Photo: Jim Ready
One of the many fears I held on to was the fear of how my “change” would affect my surfing and specifically my place in the lineup at my local break. Always feeling a bit of an outsider anyway, not merely because of my inner struggles, but because being a military kid who travelled at the whim of my dad’s duty assignments, I never felt I really belonged, anywhere. Oh sure, I worked hard over the years to earn my place in the lineup, got to know all the locals and they me. I even managed to rise in the hierarchy to be one of the top surfers at my spot; I got a lot of the better set waves and the crew accepted me, at least out in the water. On land, I didn’t really associate with any of them. Through my married years I lived a bit inland and would only come to the coast to make quick hit-and-run sessions and then drive back over the winding roads to the suburban housing development where I lived the life of a typical “husband” and “dad.”
The funny thing about fear, our own personal and internal fears, is that once they are exposed, we discover that many of them are largely unfounded. I’d been out in the water so many times and listened to off-color jokes about gays and people like me, and just assumed most surfers were by nature, largely trans and homophobic. Yet what I discovered was that most were simply surfers and didn’t really care that much about the “issue” one way or the other. Explaining my circumstance, introducing myself by my “new” name to one of my long-time local surfing buddies, as we stood in the parking lot before our go-out – on one of those early days when I was still pre-op and awkwardly self-conscious – my buddy shrugged and said: “As long as you’re still surfing, that’s all that matters.” And what I’ve discovered since – at least where I live in Maine, where folks are pretty accepting of diversity – is that it really is only the surfing that matters. Sure, a couple of guys messed up my name a few times but I was not banned from the spot. I was not dragged off and duct-taped to a boulder and thrown into the deep offshore. I was not excluded or laughed at in any way by those that knew. I was just another surfer in the water. That same friend smiled at me that day as he snaked a wave and yelled back to me: “Just ’cause you’re a girl now doesn’t mean I’m gonna give you any waves you know!” And five years on now, I’ve earned a new place in the lineup. Most of the girls who rarely spoke to me before, are my good friends in and out of the water now. And it’s easier to relate to the guys as well. There’s an ease about me where I don’t feel a need to hide anything, and I sure as heck don’t need to compete with them anymore, trying to prove I’m more “man” than them, cuz I’m not! I no longer feel driven to be a better surfer than anyone, or to take the biggest and best waves off them, because what I’ve discovered is that it doesn’t really matter who the best surfer is on any given day. I surf more freely now; I’m content with less. Though I still get mad out in the water, it’s more my age and dwindling abilities that frustrate me than that need to prove I’m still a hot, aggressive, alpha surfer.
In the aftermath of my transition, I’ve listened to people tell me how courageous I am. For standing up to my denial and fears, for overcoming the ridicule, humiliation, and especially the loss of much of what I had before, the loss of almost everything that was familiar and comfortable, if ill fitting on my soul. But I don’t feel especially courageous; no more courageous than a spawning salmon fighting the current and stones and waterfalls on its way upstream. I’m simply doing what I was programmed to do. Living the life I did before transition was the aberration. That was the courageous portion of my life. Living not for myself, but denying myself, in order to make those around me, those I loved feel… comfortable?
Most of the girls I’ve known, both personally and in online support groups, us older broads, will say the same thing about our transitions: The only regret we have is that we didn’t do it sooner. I’ve likened it to others as a Rip Van Winkle experience, an awakening from a 40 (or 50 in my case) years long nap and discovering that everything you knew and believed is different now. But where before was only a gloomy gray existence, is now illumed with colors and scents and experiences I never knew possible. In some ways I feel like a twenty-something, just starting out in life, only with the benefit of a lifetime of wisdom and experience that a twenty year old has yet to find. Sure, I still have fears and frustrations and not everything in my life is easy. In some ways, I’ve traded my old closet for a new one, hiding portions of my past to new people I meet, letting them assume things about my “ex-husband” and being a “mom.” Or especially the awkwardness of being amongst a group of women when the subject turns to “our” child-birthing experiences. Hell, being a “new” lesbian at 55 years old is another such challenge. I don’t have the benefit of a lifetime of womanly, let alone lesbian experience, and don’t really know how to conduct myself as such. Coupled that with fears that not all lesbians are that welcoming of people like me, ie. exclusionary groups that hold festivals entitled: “Womyn born Womyn” that seek to perpetrate the same prejudices they’ve presumably fought against their entire lives. Such entities only support the notion that there are those who still believe we are no more than “men in dresses.”
But in spite of such fears, in spite of those who would still deny us, I move forward. I continue to experience and live, to fight for my place in this world, this society, in the lineup — and to surf. I don’t really identify as “trans” anymore; never really did. That’s just another ill-fitting skin I wore for awhile because it was the term others employ to attempt understanding something they never will. I don’t condemn them; it’s not their obligation to understand but mine. But I don’t seek anyone’s “acceptance” either. How presumptuous that some boast their magnanimity in “accepting” or “tolerating” my existence as a unique and individual human on this planet, as we all are. I’m not interested in carrying a banner or placard to proclaim my pride though, I’ll leave that to the younger girls. Nor am I interested in being a professional Transgender; as I’ve said, that’s a term others use. The only part of me that was “trans” was my transition from living a lie to living as I am. And I’ve fought that fight too long and hard, simply to survive, to be me. I’ll support and mentor, but I’m not “out and proud” and in anyone’s face. I was born with a physical abnormality, plain and simple. But that never changed who I was or am. In the end, I’m a girl. I’m a woman. And I’m a surfer. I’ll keep paddling, always. And always, I’ll surf.
