4.15.2010

My Vagina Monologue

Today I went to an Alternative Vagina Monologues. Inspired to speak about something I don't often speak about and what others around me were talking about, I got up and improvised. Here's the gist of what I said, in full of what I wish I had said, but it still turned out well:

I get up and talk in front of people all the time. I tell them really personal things. I tell them my life story as a trans person. There is one thing that I don't talk about, though, and that's my vagina. My vagina and I have had a complicated relationship. When I first really become aware of it, when I got my first period, right before Halloween in 7th grade (which was the worst trick-or-treating experience ever), I despised it. I was so...something, a feeling that I don't have a word for...about having my period, that I hid it from my mom for two days. Eventually I told her by slipping a note under her door. As the rest of puberty continued, I hated all of it.

When I became sexually active, I liked my vagina a little more because, well, it made me feel good. But I still didn't like to talk about it. Or think about it. Or acknowledge that it was there.

When I began to question my gender, I hated my vagina a lot more. For what it represented and for what me having it made people think I was.

But as I stand here today, as I have gotten this far in my transition, and the voice I hear coming out of these speakers back at me is a voice that sounds right for one of the first times in my life, I'm really comfortable with vagina. I don't talk about my vagina, now, however, because instead of making me uncomfortable, its existence makes other people uncomfortable. And I'm finding that the more I continue my life as a guy, the more important it is to me that people know I have a vagina and the more important my vagina has become to me.

3.01.2010

Shorter Posts...

I've been on T for six months now. It's crazy that I'm passing all the time now at work and most of the time at school. I was in Boston today and every single person addressed me as sir. It was kind of surreal. Anyway, I have a lot of random thoughts but I haven't had much time to compose a topic to write about even though I've been thinking about it for a while.

Anyway, I've been working on this paper about Gender Identity Disorder in children and I came across the quote that really stuck out because it reminded me of, well...me!

Jonah was 2 when his father, Joel, first realized that no amount of enthusiasm could persuade his child to play with balls. Trucks languished untouched. Fire engines gathered dust. Joel says Jonah much preferred girl toys, even his stuffed animals were female.

"Like, I would always say, 'What's that guy's name?' and the response would always be, 'Oh, she's bunny, she's, you know, this or that,'" Joel says. (link)
Every single one of my stuffed animals was a boy. Even my beloved Chuck, who is a bunny wearing pink plaid and used to have make-up before it was loved off. There was one that I acquired later in my childhood (the ripe old age of 10...) that I really wanted. She was a big huge rabbit and had a huge bow on one ear. I had no choice, I couldn't make her a boy because of that bow. Maybe my parents influenced that, I'm not sure.

It is always revolutionary to me when a part of my story falls into the "typical trans narrative." Like anyone, I often question if I'm really trans enough. As my gender variantness is moving from almost total androgyny to effeminate guy, it is sometimes hard to deal with. I'm so used to sticking out and not fitting in. But at the same time, I am so undeniably comfortable when I used to be so undeniably uncomfortable I can't help but know that I'm walking the right path.