Introduction / Seminars

The Across Borders seminars are about life, people—you and me—“the true persons we are.” They provide a forum for ideas on improving one’s quality of life at home, at work, and in society.

These seminars are about not merely being accepted, but being welcomed and wanted for who we are. No one should be ashamed of being born handicapped or, because of illness or accident, becoming handicapped later in life.

Diversity means normal variations in life that make us special, and it’s something we should be proud of, take advantage of, and enjoy. Regardless of gender or looks we should not be harassed, bullied, or discriminated against.

Intersex and transsexualism are life phenomena that affect us all—phenomena that we need to learn about and meet to talk about. As individuals, partners, parents, and friends, we need to come out emotionally. Our emotions are there to be expressed, not hidden, and sometimes that is hard.

Across Borders is a forum created to assist companies, organizations, and individuals toward a better understanding of life, who we are, and the way we relate to each other.

Our True Selves

One of our main goals in life is learning who we really are, and I mean our selves. With our brains we imagine who we are, but these thoughts are not the same as our true selves; there is something else that makes us who we are regardless of our intentions. I call that something our soul, and to me it has nothing to do with religion.

Proof that we have a soul that our minds can’t control is the existence of a phenomenon called transsexualism, which is about the most basic aspect of our lives: gender and gender identity. People can be born as a boy but with a girl’s soul. For me, regardless of my upbringing, what I wanted, my thoughts about myself and those around me, I wasn’t able to fight this conflict, and in the end I had to physically correct my body to match my soul in order to survive. The other way around is impossible.

This blog is where I provide an understanding about the soul, about gender identity, and about the major impact the soul has on who we are. My understanding is based on the experience I gained discovering my true self when I changed gender. With your comments here this seminar can even be a forum.


Click here to view this first full program in PDF.

Please Note! This Across Borders blog complements my live seminars and lectures. Our emotions contribute to this topic, and there is no way I can convey that through any other medium than spending some quality time with you live.

Introduction / Identity

In society today we rarely consider our true selves; for most of us the topic isn’t even on the map. That’s how it was for me before I changed gender. If someone had talked to me about soul searching I most likely would have denied it all with a smart remark such as, “What kind of crap is that? I’m not religious! Plus I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

This denial almost killed me.

Many factors influence who we feel like we are. Our appearance, the way we behave, our interests—these are all driven by gender; it even influences our thoughts. But how? Some people say that boys and girls aren’t all that different inherently, that it’s just a matter of upbringing. Well, I was brought as a boy, I behaved as a boy, and I thought I was a boy for 51 years.

But some kind of shadow was over me all the time, from birth, without me knowing about it. I am not gay, and I haven’t become a lesbian after my transition either, so this has to be about something besides desire.

None of my concepts about what makes us who we are was of any use to me when my troubles all started. Reality just didn’t make sense.



The issues of gender and gender identity are crucial to an understanding of humanity, but most of us don’t even think about just plain identity that much.

If you can’t place a person’s gender—if that person projects a shadow of the opposite gender—then you most likely will address that person wrongly. You can unconsciously sense that mismatched shadow, which can interfere with emotions and behavior between you and others quite a bit.

The power of this shadow can be quite overwhelming, making people suffer terribly.

It’s strange that this mismatch is true for other things about ourselves, too. That role we play in society: does that always reflect our true selves? The impression we make, what we want others to believe—don’t we all project a different shadow in one way or another from time to time, even if it’s the same gender? It’s only when that shadow matches our appearance that we feel real comfort. It’s only when all that we are merges as a whole that we become able to connect emotionally with others—reachable, responsive—and perceived as all right.

If your shadow—your soul—doesn’t match the image you produce, you emotionally don’t exist.

Introduction / Gender

We relate to gender strangely. We take so much for granted, that men are men and women are women, no questions asked. But what is it that makes us men and women? Do we really know, or are we just guessing?

If we peel off fashion, manners, religion and political stuff, where do we men and women differ? Well, “penis versus vagina”—that for sure would be the obvious answer, but what else?

