Until It Ends: A Story of Gender Dysphoria

By Melinda Summer

This is my personal story about gender dysphoria.

In 2013, The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) changed the diagnosis of gender identity disorder (GID) to the more accurate gender dysphoria. They also reclassified it not as a mental illness but a mental distress, being filled with anxiety and depression.

When I first heard the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, I knew in that name it identified what I had been suffering from my entire life. Apparently, I was not alone, and the world was suddenly thrown into hearing more about transgender people as so many began the process of becoming transgender. Some might term this sudden onset vocabulary.

After decades working in the field of nuclear medicine technology, reading scientific papers, and going to symposiums about current research, I began to read about the causes of gender dysphoria, how it relates to intersex people (formerly called hermaphrodites), and, well, I was scared. The treatment is to become transgender to become happy and healthy. I read current treatment papers and any other research I could find, as well as social media, so I would know what to expect and dispel my fears. Transition is not fun or easy, especially as a person gets older. It is best to start as young as possible. For many decades, psychologists have known that a child usually knows what gender they are between the ages of four and seven. When the wrong puberty starts, without treatment many simply end their own lives. I want to stop that. Everybody wants to stop that, I hope.

On a daily basis, I explain nuclear medicine technology to patients in a way they can understand. I hope to use this experience to explain gender dysphoria and transgender. Hopefully through education, more of society will understand us, not with pity, disdain, or hate but rather as individuals living our lives as happy and healthy as we can as three percent of the population.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638816393

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Copyright © 2022 Melinda Summer

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-63881-638-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63881-639-3 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Mary Nacca-Valenti, PhD, for saving my life. To the community in Bakersfield. To Peter Wonderly for the initial edit of this book.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: When I Was in Kindergarten

Chapter 2: New House in Rowland Heights

Chapter 3: The Move to Crestline

Chapter 4: We Moved to an Apartment

Chapter 5: Dad Picked Me Up

Chapter 6: After High School

Chapter 7: Once Graduated from School

Chapter 8: Falling Down Drunk

Chapter 9: I Was Fifty Years Old

Chapter 10: Becoming Melinda

Introduction

In 2013 the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH changed the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder or GID to Gender Dysphoria. The category it was listed in also changed from a mental illness to a mental distress. It is now classified as a medical condition, and the approved treatment for most is to become transgender. Just like any medical treatment, there are guidelines which must be followed for the ethical treatment of patients.

When I Was in Kindergarten

Psychologists agree that a child typically becomes aware of their own gender between the ages of four and seven.

When I was in kindergarten, I remember seeing an award show on television, when I was supposed to be in bed. The men all wore black tuxedos, and the women wore gowns in beautiful colors. I was so happy that I was a girl and hoped that one day I might be able to wear one of the beautiful gowns. All the women were so pretty! I had absolutely no idea how the strapless ones stayed up, but I hoped someday I would understand. The next day after kindergarten I found a blanket the right size, and I wrapped it around me like a gown I had seen on television the night before. It would not stay up without my arms holding it in place, so I went out into the living room and laid out the blanket on the floor. I laid down and rolled it tightly, and I was able to get it tight enough so that it would stay up if I used my arm to hold the end in place. Mom was doing something in the kitchen and was not paying close attention, so when I was happy with the results, I called out to her, See, I’m wearing a dress, I am a girl.

As I was going back into my room to play, Mom was right behind me and screamed, You are not a girl, you are a boy! She was so angry and was screaming at me so loudly that I was soon backed up against the dresser, with her face right in front of mine. She kept screaming at me, trying to get me to understand what she was saying and repeating that I was the oldest male child and was never to say that I am a girl again. I cried so hard, with tears streaming down my face, that my body shook. I do not know if it was her shaking me or not. I was so scared and so ashamed that when she left, I climbed into bed and cried myself to sleep. I did not understand why what I said was so wrong. I was five years old in 1968.

