BOTH SIDES NOW

 

 

 

Both Sides Now is a vivid and compelling account of one man's search for wholeness, leading through multiple, complex, and life-threatening surgeries that not only transformed him physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

While he was born into a female body, Dhillon Khosla never felt fully at home in his skin. But while he knew very early on that his true identity was male, he spent almost twenty years repressing this knowledge and trying to fiercely to embrace the beautiful appearing-female form into which he developed. Trapped beneath the female disguise, he lived his life from the outside looking in.

Shortly after turning 28, he came across an article about men who were born into female bodies and had undergone surgeries to reclaim their male identity. As soon as he began reading the words, Dhillon felt flashes of recognition stirring within, and for the first time, hope.

 

In this spellbinding memoir Khosla shares his extraordinary journey to reclaim his manhood - a journey that would ultimately lead through fifteen surgeries, one of which almost claimed his life and revealed the very depths of his commitment. As Khosla continued to bravely fight his way home, his nights became filled with beautiful, allegorical - and sometime prophetic - dreams, while his days brought insight upon insight into the many ways we as men and women leave our fingerprints upon each other's soul. But most poignant of all, was his discovery of the true meaning of self-love: the willingness to turn away from the external forces that tell us who we ought to be, towards that one, inner voice that has known all along.

 

EXCERPT FROM BOTH SIDES NOW
~ CHAPTER ONE: JULY 1997~

I am trying to open a door; the handle turns, but the door won't budge. It's as if there is someone on the other side holding it shut. I keep pushing and pushing -- using all of my strength and weight. During the struggle, I overcome the resistance on the other side long enough to get the door open a few inches. When I peer through the opening to see what is on the other side, my own face is staring back at me.

I had that dream when I was nineteen years old and I remember laughing when I woke up, wondering how dense God must have thought I was to send a dream with such a transparent metaphor.

Years later, I brought up to this dream during a conversation with a friend. I was trying to explain to him why I felt compelled to keep trying new forms of therapy and meditation. I said that I believe we all have a door, beyond which lies some unknown part of our being that was lost or forgotten somewhere along the way. It is this vague itch or underlying anxiety that comes when we stop distracting ourselves long enough to feel it. My friend let out this visible shudder and quickly said, "yeah, no - I don't want to get near my door."

But it wasn't some lofty principle or bravery that motivated my searching; it was a simple desire to have the pleasure of peace. I wanted to grow old and sit quietly in the garden, feeling the sunshine around me without demons hovering in the air around me, threatening to swoop down at any moment.

It took a few more years, but at age twenty-eight, the door was finally thrown wide open.

It was the middle of July 1997. I was driving to Los Angeles from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in a one-week program sponsored by a music school...