The second thing Red Durkin talked about when I seen her in November was a short story about a few friends of hers. It was actually a little speech she gave before going on with her comedy routine. It was a little bit ago so I don't remember the details, but I do remember the important parts.
She was telling us of two friends of hers.The first was a MtF transsexual, I can't remember specifically but she had a good job, and plenty of friends and support going through her transition. Everyone seemed to think she was a good person, and I think I remember Red saying she was well liked.
She walked in front of a subway car one day.
The other person she was talking about was also in Red's circle of friends, also MtF. Someone who knew this first girl for not very long, only a few weeks if I recall. She was devastated when she heard, to the point of uncontrollable crying that she couldn't talk. When she finally could she asked Red,
"How many times have you had to do this?"
Her question dripping with implications. "How often do you watch a friend end their own life over this?"
This is our reality. There is one statistic I made a point to remember out of all of the random trans-stats I've seen. That is, in Canada, transgender people have a 50% suicide rate. To put that in perspective Canada's national average is less then 1%.
Think about that. If you know two transgender people, statistically, one of them will commit suicide. That is staggering. If there is anything that expresses how difficult a transgender person's life is, it is these two stats next to each other
I have thought of, and attempted suicide that often in my life it doesn't even bother me anymore. Thinking of suicide has become second nature. Look at what suicide is though, it is the ultimate "run away from your problems" sort of answer.
Don't think that takes any measure of weakness at all, just because you (dear cis) think suicide is such a distant solution for you. Take myself for example. I am a pit bull, really. If you get me started, push me to defend myself or fix an "impossible" problem, or whatnot, I'll take you/it on without hesitation. And trust me, you best be prepared, and that problem is getting fixed, no questions.
When it came to myself though, you have to understand the unbelievable weight of impossible that is in my life. I hazard to say this gets worse and worse the more a transgender waits in life to transition, like myself. You have to understand how coming out, starting your path to recovery, feels about as comforting as killing yourself before you actually do it. It's a condition of the human mind, anything you haven't done before comes with it's measure of anxiety. Coming out is already the scariest thing on your mind, never mind you haven't done it before. You inevitably think of every worse possible outcome.
One of those worst outcomes is ending up totally alone. I was lucky, literally everyone in my life has accepted me. Most people aren't that lucky, you hear of many horror stories of teens being kicked out of their houses, adults loosing careers, husbands, wives. There was no good reason at any point in my life to think I wouldn't somehow end up in the same position, one thing I've learned is you never know people's reaction to this, even if you know them well.
What would you chose? Alive, but no friends, no family, literally no one in your life to talk to or be around, totally alone. On top of being totally alone, it's a result of this secret that even you have no idea about. Everyone knows this about you now and have shunned you away. Everyone knows the real you, and no one wants anything to do with you.
Or dead?
Not so much of an easy choice.
Your perspective doesn't give you much room to work with either. For me, I hated myself. This "problem" we have doesn't come with a set of rules, I just knew *I* wasn't "right", and I hated myself for it. Nothing about me seemed the way it should be. Every time I'd say or do something stupid, or something that made a friend think a little bit less of me, it would tear away at me. I wouldn't be that way if I wasn't so "fucked up". It affected every single part of my life.
Nothing I did would make it go away either, nothing. For a problem solver like me, that is brutishly hard. It wasn't even a problem I could think of something to try, maybe get a little results, and try again. I stone-walled myself every time. If I thought of anything, like the pathetic attempts I did do, it solved nothing, nada. In fact it always made things worse. I couldn't shove this away and not think about it, it plagued my life. I couldn't "squeeze" out a bit of comfort, like wearing panties, because when I did it would snowball to an uncontrollable place that I would have to turn away from.
I had no where left to go. Suicide was the only option that didn't leave me vulnerable... ironic, no?
Unless you've been suicidal I don't think I can explain how insurmountable all of these questions with no solutions are. It isn't exactly an "easy way out" sort of decision. For me it was one of two answers left for this impossible question. It was the easier way of the two, and quite honestly, only because it was the more sure answer I had.
