So, I work as a library clerk and spend a lot of time shelving books. Lately, it's gone from a peaceful repetitive task to one that allows me too much time alone with my thoughts. Today, I frequently thought about chr!stianity and it's relationship to my mom's increasingly conservative political views.
Recently, we had a conversation on the phone where she asked me if LGBTQ+ subjects should be taught to children in school. I explained to her that if I had had any clue that I was trans, I would've sooner been able to put a name to the feelings that made me depressed and suicidal for most of my life. She seemed to hear me and take my view seriously, to a degree. I didn't ask her if she agreed with me. I'm afraid what she'll say.
I did ask her why she wanted to know. Apparently there was a "knee-jerk reaction" from her sources to the idea of teaching about LGBT stuff in schools, and she wanted to know my viewpoint. I had hoped for a "you're right, honey, I believe you" but what she said was, "I don't think either side is right" and it doesn't sit well with me.
I'm becoming quite tired of my parent's inconsistency. I feel like I've never had a stable place to exist, in spite of the fact that they housed me and fed me and, I believe, did their best to raise me. They are both so broken by the systems they grew up in, but I'm tired of using that as an excuse. I would like to be content with the fact that I have the power to break that cycle. In spite of their example, I became more compassionate, with the strength to withstand the pressure of social expectations. I will not be having children to transfer my trauma to. I see the world as it is, and I am more conscious of the harm I cause.
My parents have been calling me by the correct name and pronouns for years. It took them some time to fully accept me. Taking testosterone seemed to be the turning point, which I think is unfortunate. A lot of people didn't take me seriously until I got HRT. It's sad that trans people have to do that. I was dismissed constantly prior to making these changes. Someone I once considered a good friend actually said to me that he wasn't comfortable referring to me as a man until I started looking like one.
I'm really fucking sick of being trans sometimes. Or rather, I'm sick of cis society. I'm sick of thinking about it. I don't care that I'm trans. I cherish the moments of peace where I can exist without awareness of my transness. I'm just a person. I don't know why I am the way I am, only that I put every last effort I could muster into being a woman and it just wasn't working out.
I'm also really fucking sick of being tragedy porn for cis people. I'm not "brave" -- I was never given a fucking choice. It was fight or die. I wasn't "born in the wrong body." I was born in my body, and I take a medication to make my body feel a little more normal. Being trans isn't a disability, deformity, or form of mental illness -- but is it any different when someone takes antidepressants to exist easier in their own head? Chr!stians love to say everyone has a cross to bear. This is just mine, I guess.
My mom was confused and dismissive when I first came out to her as genderqueer. She shut me down and made me feel like I was being hysterical. I have often called her my best friend, and we certainly have trauma bonded over surviving my dad. I used to let her define my reality.
I don't know when the turning point was. But there came a point when she took me seriously, and she called me by the right name and pronouns before I got on HRT. I think it came from a place of sincerity. We were close for so much of my life. We used to smoke weed together and hang out all the time. Then her disillusionment with the medical industry took her down the rabbit hole into Q An0n land and before I knew it she was donating money to the Tr/ump campaign.
It used to be kinda quirky when she talked about how the reptilians were feeding on our "loosh" (negative emotions), but now she fully believes the world is run by satanists and considers herself to be a right-wing conservative chr!stian. She's also a nudist, which I only mention because it doesn't seem very conservative to me??
The thing that worries me now is that she's becoming so deeply indoctrinated by it that she'll start to see me as some kind of misguided sinner. There's still a part of me that wants to believe she has more sense than that, but. lol Like, does she think that my "liberal" upbringing made me trans? In that same conversation about LGBT education, she asked me if I wanted to be a man because I was always imitating my dad. And I was pretty confused. When have I ever wanted to be like my dad? I told her I was always looking to her for an example, and wanted to be like her. And in spite of that, I felt that I was a man.
I hate that I have to talk about this. I wish I could put my thoughts together in a coherent way, and make some kind of point. But I don't know if I can change anyone's mind.
It doesn't matter how other people see me. I'm stealth at work. I probably don't have to be, but I just don't know how people would react, and I've already had some negative experiences with people in the workplace before. I think most people, when they find out I'm trans, they lean more towards the "Wow, I couldn't tell!" camp (which I also hate tbh) rather than the "So, you're not really gay?" camp.
I'm not brave. I'm scared and I'm tired. And I'm angry. I'm very fucking angry.
I've wasted enough time worrying about what other people think. I've been acknowledged as a man 99% of the time every day for the past five or six years.
I recently posted a thing on Facebook about gendered terms I'm comfortable with, and there seems to have been some misunderstanding. I've been out as non-binary for a few years as well. And I'm starting to really reconsider what that means for me.
It doesn't help that this past December, I shaved my entire body and put on a dress to attend my best friend's wedding as her maid of honor. To me, it wasn't a big deal. I had a fantastic time. I felt so pretty, and I enjoyed being gendered differently by people throughout the night.
I enjoy being a gender chameleon. When I'm dressed that way, I don't necessarily care if I'm seen as a woman? But I do think of it more as drag than conforming to femininity, necessarily. If you see me as a woman when I'm literally in drag, that is the fucking point. But if I'm binding and I have a full beard and I'm in a polo shirt and cargo shorts, and you call me a woman, you are going to look like a fucking idiot, and I'm gonna laugh in your face.
Being in a place of healing has allowed me to better understand how I see myself. I'm a gay man. I like having a beard and a deep voice, and I'm lucky enough not to feel shame about my body and the sum of its parts. I'm attracted to men in a gay way. I'm seen as a man by my partner, my friends, my co-workers, my neighbors, by the public who frequents the library where I work.
I don't care for standards of masculinity that prevent me from wearing make up, certain clothing, nail polish. I don't feel ashamed for being short or for sometimes feeling sad. I wish that I could express my gender in the way that I want, but men are not allowed to be soft or pretty, and doing so leaves me vulnerable to being verbally and physically assaulted. Not only that, but expressing my femininity also always seems to be interpreted as a "go ahead" to misgender me and take my decision to transition into question.
So let me be clear. I'm not a woman. In a greater, existential sense, I have transcended gender itself to see it for what it truly is. But if I had to choose (and I do, apparently) then I'm a man. Just think of me as a regular guy.
Cis people think they know what it means to be free of gender. But until you hop the fence, you just don't. Until you commit a gender taboo so unforgiveable that you realize you could run the risk of losing your job, you have no idea. They blithely regurgitate the mantra of "gender is a biological characteristic" as though women were meant to be hairless and men meant to be bastions of logic, free of the taint of emotion. You will never truly be free until you've watched yourself die and rebuilt yourself from the ashes.
