This month, January 2026, marks 10 years since I started my male-to-female transition in earnest. It began with medical intervention and a whole lot of social support. Just the same, looking back at my life, I think on some level, I was planning on this transition for as far back as I can remember. As a teenager, the thought of being a woman just seemed like some kind of pipe dream that I never thought would come to fruition — the plot of some gender-bending science fiction movie.
On this anniversary, I struggled greatly with what I wanted to write for this piece. I think this is the fourth, maybe fifth go-around with a bunch of almost completed pieces that may never be printed or may be shared sometime in the future.
It may surprise people to learn that I actually “came out” in December 2006 while living on the Maine coast. I was so excited to finally let this part of me that I had been hiding since I was a kid out in the open. However, the reception I got from key family members was, needless to say, not positive, which is a gross understatement. I was hoping for support, understanding, the willingness to discuss my feelings, but that was not forthcoming. It was a horrendous time, in which things went downhill rapidly, landing me in the hospital.
While inpatient, I was treated by a psychiatrist who ultimately became my mental health provider on an outpatient basis. This doctor believed that my insistence that I was female was based on a delusion and tied to a tough-to-fully-nail-down mental illness. I think he believed this particularly because I had never mentioned my feelings around this to anyone ever before. How could a proud father of two boys, an Eagle Scout who worked as a mechanical engineer, a guy who loved bicycles and possessed a basement full of tools identify as a woman? This was a question echoed by family as well. I can tell you now, it was pretty easy because, inside, I had been female that whole time, just no one knew it. It was just the “coming out” part that was tough.
My provider put together a treatment plan to control my “delusion” and the depression I was experiencing in parallel. I had always trusted the medical advice I had received up to that point and didn’t question the diagnosis. I went along with the very intense prescribed treatment, a move that helped me stay with my family, but it never fully tamped out my feelings that I was supposed to be female. This went on for years until, preparing to leave Maine for Massachusetts in 2013, another psychiatrist questioned my existing diagnosis and treatment plan. In his notes, this provider questioned why I was on so many medications. He also noted that he believed that I suffered from gender dysphoria — so yes, I was transgender.
Back living in Massachusetts, a subsequent provider also recognized that the meds were not warranted and slowly weaned me off the prescription cocktail I was on. In parallel a terrific therapist helped me sort out my feelings and the conflict of my status as a trans person with my family. Both my provider and therapist admitted that neither one had ever worked with a trans patient before, but I couldn’t have asked for two better providers. Working with these providers led to the events of January 2016, the start of my medical and social transition to female.
This was never really about me being mentally ill, although admittedly, not living as myself did leave me depressed. When I started my transition in earnest, any depression I had left me. All this was about me being allowed to be a woman, the person I knew I was supposed to be — and a label I proudly wear.
It took a lot to publicly share all this, but I think sharing is important — it is a positive story but a cautionary tale at the same time. One might think after my experience, I would take a dim opinion of mental health care, but nothing could be further from the truth: I now work as an inpatient mental health counselor and have been going on seven years now.
I know a fair number of other trans folks and when I share my story, most are shocked at what I had to go through. I think since my coming out, there is far greater awareness of transgender issues in the mental health community, and in society in general, that was surely lacking back in 2006, which pleases me greatly.
In closing, I’ll just say I’m just glad to be me, finally.
Mariel E. Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.