Trapped in a man’s body

The Argus Observer, ON, Canada
Sunday, April 12, 2009 2:11 AM PDT

Trapped in a man’s body
The life and struggles of a transgender woman
By Sean Hart
Argus Observer

ONTARIO -- For 55 years, Emilie Jackson-Edney lived life as a male.

Jackson-Edney held down a construction job and had a wife of 36 years
and two children.

He was devoted to his religion.

But something wasn’t right.

Jackson-Edney was a man but did not feel that was her true identity.

“I knew something was different when I was 5 years old. You can try to
suppress it, but it never goes away,” Jackson-Edney said. “For me, I
tried to be the uber-male. ... It was pretty shocking to a lot of
people when I came out. I was just as male as I could be, but I didn’t
feel that was me.”

Three and a half years ago, Jackson-Edney, now 60, chose to undergo
surgery to become what she always felt she was: a woman.

“Transsexuals, at an early age, believe they have the mind of the
other gender trapped in the body they were given at birth,” she said.
“The current theory now is that every fetus starts out as a female,
and, at the point of conception, the sex is determined, the physical
sex.

“However, the gender-mind, the mind of the fetus, doesn’t start to
develop until around the eighth to 12th week of pregnancy, and, during
that period of time, something happens with the mother. It may be an
emotional episode. It may be chemical. But a male fetus may be bathed
in estrogen, or a female fetus may be bathed in testosterone.”

Delivering a presentation Wednesday at Treasure Valley Community
College’s Diversity Dialogue in Ontario, Jackson-Edney, a co-Convener
of Boise’s Idaho Equality Committee, used the visual aid of a spectrum
with a cardboard cutout of Marilyn Monroe on one side and a “G.I.
Joe-type,” as she referred to it, on the other to illustrate the range
of gender identities, which is different than sexual orientation (to
which sex one is attracted).

“Gender identity is a social construct that divides people in natural
categories. Most people’s gender identity is congruent with their
assigned sex, but many people’s is incongruent,” she said. “
‘Transgender’ just means a person that identifies with another gender.
It’s not a lifestyle like it’s reported to be. It’s just who that
person is. What they do about it is ‘choice.’ They can live in
complete silence, or they can live authentically.”

With an identity quietly hidden in “the deepest, darkest places of
(her) closest,” in the depths of clinical depression and on the verge
of suicide, Jackson-Edney sought clinical help from a psychologist
about six years ago.

“I felt I had two choices. I had a choice to die, or I had a choice to
face my demons and address those and do what I needed to do in order
to survive,” she said, adding she spent more than a year and a half in
therapy, dealing with the depression before the gender issues.

“(The therapist) used to hammer me. She put me through the wringer,
asking ‘Why?’ which is what you have to do, especially if you’re going
to have surgery,” Jackson-Edney said. “One day, I yelled at her and
said, ‘This is who I am.’ ”

Jackson-Edney said, at that point, the therapist was ready to diagnose
her with gender dysphoria, which is currently classified as a mental
illness (though a panel is working to change that), but referred her
to another gender psychologist in Portland, adhering to transgender
standards of care.

“One of the requirements is psychotherapy. You have to be diagnosed by
a professional, usually two, that you are gender-dysphoric,”
Jackson-Edney said. “Once you get a diagnosis, if you choose, then
they will prescribe hormone replacement therapy. For males to females,
it’s testosterone blockers and estrogen, and for females to males,
it’s testosterone, usually shots.”

Jackson-Edney said another requirement is making the transition to
living as the other gender.

“In my last year of employment -- I retired three and a half years ago
-- I transitioned and lived full-time as a woman in the workplace,”
she said. “This friend of mine, this supervisor I worked with, came
into my office and sat down and said, ‘You know, we used to sit and
just talk back and forth. Now, when I talk to you, I don’t even know
where to look.’ I said, ‘Look, why does it have to change?’ ... I’m
not an aberration. I’m not something to be feared. I’m just a person
like everybody else. I have my identity just like everyone else.”

Jackson-Edney conceded, though, when trans people are open about their
identities, they “often pay a horrific price for it,” in terms of un-
or underemployment, severed relationships, religious ostracization,
discrimination and even violence.

“I’d say, for the last 15 years, my marriage was probably one of
convenience. My wife was shocked when I came out to her. I said, ‘My
heart is good. My presentation is just different, and I’m probably a
better person because I don’t have secrets anymore,’ ” Jackson-Edney
said. “I’ve been divorced for four and a half years, but I was married
for 36 years -- one woman, monogamous -- but the marriage didn’t work,
unfortunately.

“I lost my religion, or my religion abandoned me, I guess, but I’m
spiritual. I’m Christian, and I still have faith, faith-based
principles. I believe in God and hell and good and evil, and I believe
in love, unconditional love and acceptance,” she said.

Though Jackson-Edney said she has acquired “a whole new community of
friends,” she admitted much of her former life was gone.

“I lost a lot of people I thought were friends. The condemnation
because I’m different is very hurtful. Because of that, it will incite
other people to discriminate ... No one is born hating gay people or
transgendered people. It’s learned.

“People think sexual orientation or gender identity is a choice. It’s
not a choice. Nobody in their right mind wakes up and says, ‘I’m going
to be gay today, or I’m going to be transgendered, and be a
second-class citizen and be discriminated against and hated and maybe
murdered.’ What I am is an affront to their masculinity, and the way
they react to that is through violence, not that I’m trying to defeat
anyone. I’m just trying to live authentically in my identity.

“Everything that was dear to me, I sacrificed to get where I am.”

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