student is born. A "freshman" who started college
the first time when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. To most of the campus
I look like some adjunct professor who is returning to campus to teach a bit
now that the kids are grown up. Fine with me, I think of it as the Cloak of
Middle Aged Invisibility. No one looks at me as a potential mate, or threat.
They look at me and see Mom, or Aunt Jan , or Nanna. Non-threatening with an
air of well-earned eccentricity. Lovely! Of course, while that respectably wise
and entertaining factor helps at school, it also helped me move on from an IT
career. That's a place for young focused bright people with new ideas. Also
often a, uhm, “geeky sausage fest”. I
could feel the tech world shift its camaraderie when I shifted my place in the
world. Tech guys don't want to think that Granny may be able to hold her own in
Halo. An amazingly small price to pay!
What else have I paid?
I had to turn in my Male Privilege card. And I was one punch away from a free
prostate exam, drat! For a while I had to forfeit a half an hour from shower to
out the door, but I've earned that back. At least to head off to campus on my
scooter in jeans and a coordinated top and sweatshirt. And I forfeited a
relationship with my son and his family, my two grandchildren. One was born while
I have been in exile and I’ve never seen her. People graciously tell me,
"It's their loss" or "They'll come around." But I kind of
doubt it. I didn't raise a bigot, or a fundamentalist, but they are convinced
that my presence would be the ruination of the children. I would confuse them
to no end and they would be warped for life. I'm not sure if they are teaching
intolerance, because that is how it is transmitted, it is taught, but I’m
pretty confident they aren't teaching tolerance and acceptance. Blessedly I was
taught tolerance, so I only had to spend 50 years trying to figure out who I
was and to learn how to overcome guilt and fear. Yay! I was lucky!
Yes, lucky.
I was lucky,
fortunate, blessed to have accepting wise people in my life. People who said,
"Well, you are still the same person." People who didn't see me as
evil or wrong, just "interesting and unique." I've seen the situation
as "inconvenient and humorous" so we all get along. My relationship
with my friends has a different dimension now. Not because they have changed
but because I have changed. I am now the authentic me that doesn’t feel shame
or guilt or worry about a secret. Now I engage my friends with love and open
honesty, it is a much fuller experience! A "false start" of mine took
me to Seattle 17 years ago where I tried to transition. But I wasn't ready and
the world wasn't ready and I was too damaged to make it work. I ran back to
Idaho to just shut up and be a guy and lick my wounds. And to try to learn the
lesson that I just wasn't "trans enough" or "not a real
transsexual." And to get my son through high school while working at an
interesting and challenging job.
While I was in Seattle fate
brought me to work at a small high school where there was a marvelously
eccentric English teacher named Karen. She and her husband Donnie had a nice
old house on some acreage nearby with a pack of beloved dogs and a constantly
changing pack of beloved family and house guests. The first summer I was in
Seattle they needed a house sitter. Since I was going crazy living in an urban
3rd floor apartment with no dirt and no pets, I leapt at the chance. In
essence, I stayed the summer. When they would come back from a trip there would
be a family gathering coming up and it would be, "Why don't you stay? We
could use the help and Sister Soozie and Karl will be coming and you enjoy
them!" Karen and Donnie knew I was
trans, and they knew that I lived as a gal when they were out of town. Heck,
the neighbor once commented on how sometimes there was a guy over at their
house and sometimes there was a woman housesitting and using the hot tub! I
guess he didn't notice the same car in the driveway all the time. They knew
that I was trans, but they never once saw me when I was presenting as a woman.
Not once.
Over the years I would
go be with them on Thanksgiving or come visit them on trips, once with my son,
once with my new wife. It wasn't until this last summer that my wife and I went
through Seattle and went to visit, and they met the Dianne me. Karen and Suzie
came out to the driveway and saw me and we squealed and hugged and cried. I
felt like I was coming home to my sisters. Yes, blessed and fortunate. I have
beaten the harsh odds. But I have not beaten them alone. I have beaten them
with the help of my wife, and my friends, and the many trans people who have been
brothers and sisters to me. Trans siblings who have become family because of
our shared experiences. People that have gone before me and who have widened
the path, kicked aside the stones and left a mark to show the way. They have
given me confidence to move forward. They began to educate the public and
introduce us to the world and now I am doing the same for those behind me. What
will the next years bring? I don’t know, but I am eager to find out!
