Some Rambling

Normally I like to be all methodical and set out with a topic in mind. I don't have one here, so forgive me.

I have a lot of errant thoughts running around in my head. It seems like ages ago I wrote that Gender Lineage. It was little over a week ago. I have settled into my life with male pronouns well. I am finally getting to the point where I am comfortable talking about myself in the third person with male pronouns, but I struggle with telling stories of when I was "still" a girl. I stammer as I decide whether changing the name is useful or hurtful to the story. Changing pronouns in the story is nearly impossible.

I struggle with the idea that no one actually sees me as male, except for my trans friends who are used to dealing with a conflicting body and gender presentation. There is only one major person in my life who has known me ONLY as Ryan and ONLY as he. I am anxious to move where at least everyone will know me only as Ryan. That previous statement was a lie. There are a lot of people who I've met this semester who theoretically know me only as Ryan and as he but nearly everyone in my life is terrible at pronouns. Yet, how can I expect anyone else to be good at pronouns when I am terrible at them myself. Having spent an increased amount of time with my trans friends lately, however, I am finally starting to get more comfortable as opposed to self conscious.

I never used to think my chest was a problem. Then I started binding regularly. At an event last week where I was wearing a suit (for the first time while binding), I was amazed at my reflection. It is so relieving to see myself in the mirror that way. I like the pictures of me that get put up on the internet now. If I am binding, I don't look at the pictures and search for the curve of my boobs. Well, I do. But it's not there. I also like that it pulls in my hips some, which were also annoying. When I went out clubbing last night, I was binding under a muscle shirt. Despite being terribly hot, it felt so good. I am NEVER comfortable in a tight shirt, let alone a tank-toppy one. This week, remembering the terrible hot sweatiness that was wearing my binder, I opted for the muscle shirt over a sports bra. I couldn't stand looking at myself in the mirror at the club. I think any of my return trips will involve a binder...

I cannot wait to start T. I am hoping to start it at the beginning of June. I hope that my voice begins to change by the time I start school. That would be ideal, although it probably won't work out that way.

I am worried about losing my singing voice. Which is stupid, because right now I hate my singing voice because, well, it's so damn feminine. I am curious to see where my new range will fall.

The idea of top surgery scares the bejesus out of me. And if you know me, I don't ever say things like "bejesus." The thing that is killing me is that I know that I could probably pay for my transition if I weren't continuing on with school. I know that that is not a reason to stop going to school and, in fact, continuing onto school is one of the few things keeping me sane. I cannot imagine transitioning in the workplace, especially as a teacher.

I think that is all that is on my mind right now.


_{Don't suppose I'll ever know
What it means to be a man
Something I can't change
I'll live around it}

Originally Written 2.17.04

I thought I'd put something in here about when I first started figuring out my gender problems. As you'll see, I've come a long way:

So, for all the world to see, I'm griping around with gender issues. And, quite frankly, I wish I weren't. Because, like everything else that involves me, it's not simple. I would be fine if I came to a realization that maybe I was transgender. I mean, as fine as...well, you get my point.

However, I think, that when it comes to that, just like everything else, I'm stuck in the middle.

I've always had this uncomfortableness with my body. But it wasn't enough to send up any red flags in my head or anything. When I was little, I played the Dad in house, but mainly because he went to work and came home and didn't do much. The mom had to cook and clean. And the kids had to be all baby-like, and I was taller than most the kids anyway. It wasn't an issue of me wanting to be a guy. Going through puberty - what girl doesn't wish she was dealing with random erections instead of monthly bleeding and cramping?

I came to terms with my sexuality at the end of 9th grade. And the discomfort with my body lessened greatly. Mainly because it explained how I could look in the mirror and think that I was sexy in the way that I saw it. That if I saw myself on the street, I would go "Wow, she is hot."

That was all fine until I got involved with Jim. I'm just generally uncomfortable with myself - not the situation - when things get intimate. Something about me just feels...off. And it was a bit of a hurdle. And Jim is just amazing to deal with it, because it still comes up occasionally.

Maybe I would feel more comfortable in my body, were I a guy. But honestly, I don't think so. Emotionally and mentally, I am very female. So why is that a problem? Were I a guy, wouldn't I be saying "Well, I feel like a guy, but I'm emotionally a girl, so where does that put me?"

Where does that put me?

Same Name, Different Pronouns

As I try again my hand at this whole blogging thing...I thought I'd update from last time.

The most recent post was about how I had started going by Ryan in April. That went amazingly well. A little too well, one might suppose, as it forced me to deal with so many things. Mainly, that it suddenly became completely unbearable to continue to use female pronouns with myself. Evey "her" and "she" grated on my ears like an obvious absurdity. About two months ago, I started using male pronouns with a couple close friends and that very quickly spread like wildfire. After my initial test period and acclamation (getting over the "who the hell is 'he'?"), I was suddenly so much more comfortable that I came out to my college activist group and the lgbt discussion group. Also, I got an internship at an lgbt organization, and immediately started going by male pronouns. Almost too quickly (I probably should have waited a little bit for this, but too late now) I came out to my parents.

I guess I should explain that besides just switching pronouns, I more or less decided to transition. It is something I only touched on briefly in this blog and usually with great trepidation, but it is something that I had slowly come to accept as an eventuality in my life. The trick to it being an eventuality is that eventually I would have to deal with it.