I am the oldest child of three. Mom was a nurse, and Dad was an electrical engineer working for the telephone company. My brother was two years younger and my sister three years younger. There had been a miscarriage between my brother and me. We had recently returned from Chicago, where Dad had worked for eighteen months. We only lived in that peaceful little house for one year. My sister, Heather, was in diapers. I remember I once opened the lid of that odd plastic thing next to the toilet. It stunk, and I never opened it again. I figured out that that is why a truck would come to the house to empty it. Mom used cloth diapers. I also remember that my little brother, Jack, would go out into the backyard, pick up snails off the sidewalk or grass, and put them into the pockets of his pants. No amount of cajoling or yelling by Mom or me would stop him from doing that. It was a nice backyard that led up to a hill covered with California ice plant and had big purple flowers during part of the year. I looked up the hill and could see another house. It was a long way up there. I remember hunting lizards and how worried I was that I had killed a lizard by hurriedly putting a jar over one that was sunning on the stucco on the side of the house. Its tail was cut off, and when I told Mom she just said, Don’t worry about it, he’ll grow a new one. Lizards do that. He’ll be okay. I was so relieved that I had not killed it. I did not know what I was going to do with it when I finally caught one. Mom told me that they eat spiders for food, so I should leave them alone. Mom did not like spiders in the house.

I also learned how to write my full first name in green crayon on the front of a cream-colored drawer my dad had on top of his workbench in the garage. He was not happy but did not get mad. Since I still had a problem learning how to tie my shoes, the kindergarten brought in a big shoe, and the teachers taught me how to tie my shoes. They did not wear shoes that had laces. They wore nylons and skirts, and when they sat down on the floor to read to us, they had to work to make sure we could not see up their skirts. I wondered if I was going to be able to do that when I got to wear skirts with nylons and wondered why they wore nylons; maybe they felt good on their legs? I wondered how they might feel on my legs when I got older. Some of the girls in school wore tights with their pretty dresses, but I did not think tights and nylons were the same.

New House in Rowland Heights

Anecdotally, surgeons who perform gender affirming surgery have reported that all patients knew they were transgender or had gender dysphoria by the age of seven.

After the year was over in kindergarten, we moved to a new house in Rowland Heights. It was a lot bigger than the other house and had two stories. It was still unfinished downstairs, with exposed studs, and there was nothing but dirt around the house, without plants or landscaping. The other houses around it were similar and had nothing but dirt around them too. It had a three-car garage, and the living room, kitchen, and dining room were above it, with cathedral ceilings. There was also a third level, in which there was a formal living room between the two floors and had the same ceiling as the living room. All the bedrooms were behind the garage, both downstairs and upstairs. My mom called it a barn and shut down because she said it was too big for her to clean. We lived in that house for seven years, from my first-grade year until after the end of seventh grade. It is still the longest I have ever lived in one place. On the weekends I would help Dad put in sprinklers and landscaping and watch as he worked to finish the downstairs. At first, though, Dad would help the other fathers around the cul-de-sac build brick walls around their yards. I either helped or got in the way trying to help. That is probably up for debate, but I usually waited for instructions on what to do next. I was a little bit fascinated that all the men would work together and that they even knew how to build the walls by digging a trench, adding cement and then the bottom bricks in that level. For retaining walls, they added rebar in the center of some of them, and the walls would grow level by level until everybody had walls. Some would lay bricks, some would make cement, some would transfer cement, and others would transport bricks. At the end of the day, after the tools had been washed off, many of the families would get together in a driveway, sit in folding chairs, and talk and drink beer and laugh together.

I went to Rowland Elementary from first grade until after the end of sixth grade. Seventh grade was at Alvarado Junior High School. Mom worked for a while at Rowland Elementary in the office. All three of us were there at the time, and Jack was having problems in school. He was disruptive and could not concentrate and was diagnosed with hyperactive disorder and was prescribed Ritalin, which he did not like but made him a better student. I do not remember Heather much until we got older. I was always a good student and got good grades. Learning was easy for me, and I did well on tests. Tests seemed like a learning tool for me. When we took the placement tests, I was told that my English comprehension was college level, and my math scores were high school level. My fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Hess, used to call me Dr. Summer. That was the year we all lined up and I realized I was almost the smallest in my class. Only Maria was shorter than me as I looked at the rest of the class in front of me. Another Melinda was the tallest. Someone had told me that she, like me, was German. I remember seeing her play tetherball, and she almost always won because she was so tall. She would just put the rope up higher than the other girls could reach. I was involved with all the running games, like tag, against the girls, or football, where my quickness at blocking a pass from completion helped keep me around. I could not throw the ball; I was too small, and I could not get my hand around the football. I still cannot.