How did I not chose suicide? Honestly, I can't say I didn't. I wanted to, many times. I have... too many times. Funny enough, the HRT changing my skin has resurfaced a few attempts around my wrists. While I'm being honest, I can't say I still don't. I have far less days now with it coming to mind, but it still does. It's hard for people to see the daily challenges I face because of being transgender. I don't even have to get out of bed and my mind can find enough things to start feeling like I'm trying to move a mountain.
If you can somehow manage to add up all of the pain I have written about so far, it is that plus more that makes a transgender life incredibly hard. There's another stat I remember, that is over 80% of transgender people have attempted suicide. That is mind blowing, and I know it's true. That means practically every transgender person you've spoken with has attempted to end their life at some point. I know every trans I have spoken with has.
This isn't the result of some massive pity party either. In fact, most people who commit or attempt suicide don't want your pity at all, otherwise they would have asked for it and not be suicidal right now. For me, it's a result of hating everything about me and having everyone around me, knowingly or unknowingly, despise the side of me that I feel most comfortable in. For me the idea of wanting to wear women's clothing, and be shaped like a woman is as simple as wanting to paint my room a different color. It's that simple for every other women, isn't it? But it has been made into my biggest issue I've had to deal with in life. Unless you've been there, I can't describe the frustration of being violently acted against just because of the colors, or materials I like close to my skin.
I've been sitting here writing this waiting for some sort of "ah ha!" moment to happen but then I realized, there isn't one. There is no "ah ha!" to explain this. For one, the road to and reasons for someone being suicidal are completely dependent on the person. Obviously there are some common grounds here, otherwise their wouldn't be so many of us thinking the same way, but how we all got here is probably different.
Besides that, how do you explain consciously, comfortably choosing to end your own life to someone who never has? How do you explain that because of society, because of things done and said by everyone closest to you from your parents to your best friend to your teachers to close and distant relatives, and even worse yourself, that you feel like ending your life is the better, more practical, most helpful to others decision you could make? I guess I can't. I guess you'd have to live my life and feel all the pain I've been put through, and most everyone like me has faced. You'd have to feel the pressure to be the complete opposite of who you are to your very core, and the dysphoria that creates, in a very real sense. Your mind just will not be content.
Like I said, this is the reality for many, should I say most, transgender people. I find we all put on a great facade. Every trans person I've talked to seems very happy with themselves now. They are those that have come out though, even if I happen to be the only one who knows (not true for anyone as far as I know) that person has still told someone, and that's taking them out of the dark at least that little. You can tell how hurt they haven been in the past by how easily they all speak of it.
"Oh my father hates me, but whatever."
"I lost my wife but I'm better off now anyway."
"Yeah I lost my job but it gave me more options in the long run."
"Finding a relationship that I can tell will probably never happen, but I can be happy anyway."
Each of those are statements I've heard and they were spoken of and passed over as simply as dinner plans last weekend. Why? Because every single one of them has dealt with that or more, especially as those standing there as, at least, semi-confident women and men.
It's the ones that haven't that scare me, if half of the trans-people that have come out will kill themselves what are the chances for the ones that haven't?
To connect this to the real world, that's why we can't have people in high profile places saying bigoted opinions about things they clearly have no experience with. These people are literally, as if gun in hand, killing people around us. How many of those 50% seen one too many religious zealots telling them they will go to hell and believed it? How many watched some TV show where the most popular of the cast spews some LGBT hatred and their popularity saved them, but kills the gender confused?
If there is anything I can inspire among my readers it is this; The lives of the LGBT community have been difficult. Speaking for transgender people specifically, our lives are nightmares. It's only when finally transitioning do we start to feel some calm, and that only happens if we have support from people around us. Much of our pain is feeling we will never be accepted, so that is the most important thing to many of us. Another good bit of it is never having a sense of feeling comfortable, never, with no sense of accomplishment. This thing you want to do the most is what you've been not doing for your entire life. It leaves you feeling like nothing will ever work out for you, it'll never be "ok".
I really should stop here, obviously this is something I can talk about for a long time. I told my partner what I was writing about and she jokingly requested I say, "P.S. I'm not going to kill myself."
So well, I'll give the honest version. I don't think I'll kill myself. I often wonder if I'll be that woman Red talked about. Everything seeming to be going fine, but one day I can't handle any more. I guess I'm, in a sense, constantly on vigil about it and perhaps that will save me. I don't want to anymore, I want to keep transitioning and see how this turns out.
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