Borrowed Words: Grace Anne Stevens on "Transitioning at 64"

I read this article and thought: This is exactly why I continue to do the work I do. I would love to get to the point where I read articles like this written by Batswana in Setswana. I thought I'd share the tail end of the ARTICLE here:

 • Sex is not the same as gender: Sex refers to biology and anatomy, while gender is both a psychological sense of self, and a set of cultural defined norms that are expected to be adhered to.

• Being transgender is not a choice: We are just beginning to understand that, like sexual orientation, our gender identity is pre-wired in our brains.

• Transgender people have appeared in all cultures throughout our history, with some cultures accepting and honoring them and others rejecting them.

In our culture, the typical norm is: sex = gender = sexual orientation. When one is young and realizes their sense of self does not fit the norm, they often go in to hiding, and they find ways to overcompensate to keep their "secret." The fear of not belonging and abandonment overshadow the inner need to be authentic. However, for many people, the hiding cannot last forever.

Most are often surprised, or even shocked to hear of someone transitioning gender in their 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s. What we see is just the tip of the iceberg, not the lifelong internal struggle, or the decades of hiding and denial, or the lying to oneself about an unquestionable personal reality. We must go deep enough to understand, because only then can we have compassion for a transgender person who has been carrying such a heavy burden in isolation for so long.

What many don't see is that for many transgender people the act of "coming out" and transitioning means to realize the loss of everyone and everything achieved in life, knowing you cannot go on living a lie. It is a conscious decision to live your authentic life after the years of hiding. It is knowing that to become visible is to accept your personal truth, because it outweighs the risk of losing what has mattered most in life until now. This is what is crucial to understand.

Reality is that, too often, editorial decisions are made to debate personal choices on the national stage. The game is to generate heat, not light, so the transgender conversation typically begins and ends with: "I don't understand." There is no acknowledgement of how difficult it is to make the choice to live as one's authentic self. I can only hope that by telling my story, I can help shape an informative conversation grounded in knowledge and compassion. Our words have power, and when we find the right ones, understanding might not be so difficult. Let that be our goal.

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Grace Stevens is a transgender woman who transitioned at the age of 64. She is a father of three, grandparent of two, athlete, advocate and author of No! Maybe! Yes! Living My Truth, an intimate memoir of her personal struggle to transition and live her true life authentically as a woman.

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