28 | OutBoise Magazine | NEWS
OutBoise.com | Issue 5.2 | March 2015
transgender woman.
I was born a boy and
lived bound by that
seemingly unchangeable destiny for many years. It
was always wrong and I knew it.
I was always “other” and I knew
it. The range of options opened
to me just seemed to exclude
any sort of remedy. Finally after
half a century of this limbo I
acted. I stopped being a guy. I
started being a woman. I transitioned from one life to another.
I told the world that I needed to
make changes and that I would
take the outside that had been
visible and replace it with something from inside. I would make
the reflection I saw in the mirror
match my self-image.
Am I The Same Person?
by Dianne Piggott
At the lively dinner table the
other evening, our far ranging
discussion gave me the opportunity to ask a longtime family friend a simple, yet deeply
profound, question. I asked him,
“Am I the same person I used to
be?”We may all ask this question
and we may all hope for an honest answer. As we go through life
we change. Sometimes dramatically and sometimes subtly. We
know that our bodies physically
renew, rebuild and repair at
such a rate that we are “new”
roughly every seven years. Our
thinking changes as our experiences shape our consciousness.
Traumatic events can mold us
and teach us. The physical connections in our brains change
as we swim in our personal and
shared universes. Amazingly,
minute particles of energy from
space whiz through us and the
planet we stand on and nick
away at us on a sub- atomic
level. So obviously we change.
But are we the same person we
used to be?
For me this was not just an
existential question, it was a
practical one. You see, I’m a
So when I asked our unsuspecting dinner guest if I was
the same person I used to be, it
meant a bit more to me personally. Had I morphed so dramatically that I was no longer that
“me” that I had carried along
for so many years? I know that
some people in my life have
mourned through the changes
while also welcoming the birth.
I know that some people have
been left behind, unwilling or
unable to comprehend what
needed to happen. And I know
that some people in my life now
never knew me any other way
and would be deeply uncomfortable if the “old me” were to
come rushing in.
I know that I remember a life
that is becoming a distant wisp
of memory and I embrace a life
that is vibrant and immediate.
But what was our guest going to say? What was this young
man who had known me for
eight years going to say? Would
he say that, yes, I was the same
person? And what would that
mean? That I had just changed
my clothes and hair and name,
the outsides, but that I was still
the same old dude as before?
Would he say that I was a totally
new person and that I had killed
the old one, that I had taken
that life so I could lead my life?
Would I still be real?
I asked him, “Am I the same
person I used to be?” Without
pause to consider he answered,
“No.”
This was no philosophy class
thought experiment for him. It
was a practical question that
was now asked and answered.
No, I was not the same person
I used to be. I admit to letting
a little sigh of expectantly captured breath escape. Because
I knew that this meant that the
many people from “before” who
have shared my adventure did
it because they accepted the
“old me” and they now accept
the “new me.” They aren’t waiting for the previous person to
come back, because he can’t.
They are here with me in the
present and going with me into
the future.
For my part, I look at pictures
of “me” from the past and I
can’t help but see a subtle tinge
of pathos. The smile is pinched,
the eyes are tight and the lips
are thin. Pictures of this new me,
the one that is not the same person I used to be, are different,
the smile is genuine, the eyes are
bright, the lips are laughing. It
is the real me that was masked
inside before. The old person
was a shell that finally popped
open. The seed that released
the plant. The chrysalis that let
out the butterfly. The man that
mothered a woman. I thank that
old me and let him go.