In my latest speech, “How I Made a Woman,” I spoke about the freedom I now feel I have since I transitioned.
Everyone’s experience, culture, and environment are different, so I'm only speaking for myself.
For 59 years, I was socialized, lived, & experienced life as a white, educated, middle-class, straight cis man. Like the apocryphal fish in water, I couldn’t see the advantages and privileges that automatically accrued to me.
I never questioned that I would be taken seriously, assumed to be competent, seen, heard, & respected. My world was full of role models of people who looked like me—in the media, in films, on TV. I could assume that I would be safe from harassment and objectification, to be paid appropriately & that I could realistically aim for positions of power & influence in both professional & social settings.
All this I took for granted.
So, with all of these freedoms that were freely available to me, how is it that I could feel so much more freedom now as a woman?
To be clear, these are the freedoms that I experience, and many women will not see them in the same way. But for me, I now have freedom of expression—to wear clothes without judgment, colours that are not brown or blue or black, choices of fabrics, styles, shapes, to wear makeup or not, to be flamboyant and outrageous or not.
But these freedoms are just the start.
Now, I am free from having to know it all, from having to be strong all the time, & from needing to know all the answers. I am free not to appear weak when I need help or to prove myself braver or tougher than others. I have the freedom to touch someone on the arm without it meaning anything, to be seen as safe, & to walk down the street without people crossing to the other side.
And I have learned the freedom to be vulnerable, to express my emotions, to be able to cry & it be seen as strength, not a weakness.
My emotional vocabulary and emotional intelligence have grown exponentially through my community of women & the depths we go to in talking about our emotions & feelings, & there is never a sense of judgment or being less than.
I now have tools to navigate my world emotionally, to respond effectively without anger or violence. I don’t feel threatened or confronted with emotional situations, but am empowered to manage myself, my boundaries, & my responses.
I didn’t need to change gender to experience this emotional growth. So, in a time when there’s a lot of discussion about men’s violence against women—at least 42 women have been killed in acts of gender-based violence in Australia this year so far—maybe my experience can shine some light on where at least some of the solution might lie.
Love Bobbi ❤️
Inspirational speaker | Transformation Coach | Trans Woman | Model
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