Tell your story, it will make a difference. Here's mine

I am a male to female Transwomen. I was born and raised in India. But I lived most of my life in United States. I am married and my family knows about me. although they don’t accept with everything I do right now, I hope someday they will. I am a christian and I truly believe that God made me with an unique purpose in my life. Who knows, this could be one of them.

I often go out in the public and mingle in the community like any other women. Be it going to the church, library, mall or buying groceries. I now don’t have a problem being identified or referred to as a “transgender women”. Well, it wasn’t the case, the way I was brought up.

Ever since I was 5 yrs old, I started wearing my mom’s petticoat and covering my head with a saree and pretending to be a girl. i have no idea what led me to do that, but It was very strange and it felt good.

I was very shy, lonely and private. I never talked about this to anyone, being afraid that they would consider me a sissy, humiliate and exclude me from their friendship circle. I was never attracted to boys. It was always about girls. Their dangling earrings, long hair and colorful outfits. I was careful , not to express any of my feminine desires. I did not want my friends to think i am a eunuch or a hijra as they refer to in India.

Since my parents were traditional christians and highly respected in the society, i was afraid to talk to them about this. I did not want to do anything that would bring disgrace to my family.

I lived with this guilt and shame. I felt hopeless and thought I was heading straight to hell. The more I tried purging my clothes and staying away from dressing, the stronger the urge came back like a tsunami.

I spent most of my adult life constantly battling with these issues. Though I was with friends and family, I felt so lonely. I cried constantly asking God to forgive me for these thoughts and take away this desire. It felt like a disease in me.

I started exploring about this on the Internet. I joined various groups and read numerous articles regarding this topic. I even spoke to a few counsellors. One told me that I was a confused gay and another famous doctor advised me to take hormones and change my sex because I looked like a girl. Deep inside I knew ….I wasn’t gay and I had no desire of changing my sex. 

I have a strong male and a gentle female personality in me.I realised that it is not the physical appearance or surgical transformation that gives you a gender identity,but it is deep within your heart and mind. I just wanted to accept myself and live as a person, instead of worrying about whether I look like a male or female.

I felt terrible and gave up on myself. I hated everything I did and decided I had nothing positive in store for me. I thought, i would never have a normal family life like anyone else. I was ready to take this to my grave.Strangely, I felt that God never gave up on me. He loved me unconditionally, no matter who I was or what I was going through. It took 35 years for me to understand why would God who created everthing perfect, be interested in an imperfect being like me ? Just as God accepted me through His grace and love, I learnt to accept myself and taking a balanced approach as a christian. it wasn’t easy.
All human beings are unique in their own way and we should not be misguided by what the society thinks about them. I may be wrong, but if Jesus died on the cross for all of us. He cared for the transgender as well. There is a story of an Ethiopian enuch even mentioned in the Bible.

Now thinking about it, I could have continued my life like any other closeted transwomen, sharing pictures, showing up on webcams, going to gay friendly bars, dancing in groups and not caring about the real issues that transgender face today.

Couple of years back, I was invited by my friend to a transgender day of remembrance event. When I walked into that hall, I realized many transgender men and women were brutally raped, tortured and murdered, because of who they were. Young teen agers were bullied and beaten at school because they are transgender. It was heart breaking to hear their stories.

 I felt that i should do something. I started participating in various TG events, workshops, rallies, support groups where various trans issues were discussed. I had the opportunity to interact and make friends with a lot of them in the gender spectrum. With help of a local pastor, I was able to revive the tg community in their church. They graciously accepted me and offered their love and support.

I was slowly coming out of a cozy crossdressing fantasy into a world of brutal trans reality.

There are many transgender social networks and organizations today that are helpful. Most of them don’t cater the emotional needs of transgender, which is very important. In fact the lives of transgender individuals are far more unique, distinct and challenging than the Gays and Lesbians.

With the events and changes in the government policies in our country, I want to be involved and bring more transgender awareness in our community pertaining to jobs, healthcare social identity and immigration.I am glad that some churches, organizations and corporate firms have understood and accepted the Transgender community, instead of dismissing them as drag queens, performers or sex workers.

If you want to make a difference in the our society, government and across the world, then pls get involved and do something. I did and it gave be a new dimension in my life.

My heart goes out to all the transgender men and women across the world who died for being a transgender. May God comfort their loved ones. Thank you for reading this blog. Pls do leave your comments and stay in touch. Love you and God bless you.

Celia Sandhya Daniels