“Beard, breasts, shape, skin, muscles, smell …” Well, that list can be very long once you start thinking about it, and it gets even more interesting when you dig deeper by learning about the phenomenon of intersex—mixed genders.

Today as many as 1 in 1500 children (that we are aware of) are born with mixed genders. Some are born with characteristics of both genders; some have both a penis and a vagina. In those cases, what about them determines their gender? Or is there a grey zone?

To complicate matters, many intersex people don’t even learn about their handicap until later in life, and sometimes not at all. Perhaps a woman can’t get pregnant and thus discovers that she doesn’t have a womb, or a man learns he can’t produce sperm. Do these “deficiencies” lead to people rethinking their genders? Usually not.

Perhaps this means that our perception of ourselves isn’t inextricably tied to our internal or even external sexual organs or other medical aspects regarding gender.



As this intersex phenomenon—mixed gender—exists, another closely related phenomenon called transsexualism—wrong gender—exists too, affecting even more children, about 1 in 500 (that we are aware of today). This is real even though society tries to deny it. And like the phenomenon intersexualism, transsexualism has existed throughout history from the first time life emerged on Earth.

There are some things about our true selves we definitely don’t know. Just this fact—that such a vital part of life as gender can be entirely wrong—indicates that there’s a lot more behind who we are and how we perceive ourselves and others than we’ve previously thought.

The list of transsexual conditions above points out various physical conditions that people born transsexual can be diagnosed with and thus be mistreated. However, that doesn’t mean that all people with these conditions are transsexual and have to change gender. Instead, what the list reveals is that the transsexual phenomenon might have something to do with these conditions. If a person, anyone, is unable or prevented by whatever reason to express their true selves, their physical health can be in danger.

Today we never consider the connection between not expressing one’s true self and these conditions, which I think we could benefit from doing. These seminars about our true selves discuss this connection and how this knowledge could help us to a better and happier life.

Introduction / Me

So who am I, this strange person talking in riddles?

Well, I dare to say that I’m a human with a life experience that’s out of the ordinary, but I don’t want to be considered special because of that. I am pretty sure that we all are special. In fact I believe that this is what life is all about, being unique.

I was born into a “normal” life like everybody else, but I wasn’t aware of my transsexual condition, and no one else was either. You can think of yourself as a happy person—and some of us can have everything we wish for in life—and still our lives turn into a disaster. Happiness and love are often hard to deal with, as they’re about emotions, and some of us—quite many in fact—are seriously afraid of talking about emotions and, worse, revealing them to others.

In many senses I had to fight all of these, my worse fears, and I had to do it to survive. But I have been lucky because I did manage to survive my transsexual handicap. The process of physically changing gender is certainly a challenge, but the emotional side of facing one’s true self this way goes beyond what we normally understand. And that’s what these Across Borders seminars are all about, a journey of discovery and understanding.



I wrote this story Behind Waves sometimes in tears, but I wasn’t alone; my wife was very much affected too. When I wrote it I wasn’t aware of the full impact of being born transsexual and what all these emotional feelings meant that were coming out of me. I’m more aware today, and I know that there’s even more to discover.

These Across Borders seminars are about discovering life and living, aware of one’s self. Theoretically and scientifically we say we have figured everything out, but that’s within limits we create ourselves, which include a good deal of denial. This seminar is about widening those limits in a positive manner, and I hope you will enjoy it.

Yours sincerely,
Li Sam

I want to believe that all of us want the best for our children, helping them live their lives as best possible. If a child is born as the wrong sex, would we behave the same if we knew? Do we want to know?

To not be able to express or be received as your true self, whether you or others know or not, is lonely.

The existence we all seek can easily drown in tears. Hope, the will to live, becomes a distant far-away shore.

If we get to know, how far out in an ocean of tears are we willing to go, to reach out a hand, and there in joy, side by side, guide our children ashore?

I want to believe that we all would go as far as it takes and that the will of trying is stronger than reluctance leading to defeat.