See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Anatomical update: I am on my fourth month of birth control and I have been swinging wildly between feeling femme and masculine. Right now my tits are HUGE and it is very uncomfortable. They are swollen to undeniably feminine proportions that are exceptionally hard to hide. In the mean time I found myself in a thrift shop the other day buying up fruity dress shirts, sweaters made for males, a pair of loafers, and trying on every single suit and contemplating purchasing a tailor job. Ironically I felt femme during all of this and delighted in feeling so.
I just finished watching Hedwig and the Angry Inch and feel a combination of repressed anger and sadness. The story of a forced sex change that has left a now-identified woman with relationship issues due to her botched genital makeup and the complex sexuality of her partner. A good watch if I do so recommend it myself. Also rock and roll. Also drag queens.
For many people gender is a sad and confusing thing, starting with misgendered intersexuals to transsexual folks of all kind who don't know what to do with their body, but are pressured to swing one way or the other. Gender is even more confusing for butch lesbians and femme gay men who feel pressured to behave and become the other gender, when really all they want is to be themselves and love the same sex. Gender is confusing for everyone, including straight people who find themselves attracted to someone whose gender is hidden, ambiguous, or in transition, or even in drag. Gender is confusing for parents, and friends, and politicians, and teachers, and firefighters and soldiers and librarians and programmers and coffee baristas, and it is confusing for me.
I have been following a blog called The Dirt from the Dirt written by an anti-trans activist who targets trans* identified individuals and discourages them from altering their bodies with hormones and surgery and instead to "change society". I have come across a blog similar to this in my initial research on the negative effects and confusing feelings around transition. The writer of which identified as a "very ugly female", and was neither proud nor ashamed of it, but accepting and was not interested in transitioning. The more media I find about these sorts of issues the more readily I find that older generations are more accepting of their "condition" and want for everyone else to bugger off while I find that younger generations tend to want to actively change their body to fit their mind. The writers of these anti-trans blogs are definitely older, while the video blogs of the same issues tend to be headed by young, feisty, and hilarious bloggers who love sharing their experiences and their advice.
Speaking of young feisty trans* folks, at the local LGBTQ center I inquired about gender therapy and group sessions only to find that they have trans* youth nights on Mondays! This is definitely a group of people I want to get in touch with and to go through this journey with. At the same center I finally attended that Qigong class; it was a small class in a small room headed by a charming transman and consisting of two transwomen, myself, and another whom I believe to be a transman as well. I went as myself because I forgot to wear my dick that day but apparently my roommate had tipped the teacher about the potential for Eddie to attend, and so when I revealed that I sometimes go out and about as Eddie, he recognized me. I felt inclined to say also that I would attend as Eddie from now on, not only for fun but to further explore my identity within a group I am comfortable practicing my alternative identity with.
Last week on Wednesday I participated in a bike training program aimed at inner city youth to give them a useful set of bike wrenching and riding skills at a middle school age. It is something I have been doing since about a year ago and the other volunteers are peppy environmentalists with a practical twist. The lady whom I recognized from the year before I kept contact with and reintroduced myself as Eddie on Wednesday. It took her a second to realize what I was saying and then she got the idea and introduced me to the kids and other (new) volunteer staff as Mr. Eddie, something which I delighted in. Some of the kids who recognized me from before couldn't quite place me. They had forgotten my name but definitely remembered my face.
That same night after the program I got to hang out with a wonderful gender fluid individual for the weekly femme queer night at the community bike shop. I learned about their story of transition and their former identity as a transwoman, relating to the details of their encounters of love and abuse, violence and mistrust and healing and identity. Gender is a confusing thing, but when you finally realize that neither gender is for you, that in fact sometimes one gender, both genders, an alternative gender, or none at all, is in fact the right thing for you, it becomes even more confusing.
Now, this individual struck me as competent and resourceful and their self identified mental eccentricities partially related to their messy emotional history, and I related to them in many ways as outcasts do, but the thing that interested me the most was their physical transition. Aside from all the mental garbage they swallowed about how important transition is, and all the societal pressures they encountered while trying not to stand out too much, they decided to not pursue surgery because they did not want to change their body. In fact they wanted to maintain their look while changing themselves on the inside, if that makes sense. They wanted to be treated a special and specific way while keeping their personality in tact, in addition to their personal appearance.
While they were on hormones for ten years and developed some unique traits of womanhood, such as a higher voice and breasts, they did not pursue surgery because of the twisted realization that they would not allow themselves to self-mutilate, because that was an internalized traumatic desire pressured by the violent demons held deeply within themselves. This is important to note because many people do dangerous things to themselves to try and reconcile some pain held deeply within themselves. Whether it is a commonly held anxiety about appearance or a traumatic incident that caused them to avoid specific kinds of people, places, things, we all have these things that push us to do things we normally wouldn't do if not for that pain, that voice, that trauma, that important person in our lives.
I myself am victim to traumatic influence which has confused my personal desires with survival techniques. While it is hard enough to figure out what is triggering I also have to constantly analyze where my emotions are coming from. Am I overreacting to this because it is reminiscent of the past? Or am I genuinely having an emotional breakdown due to stress? Am I avoiding a specific sexual activity because it is a trigger or do I just not enjoy it? Do I avoid this kind of person because they remind me of ghosts or do I just not like them very much? Do I dress like a man because I am afraid of being identified as a weak, vulnerable target of a woman, or is this desire innate and simply a more comfortable way of expressing myself?
It is a constant struggle to maintain my sanity in daily life when I live with the looming threat of an emotional lapse. These demons are real, and they affect us all, in their own unique ways. The other day in my sexual pursuits my partner triggered me. It was on purpose, and within a controlled environment, so I was pleased with the activity. I had a disenchanted look in my eyes and pushed them off, them asking if they should untie me and me silently nodding and curling into a ball. They patiently stroked my hair and hugged me and waited for me to fight off whatever they understood for me to be feeling, and I raced through my emotional history at lightning speeds, reliving chunks of unpleasant scenes and feeling trapped and betrayed and used and hurt. During the activity I had mild flashbacks and uneasy feelings, and after going through the motions of having been triggered I felt safe and confident and trusting again. It took untold amounts of time for me to bounce back and be willing to continue being sexual, but it was worth it and is something I want to continue to pursue.
More recently during a sexual activity I was given the reins and went through my exploits without conflict and felt amazing at the end, finally being able to recognize the opposite extremes of my triggers, both ends being based on how in control of the situation I am. Unfortunately the next set of days caused me to feel dysphoric again about gender, confusing how I want others to see me with how I want my partner to see me, and then what parts of me that I want to use during sex with what parts of me they want to use during sex. But that's for another post.
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