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Face the fear and…freeze like a rabbit in headlights

As I have discussed in previous posts, I’m in a place of feeling “stuck” and although I’m very sure that I am trans and should be a woman, I am not doing anything to progress into transitioning. 

Because of fear. 

And even before acceptance when I spent months and years going around the “am I really trans?” and “am I trans enough?” loops over and over again, that was also about fear. 

I am going to cut myself a bit of slack here though. Being trans is a huge scary thing. Transitioning is an even bigger scarier thing. So I think feeling the fear is a fair enough reaction. 

And I am far from unique or by any stretch the most fearful trans person that ever there was. I am quite cowardly generally speaking, but in this case probably no more than average. 

I mean, look at the stats: there are many more people who report gender issues or a feeling that they are trans that there are actual transitioned trans women, who are a small minority even among our community. Look at social media and you will see hordes of people wanting to explore and progress but feeling that it is impossible for them to do so. 

I probably don’t need to rehearse all my various fears here because if you’re reading this you probably have agonised over all of the same things yourself at some point, but for completeness and to maybe give you the satisfaction of ticking them all off and getting the full house, here goes:

- my wife will leave me

- my kids will be embarrassed by me and not want to be seen with me

- my family with disown me

- I’ll disappoint my mother

- I’ll never pass / will never be anything other than a man in a dress

- people will point and stare and laugh at me

- transphobes, homophobes and bullies will attack me if I go out

- I’ll lose my career

All sound familiar presumably? 

Well done if you ticked them all off! 

Or not, because fear is miserable. 

I’m sure that many of us, me included, have thought that the answer to fear is to talk to others and share experiences and find comfort that we’re not alone. 

And I’m now conscious that I’ve switched between I, you and  now on to we, which is poor writing style! Please forgive, this is a stream of thought, not a planned or structured essay. 

I digress… 

So I, we, you…use social media to find others in the same situation and that is great because we’re not alone and our feelings are really common and there is comfort in that. 

However, I’m increasingly realising that this sharing is keeping me stuck, rather than helping me to move on. Finding out that my fears are normal gives them more power. If everyone feels the same, then it isn’t an irrational assumption I’ve made, it is a real thing to be fearful of. Made even worse if someone in your group has a bad experience. Our brains are wired to protect us from danger. If a friend comes out to their wife and everything blows up for them, then that is great information for our brain to confirm the fear: “look what happened to x, I have got to avoid that happening to me!” 

All I am doing by talking about my fears with people in the same situation is reinforcing them (and doing the same to the others there). Not that I am in any way criticising anyone else that I talk with about this. I’m hugely grateful for their support and for what we have. But I do now realise that if I make the choice to share my fears with those that can empathise and understand, then although I am bringing myself (and perhaps them) some short term comfort, in the long run, I am keeping myself stuck and making no progress.  



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