From: kathleen@gandalf.UMCS.Maine.EDU (Kathleen Noel Hayward)
Subject: Letter to a friend
Organization: Somewhere between the Stillwater and Penobscot Rivers
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:43:42 GMT


(Some of you may remember that I decided two months ago to go for SRS
and I posted here the process that lead me to that decision. To
date, I have told a dozen or so friends. The wife of one friend
wrote me a letter, my response to that letter follows)

	
Jean

Thank you for the thoughtful letter.  

Let me immediately jump to your concern at the end of the letter and
say that nothing in your letter angered or hurt me.

Certainly, I would be a fool to believe that people will endorse my
decision -- that people will congratulate me for my decision to change
my gender and urge me "god speed."  Rather, I can only hope that they
will tolerate my decision.

Oh, there will be those who cannot tolerate it, who believe that it is
wrong, and I shall accept that.  We simply cannot satisfy the demands
that society places upon us as thinking, questioning individuals
without, at times, developing values and belief systems that are at
odds with those of some of our neighbors.  However, the problem arises
when we feel that we must impose our values upon others.  Rather, we
must hold true to our own values, and we must consider restraining the
actions of others only when the society or some of its members are at
risk because of the expressed beliefs of others.  Clearly, we are not
talking of such a matter here.  We are talking about a private
decision which shall result in a private action.  No one will be
harmed by my decision, or if they are, it will be because they have
invested too much of themselves in what is, after all, *my* life.

As I read the letter, it appears a major concern of yours is whether,
by choosing this course of action, I am to miss out on certain
experiences/opportunities that I could only have as a male.  Yes,
certainly, that is true.  But does that matter?  To live is to make
choices, and each of those choices opens as many doors as it closes.
Over a decade ago I had a vasectomy.  Would you have written me the
same letter then suggesting that I *not* have a vasectomy because I
would never know the joy of being a parent?  And would you have
argued, as you do *in essence* later in your letter, that having a
vasectomy would be to argue with "god," since I denied a possibility
(having a child) that "god" gave me?

You ask if I chose the one option, when I was suicidal last fall, that
offered life out of the two options before me.  Certainly, that is the
*result* of my decision: I have indeed chosen life.  But, no, I had a
number of options before me -- the drive towards suicide occurred
because part of me could not deal with the turmoil within.  I
certainly could have imagined a life which continued in the form my
life had until then -- either alone or with a woman or wife.  But I
chose to accept a need that I have felt for a long time.

You ask, quoting the est training "Can you afford the arrogance that
no such thing exists, the knowing of which, your life would be
transformed?"  And later you write, "Our gender is like a little block
of granite that God assigns to us, it is where we place our feet in
the Universe, and it is hubris, the most frightful hubris, to argue
with Her on this matter."  I would like to address these together,
because I believe they are the same question.

You ask whether I have the arrogance, the hubris, to question the hand
dealt to me by life -- whether I have the arrogance, the hubris, to
refuse to accept the decision of God in the gender assigned to me.  I
believe you know I do not believe in a god which directs or even cares
about the lives of individuals, but, accepting your appeal to God as a
metaphor for the natural and biological patterns into which we find
ourselves placed, I must remind you that the history of humankind, and
the lessons of much of the Bible tell us that our lives are a trial
and that we must, in our own ways, confront the burdens placed before
us.  The trials of Job, of Sarah, the lesson from the Last Supper, in
fact, the entire life of Jesus, would have us believe that humankind
must, in the face of great odds and social approbation, find and
follow the right path.  It is too easy to suggest that we should play
the hand dealt to us.  May I suggest that too often we have not looked
at our cards carefully enough?  I have; I have found a wild card in
the hand; and I intend to play it.

I recall that in a separate conversation you suggested that God placed
each of us on this earth for a reason; although I cannot subscribe to
that belief, I simply wish to counter that, in that context, perhaps
my reason for being here *is to have the operation*, to change my life
in this manner, so that I can demonstrate to others that if I can take
such an action, then they can take smaller actions which their fear or
society has, until now, prevented them from taking.  But I cannot
argue this line too long; it runs against my grain.  My actions are
mine, and yours are yours, and their interactions are random and
undirected.  The excitement comes from working through those
interactions.

You make fleeting reference to homosexuality; I believe I explained at
my house that this decision is not an issue of sex, it is an issue of
gender.  I have had no homosexual inclination to this point, and, even
were that an issue, I doubt whether I would be interested in an
operation simply to have sex with a man.

You also make reference to my "faith" in technology.  I would rather
say that I have faith in the potential of humankind, and since
technology is a tool of humankind, I see it as a welcome counter to
the superstitions and limited world view that humankind has often been
subjected to for thousands of years.  The history of humankind is a
history of potential, of challenge, and usually of progress -- not
unbridled progress, but of a progress that increasingly allows greater
individual freedom for each of us.  Certainly, technology is a
double-edged sword, but it is up to the person who wields the sword
whether it is used for good or evil.  This operation, while a product
of technology, is value free.

And you ask if I have been able to remember exactly what my mother did
to me; if I have forgiven her.  Later you ask if my decision is
perhaps an extension of what she started back then?  Jean, I have
saved this question until now because my answer to it flows from the
points I have made above.  I may still need to deal with the hurt I
carry from those experiences, and perhaps I have yet to forgive her,
but I can in no way see her as the primary reason I took this path
towards a gender change.  I tire at times of those belief systems
which stipulate that we are programmed by forces outsides ourselves --
whether it be, for example, a god or our childhood experiences.
Rather, I believe that, like Darwin's finches, we find ourselves in a
social ecology which challenges us for our entire lives.  And like
those finches, given exactly the same ecology, each of us will adapt
in different ways.  But let's imagine, using the language of
computers, and accept that I was *programmed* for this by my mother.
I have carried that program for forty years: it is now resident in my
operating system, and I doubt whether I would be the same person
without it.  Or to return to the biological terminology of Darwin, if
I am a host to this organism from my mother, I have developed such a
symbiotic relationship with it that I cannot imagine living without
it, I cannot imagine not wishing to be female.

Finally, you ask if there is a possibility that I have mistaken my
attraction to women for wanting to be one.  Perhaps my desire does
flow from my lifelong love of women, but this cause and effect concern
you raise here (and elsewhere) is not of interest to me.  Would it
matter if you knew why your son has little interest at present in
certain things you hold dear?  The cause is unimportant, the effect is
the element you wish to comprehend and perhaps modify.

Jean, I thank you for your concern, and I believe you will continue to
be a friend, but I hope you will understand that changing my gender is
not something I have taken on as a whim.  This matter has occupied my
mind for more than forty years, and I am ready to take the road I have
chosen.  I treasure your friendship, and should you and Mark wish to
share part of the journey with me, I would be pleased, but I ask that
you consider my answers, that you comprehend my personal belief
system, and that, in respecting it, if you must raise new objections,
you not plow the same field I believe I covered here with this letter.

Kathleen
-- 
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Peter B. Hayward                                    WX9T          
Newsgroups: alt.transgendered