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transRecently, I was referred to as a "whatever". The person who called me that is not a friend; it's someone who's never even met me, who heard something from someone about me being transgendered, and maybe even transsexual. I shouldn't care what this person thinks, yet I do. I care because I feel that nobody should ever be referred to as a "whatever". In modern slang, "whatever" is what you say when you wish to challenge, discredit, or invalidate something. When said in jest, among friends, it's benign, but when flung in anger during an argument, it's as malicious as any obscenity. I might be a lot of things people don't understand, I might be confusing, I might not even know what I am some days, but I know one thing- I am not a "whatever".
I am female. By virtue of the fact that I have two shiny X chromosomes and a woman's body complete with breasts and a vagina, I am a woman. No one who looks at my body, in its current state, would ever assume otherwise. The fact that I am not content with my body as it is does not make me male. When I'm out with my friends who use male pronouns with me, I don't get upset when outsiders gender me female. I look forward to experimenting with presenting as male in public, but until I get a binder to hide my ginormous boobies, it's not even within the realm of possibility. I accept that. I'm not in a hurry, and I'm not at war with my femininity. I'm uncomfortable in the body I have now, but I'm at peace with knowing that I can make changes. Just knowing that I can, that it's possible, has lifted a weight from me that I wasn't even aware was dragging me down before. It's like walking around dragging a ball and chain behind you, thinking it's a normal, unchangeable part of life, and then someone says, "y'know, you can get rid of that if you want to."
Aside from pronoun usage, my gender identity won't change when I make those changes in my body. I will always be a gender-variant person. Years from now when I've remade myself into a boy, I imagine I'll still wear skirts sometimes when I feel like it. You might ask, "so, what's the point?" And from the point of view that recognizes only two genders, I can't answer that. Personally, I believe there are at least six genders, on multiple spectrums. Male and female are just opposite ends of one spectrum, or from my understanding, "Masculine male and Feminine female". There are also Feminine Males and Masculine Females. Then there are Androgynes, who are "all of the above", and still another category, at least in theory, who are "none of the above". This is not a new concept- anyone who's taken a couple of anthropology classes can tell you that. Anyway, it's actually quite simple. I identify as a Feminine Male, not a Masculine Female. To someone who's accustomed to only two genders, those might seem like the same thing. To me, they are just as dissimilar as "boy" and "girl". That's why I want to transition. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, I'm from another galaxy entirely. And you know what? I'm proud of it.
I am female. By virtue of the fact that I have two shiny X chromosomes and a woman's body complete with breasts and a vagina, I am a woman. No one who looks at my body, in its current state, would ever assume otherwise. The fact that I am not content with my body as it is does not make me male. When I'm out with my friends who use male pronouns with me, I don't get upset when outsiders gender me female. I look forward to experimenting with presenting as male in public, but until I get a binder to hide my ginormous boobies, it's not even within the realm of possibility. I accept that. I'm not in a hurry, and I'm not at war with my femininity. I'm uncomfortable in the body I have now, but I'm at peace with knowing that I can make changes. Just knowing that I can, that it's possible, has lifted a weight from me that I wasn't even aware was dragging me down before. It's like walking around dragging a ball and chain behind you, thinking it's a normal, unchangeable part of life, and then someone says, "y'know, you can get rid of that if you want to."
Aside from pronoun usage, my gender identity won't change when I make those changes in my body. I will always be a gender-variant person. Years from now when I've remade myself into a boy, I imagine I'll still wear skirts sometimes when I feel like it. You might ask, "so, what's the point?" And from the point of view that recognizes only two genders, I can't answer that. Personally, I believe there are at least six genders, on multiple spectrums. Male and female are just opposite ends of one spectrum, or from my understanding, "Masculine male and Feminine female". There are also Feminine Males and Masculine Females. Then there are Androgynes, who are "all of the above", and still another category, at least in theory, who are "none of the above". This is not a new concept- anyone who's taken a couple of anthropology classes can tell you that. Anyway, it's actually quite simple. I identify as a Feminine Male, not a Masculine Female. To someone who's accustomed to only two genders, those might seem like the same thing. To me, they are just as dissimilar as "boy" and "girl". That's why I want to transition. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, I'm from another galaxy entirely. And you know what? I'm proud of it.
