My Gender is Not a Lifestyle Choice

Throughout my advocacy work within the transgender community, the most common misconception that I address is that gender is a choice. That is not to say there are not others. Not in the least. There are so many inaccurate perceptions of the community that at times, I don’t know where to begin. But this is as good as any place to start.

Let me state at the outset that I am transgender. My internal gender identity did not match the sex I was assigned at birth. That is to say, I was assigned male based solely on my external physical appearance, yet I am a woman based upon who I am in my head, my brain, my heart, my soul, in the very core of my being. And it wasn’t a choice. No more so than the colour of my eyes, or body shape. Sex and gender are not inextricably linked together. One does not presuppose the other. They are distinct and separate aspects of who we are. Just as sexual orientation. This disconnect has been labelled as Gender Dysphoria by the medical profession. And it is a terrible thing. And here’s why.

Gender Dysphoria is a soul sucking vortex that leads to a downward spiral. It can lead to depression, feelings of inadequacy, and robs you of any positive sense of self-worth. I suffered with it for over five decades. And suffered is not too strong a word, not by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t have a lot of specific memories of dysphoria when I was very young, but I do recall that I didn’t feel right. I knew something was wrong, but wasn’t sure what it was. Back then, there was no internet. No information regarding gender and sex that was easily available. Most medical practitioners were not really aware of it at the time. In fact, in my circumstances, those subjects were taboo. So I went through childhood and adolescence being confused and ashamed, not having any idea what was going on. Because I wasn’t like other boys. I didn’t like the things they did. Didn’t identify at all with who they were. It was lonely. I had very few friends, and in general wasn’t happy.

As I continued to grow up, I continued to spiral down. I left a caustic home environment when I was 17. Barely made it through undergraduate studies at university, having to work 40 hours a week to pay for it, all the while suffering from what I know now to be Gender Dysphoria. I finally crashed and got up the courage to seek formal medical help. In their desire to pigeon hole me, I was assessed for several things such as schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, bi-polar disorder and depression. I was formally diagnosed with depression, which was accurate. Thanks Gender Dysphoria. I was not able to articulate my thoughts very well, and the guilt and shame and self-loathing of saying I felt that I was a girl in a society that was not at all ready to accept such a concept was overbearing to say the least.

I did manage to get my act together in some way to suppress the dysphoria, mostly through denial. Denial of who I was, my true self. However, I learned the hard way that dysphoria never goes away. The result of that strategy is that I crashed again, quite severely and once again, had to seek out help. To my good fortune, I was introduced to an amazing therapist, who, over the course of several years, was able to help me survive. The biggest thing that I learned is that I wasn’t broken. I didn’t need to be fixed. While I knew I didn’t choose this, it was good to know that in fact, I was born this way. And that is the key message.

Who would choose to be like this? Who would choose to suffer from Gender Dysphoria? I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The big question was what happens next. How does one get off the dysphoria treadmill? For me, after decades of continuing the battle and countless hours of therapy, it became apparent that I had to transition; to become my authentic self. Reveal the woman that I am today to the world. But that came with its own set of challenges. There were so many unknowns. Would I lose my family? Would I lose my home? Would I have to find other employment, and friends? Would I be the victim of harassment and discrimination? Who would choose that set of circumstances? Being transgender a lifestyle choice? I don’t think so.

It is a matter of survival. And that is the true choice. My choice wasn’t to transition. It was to survive. The only way to survive was to transition. I transitioned because I had to, not because I wanted to. It was the only path to survival. That was the outcome. So the plan was to align my physical attributes with my internal identity, with the gender I was born as. I needed to repair what was essentially a physical birth defect. That also proved to be quite the process. The bureaucracy and cost of name and gender change on official documentation is not for the faint of heart. Until recently, is some instances, it wasn’t permitted to make the necessary changes. Again, who would choose to go through that? That in and of itself was soul crushing. Fortunately, depending on where you live, the processes are now well documented and can be done. Though it still does take time. I was eventually able to make all the necessary changes to documents such as drivers licence, health card, birth certificate, passport, social insurance, bank and financial records, and the list goes on and on.

Finally, I was able to receive approval by the health ministry to undergo Gender Confirmation Surgery. Yes, approval. I had to get approval to be my authentic self. Another hoop. More gatekeepers. It is exhausting. All this just to be my authentic self. Who I was born to be. Not a lifestyle choice.

I can now look in the mirror and see who I really am. To have that congruence is amazing. It is something that 99.5% of the population take for granted. It seems like such a simple thing, but that is what Gender Dysphoria denies people. To be who they were born to be. And that shouldn’t be a choice. Being transgender isn’t a choice. My gender is not a lifestyle choice. It is simply who I am.

You can learn more about my journey to becoming my authentic self in my recent top selling book Stranger in the Mirror: The Search for Me available on my website at www.erinleblanc.ca/publications and on Amazon worldwide.

Erin Leeann LeBlanc, MEd, LLM