Amelia Conway on the Decision to Transition: “It’s a Leap of Faith, and It’s One That May Not Have a Safety Net”

By Amelia Conway, Associate Manager at Sanofi

"Part of the beauty of gender is that everyone’s performance of it can look a bit different, even if we still align with it overall. Two people with the same gender may express it in very different ways." 

In the age of Instagram filters and Photoshop, it comes as little surprise that many of us struggle with our self-perception - a deep understanding of who we really are. We’re held to impossible beauty standards, and it’s easy to feel like we’re never enough. All the while, we’re expected to switch at a moment’s notice between different roles in our daily lives. 

In just one day, we may need to change between being a professional, a parent, a coach, and a mentor. Some of these role changes are conscious – the way we behave in a professional setting could be different from how we behave around friends during the weekends. But there are also roles that we perform unconsciously. As this is Transgender Visibility Week, I’d like to focus on exploring one such role – gender.

It’s important to establish that gender is socially defined and constructed. 

Gender focuses on the roles that men, women, and others play in society. It gives us a set of guidelines for how different groups in society should interact. It’s different from (but often connected to) sex, which refers to someone’s chromosomal, anatomical, and hormonal characteristics.

One way to understand this difference is to think of life as if we are all putting on a play. When we are born, a doctor observes our anatomy and assigns a “role” for us (for simplicity’s sake, male or female) in the play based on our sex. If someone’s male, a doctor will typically say, “it’s a boy,” and the child will be raised according to male cultural expectations.  Each of us is expected to perform our roles based on the script that we’re given by society. Through youth, we learn the spoken and unspoken rules of what’s acceptable behavior for our gender, and we’re encouraged to pursue different interests based on this role.

Part of the beauty of gender is that everyone’s performance of it can look a bit different, even if we still align with it overall. Two people with the same gender may express it in very different ways. A man may express masculinity in a gentler, softer way, for example.  Even so, most of us are cisgender, meaning that we identify with the gender that we were assumed to have at birth.

However, it’s important to note that this isn’t the case for everyone. Transgender people identify with a gender (or role) different from how they were originally seen at birth. While there is no singular “transgender experience,” many of our stories share similar themes of questioning, exploration, vulnerability, and acceptance. It’s common for transgender people to feel isolated and misunderstood, like a piece to the puzzle they’re trying to complete is missing.

Even so, it can be a challenge to accept this truth when transgender people have maintained a different public identity for so many years.  It’s natural to be frightened – what will my parents think?  Will I lose my job?  Will I be an outcast?  Will my partner leave me?  How will I explain this to my children?  Questions like these keep many transgender people in the closet, even if they do have the self-awareness to realize that maintaining the status quo is painful.

Deciding to transition or to change genders is a deeply personal decision. 

It’s a powerful statement. It’s a leap of faith, and it’s one that may not have a safety net. It’s a vulnerable experience, sharing a side of oneself that’s hidden away from the world and, in some places, stigmatized. Transitioning opens many questions, but in doing so, leaves the door open for opportunity. On one hand, the experience can be incredibly isolating without a support system, but on the other, it can be empowering. It’s an opportunity to define who they are, and it’s a chance to align their minds with their bodies. As someone who’s personally gone through a gender transition (male to female), you can often spot the difference in joy in a trans person’s eyes. There’s a sense of life and joy that many of us feel from our “rebirth”!

Amelia Conway, Associate Manager at Sanofi

Though “coming out” is one of the biggest challenges that I faced in transition, there are quite a few others that I dealt with: changing my appearance, selecting a new name, learning new social cues, changing my voice, and, most difficult of all, learning to accept my past self. While there’s a part of me that longs to have been raised as a girl, I recognize that there’s no changing that part of my past. On the other hand, transitioning gave me the opportunity to define my life on my own terms and to pursue what felt right to me. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

I’m often asked how long my transition took. 

To be honest, I don’t have a clear answer for that. Like many other transgender people, I’m always coming out to others, so in a way, my transition never really stops. It’s a key part of understanding my story, and it had a significant impact on shaping my perspective. After all, I had the opportunity to be seen as male, other gender, and female during my transition. I’m blessed to live in an environment that allows me to see the world from these points of view, though it saddens me to remember that others like me are not always able to live out loud as their authentic selves. I long for the day that the stigma around transition disappears and that we no longer need to hide our light.

The good news, though, is that with each conversation, more ears open, and fear dissipates. There will always be those who do not accept us, but there are many more people who are willing to listen. Storytelling can be a powerful way to connect with others, and all it takes is one perspective to change a life for the better. Now more than ever, my community needs me, and it’s my honor to help however I can, even if it’s just sharing one voice among many.  I hope that in the future, there will be more awareness, understanding, and compassion toward folks in their gender journey.  It’s this dream of a brighter and fairer future that inspires me to “live out loud.” After all, visibility matters – it sends a powerful message that if I made it, you can make it, too.

In honor of Transgender Visibility Week, consider taking some time to reflect. 

Who are you, really? And what do you really want out of life? When you reflect upon your thoughts, your behaviors, and your actions, are you truly free to be who you are inside? There’s no perfect answer, but hearing a transgender person’s perspective may help you in your own journey of finding and embracing what makes you feel fulfilled.