Finally Dana

Disney’s Mulan is a fun adventure about a girl who feels she must present male to save her father. It, of course, ends with Mulan shedding her male attire and returning to life as a woman. However, there is a song in Mulan (Reflection by Christina Aguilera) that has stuck with me and with many other trans people for years. And since I am #SuperGay I am going to use Christina to explain a serious decision I made regarding Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS).  Please note, that gender was changed from the original.

The song lays out the trans experience in an incredible way. 

Every day, for 36 solid years, I played a part. I played a man, I was not a man, but I wore a mask and played a part. I was convinced that no one would know me, that I was doomed to pretend forever. In fact, I was determined that no one would ever know the real me as the shame was too great. I could not be trans, I could not be a woman, I was born a man.

Now I see

If I wear a mask

I can fool the world

But I cannot fool my heart

I did it. I successfully fooled the world for years and years. My mask seemed perfect. I was a man and proud of it. I did guy things with guys and shunned “girly” things. The mask was always tenuous and in the small hours of the night I would be wracked by doubt and emotional pain that verged on the physical. I just wanted to experience life as a girl. I wished every day that I had been born a girl. I did not wish to become a girl, I wished that I had been born a girl. I did not think a change was possible. My heart was not ever fooled and never wavered. I was a girl wearing a mask. 

I am now

In a world where I

Have to hide my heart

And what I believe in

But somehow

I will show the world

What’s inside my heart

And be loved for who I am

I didn’t think it would ever be possible for me to be loved for who I am. I am still not fully convinced that I will be. Everyone tells me that I will, that I can find true love and it will be more real and more meaningful than ever. However, at this point, all I know is that the real loving relationships I had seem to have been contingent on the mask, not on the person.

I thought I had experienced unconditional love until I discovered the condition.

I am taking it on faith that I can find love again, but in the meantime, I am trying to love myself for the first time ever.  

There’s a heart that must be

Free to fly

That burns with a need to know

The reason why

Why must we all conceal

What we think, how we feel?

Must there be a secret me

I’m forced to hide?

I won’t pretend that I’m

Someone else for all time

I snapped. My dysphoria overwhelmed me to the point that I could no longer function as a man. The mask slipped and I couldn’t get it back on. I had to be Dana or die. Life simply stopped being worth living, unless I could live as me. 

Who is that boy I see

Staring straight back at me?

When will my reflection show

Who I am inside?

Dana was free and my reflection started to show who I actually was. However, like many trans women, all I could see in my reflection were my masculine features brought on by years of testosterone poisoning. I was showing the world who I was, and I could feel it most of the time, but my reflection still did not show who I was on the inside. 

I decided to do something about it. 

I am 8 days post-op for gender confirmation facial surgery (more commonly referred to as facial feminization surgery). After months of struggle and strife (some of which is explained in the post Medically Necessary Care), it was covered by insurance (I’ll post more on how I did that later). 

Despite knowing that I need this surgery and that it is directly related to gender dysphoria. And despite knowing the research about how it significantly improves the lives of trans people, I am embarrassed to talk about it with my cis-gendered friends. There is a stigma about corrective and cosmetic surgery. Many of the people most open and accepting of trans people do so because they believe that every person is valid and honored, despite what their body may look like. The sense that self-acceptance is paramount feels anathema to the massive changes required by facial feminization surgery. 

My embarrassment is related to my own self-doubts. I believe that every person should be honored and accepted, simply for being human. I have many trans-feminine friends who do not “pass” in the conventional sense, but I do not see them as anything but women. Why then, did I make this choice, to so alter my appearance?

I also believe that I can never know the story of someone else and that it would be presumptive of me to apply my own experiences onto others. My story is one of incongruence, of being forced to wear a mask until my personal sense of self grew so far out of line with who I was pretending to be, I decided it was easier to just not be alive anymore. I am living my truth and am more content than ever, yet the incongruence persists every time I look in the mirror. 

When will my reflection show

Who I am inside?

When will my reflection show

Who I am inside?

I desperately hope that now, finally, my reflection will show who I am on the inside. 

I am a woman, inside and out. 

-Dana

Twitter: @DanaFinally

Instagram: SuperDanaGirl