Rough Draft of a Possible Coming Out Letter

[alienchangeling.livejournal.com]

I've been considering coming out to a few selected friends, probably via email and then email or IM if they want to talk about it more. (Staying in my comfort zone: I have an irrational dislike of phones that approaches a phobia, and I'm not the best at spontaneous presentation.) This is my rough draft of a letter summarizing my current discontent and talking about my future options.

I have, for years, defined my self-identity using the concept, "I'm male, but I'm different." However, that's at best a half-truth, because I don't feel male. Moreover, during the past few years, I've become less and less satisfied with that response as a self-identification.

What am I? I don't know. I am confused, for two reasons: I have next to no experience with gender expression outside the male role I've acted out for so long, and because I don't have a clear feeling to tell me what I am. My best guess derives from the feeling I had as a child: if you had asked me what gender I was, and I had told you the truth, I would have said that both a girl and a boy. I wish I could still give the same answer with the same decision, but I've done so much introspection that I don't trust any of my thoughts or feelings as "the" answer to my doubts.

I still have trouble believing in my uncertainty about my gender, and it feels unreal to talk or think about it. I act male supremely well and that makes it even harder to believe. Morever, when I compare myself to other people questioning their gender expression, I feel inadequate: I have explored so little, I've come to this point so late, and the intensity of my feelings is so much less. However, these doubts have never made the feelings go away, and from what I've seen, though they're not as extreme as some people's, they're not normal, either.

Why do I think that I'm not male? That is a question that is probably unanswerable at the core, but I'll try to express some of my reasons. The best description I can give is that it's a death of a thousand cuts: no one thing, or even a hundred things, makes me feel this. However, when I add all the small deviations together, I find a gestalt that escapes explanation in the details. Some pieces are bigger than others: I would cite my desire not to grow up to become a man, my discomfort at the exclusion from female social groups and inclusion in male social groups, my lack of desire to achieve in the male role, and my antipathy to my masculine body features as more important components than the rest.

I perform gender. I can't not: I evaluate my every word, action, and thought in terms of male and female. Even as a kid, before I became hyperconscious of gender distinctions, I would choose to do or not do things because they would violate gender norms. (The rest of the time, I just forgot that gender existed and did what I wanted.) I have no internal sense of how "male" or "female" I should act, so every day I choose, guess, and fake it. I guess most people don't have this problem: either they have a good sense of how masculine or feminine they want to be, and choose their presentation accordingly, or gender to them is as natural as breathing, something they have to exert no conscious effort to handle. I'm not like this, and I never can be.

Reaching beyond these doubts, my intuition is that I'm best described as a transgender: transgender in the sense that my body does not match my gender identity, and transgender in the sense that I don't identify strongly well with male or female. I guess my identity is a complex patchwork of male and female, because it matches with my experiences and explains why I've had such difficulty reaching any understanding or resolution. Even thinking this much is only a beginning, though.

I am suspicious that, if I had been born female, I would not be writing this. In our society, females are allowed to transgress gender: tomboys are not as often discouraged as feminine boys; women going into science and mathematics receive money, mentoring, and other sorts of help; and personal expressions of gender, such as wearing the other gender's clothes, will attract little comment when does as a female while garnering stares, whispering, and silences as a male. This is not to denigrate the difficulties that female-to-male transgenders experience, but in our culture gender is more flexible for females than males, and this curtailed any exploration I might have attempted as a child.

I wish for impossible things and easy answers to difficult questions. I have no experience with the female role; would it fit me better? How would I ever know or find out? If society or humans were different, would I be content with my body and able to accept a male identity? Would being able to change the physical aspects that tie me to a single gender expression at will make me happier? How much of this am I hallucinating, and how much is real? I feel lost and afraid, and I don't even know where to start untangling.

In the real world, though, I have decisions to make, questions to answer, and compromises to reach. I don't think that pretending to be male works for me any more, or will work any better in the future. However, to find out what does work for me will require transgressing gender lines in unsubtle ways: cross-dressing or dressing androgynously, presenting as neuter or androgynous male or female in public, laser or electrolysis to remove my facial and/or body hair, and other equally terrifying acts. I've considered the possibility of attempting to live as a female full-time, but I don't know if that's either realistic or appropriate for me. I think I want to find out, though, so I have no other choice.

You're reading this because I'm tired of concealing my doubts about my gender, because I want to clarify my intentions before I do anything, because I'd appreciate some recognition of my gender identity, because I'd like to hope that you might be able to help me, and most of all because I'm tired of keeping the secret, shutting off important parts of my feelings because I'm afraid. If you want to talk to me about it, feel free to ask me, but don't be surprised if I don't know the answers myself.