A trip to the ABC store is what triggered the whole avalanche of thought processes. I just wanted to buy some rum to make truffles (although those truffles never got made...), so I picked up a bottle and got in line. The cashier said "I can help you here, sir," and I flinched and walked up to the counter. I normally would have been ecstatic to be sir'd, but in a situation where someone is about to look at my license, I would rather it didn't happen. I showed him my ID (with long hair and all), and he didn't believe it was me and said as much. I grabbed my student ID and handed that to him too. In the process, I said five words, and he suddenly "realized" I was a girl. He proceeded to give me a long-ass explanation, that quite frankly, I've since forgotten because it was so aggravating, as to how exactly he knew I was a girl and pointed out all my features that told him.

I suddenly realized that I just didn't want to be a girl anymore.

I facebook messaged a friend of mine and we got together to talk over some coffee. He asked me what it was that was keeping me back from transitioning and I realized, besides fear, nothing. There was nothing in being a girl that I wanted to hold onto. I had coffee with another friend a week or so later and he had pretty much the same thing to say. Over the terms of the next couple of weeks (full of sleepless nights), I realized that it was something that I could see myself doing. That I could see myself being happier as. That I could see my future in a much clearer picture.

In my head, I always imagined myself male. It was not that it was a conscious choice, but more the subconscious knowledge that I could not be an older woman. The word "woman" makes me sick to my stomach as it is. That is NOT me.

Today, I became frustrated with my counselor. I am seeing him through University Counseling Services. I think I am one of his first transgendered patients. I like him overall, although I always end up defensive when talking about anyone but myself. Like when I talk about the conflict with my family in high school, he always points out what was wrong with how they acted. Clearly, I know he is right, but I feel like I should justify their actions. I became frustrated today because he very suddenly became alarmed that I was moving too fast. Firstly, I don't need him to be alarmed about how fast I'm moving because I already thought of that. It is alarming me. Everything is happening too fast to process, but at this point, I've done everything I'm going to do for like six months at least. I have tried to explain to him the complexities of my gender identity. He seems stuck on the fact that I don't identify 100% male. That I said in a perfect world, I wouldn't have to choose. I know he is just trying to make sure that I don't make poor decisions, but at the same time, it seems like he is trying to get me to change my mind.

I haven't touched upon sex with him, which I suppose would make a big difference. I also realized as I read back on this blog, that I have gotten increasingly uncomfortable with my body as I become more entrenched in figuring out my gender identity. I still agree with genderqueer, but there is more to it. This is why I feel like that humurous identity of "lumberjack" fits me so well. Lumberjack is inherently masculine. It involves flannel, boots, and facial hair, but our infused meaning into it is an element of gender bending. I will never fit cleanly into a box, but I want to at least make an attempt to find a box that I am physically and mentally most comfortable in.

In my counseling sessions (I hate the word therapy), I have expressed an exhaustion with fighting the world. It is true. I am tired of fighting. Obviously, that is the wrong reason to change my body in irreversible ways. But that is only half the story. I wouldn't be quite as tired if I didn't feel like I were fighting for something that wasn't true. It's not that I don't fit into society's idea of "girl," it's that I flat out am not a girl. Am I 100% boy? I don't think so, but I'm some percent.

I should have facial hair. I should have a deeper voice. I should have a flat chest. I should have a penis. When I look in the mirror or at my body, these things are not there and it makes me sad.

I am tired. I am tired of convincing myself that my body is the one that I am okay with.

_{But I know that someday,
someday, I'll offer up
a song I was made to play
until even the mocking birds
don't know what to say}

Name Change

So four, maybe five, people are starting to call me Ryan. Starting to go by Ryan has been something that I have been considering doing since my senior year of high school. I am about to hit my senior year of college, to give you some perspective. I had planned originally to start going by Ryan when I got to college, starting fresh with a new name. I wouldn't have to explain it that way. I could just say that I've always gone by my middle name. It makes sense. I chickened out. I didn't bother saying anything and I let it slip to the back of my mind, always using the excuse to myself that, well, it is too late now.

I shouldn't have passed up that chance to not have to explain it. At that time, however, I was worried about someone calling me Ryan in front of my parents and then having to explain it to them. I don't know why I'm so afraid of explaining it to them. My dad just gets me. He probably wouldn't even ask. My mom and I talk about trans stuff all the time. We haven't talked about genderqueer stuff but she is extremely open minded and I don't think she would actually have a problem with it.

I am not changing my pronouns, however. I don't pass very well. The fact that Ryan is my middle name makes it so much easier. All I have to say is that I've always hated my first name and I finally decided to go by my middle name. Ryan is gender neutral, obviously, it's my middle name.

Now the thought of telling people scares the shit out of me. What if someone calls me in my lie about hating my first name. I don't hate it and I've come to identify with it but it's so girly that I am starting to feel uncomfortable telling people my first name when they first meet me. I always dread roll call in classes when professors call Felicia on the first day and I raise my hand, terrified that they will act awkwardly if they had assumed I was male before. I mean, I'm not gonna change it on my roll call, so I guess it doesn't matter. I will be going by F. Ryan. Well, if we get this non-discrimination policy passed, maybe I can change my roll call. That would be fantastic. Either way, I am terrified of having that conversation with people. What if they ask too many questions? What if they become uncomfortable with me? I mean I'm not sure what else I could throw at my good friends that would surprise them.

I have no reason to be very nervous. I know it will all be okay in the end. I had hoped to figure some of it out in writing this but I still have no cause. I guess it is the conversation. The what-ifs that are eating at me. That is the part that scares me the most when I think about whether or not I want to transition. Right now I don't think I do. But the thought of having to come out if I decide to terrifies me.

I don't want to have that conversation.

I just want to be me. No explanations necessary.

_{You know how it feels
You read between the lines
And know me better than I do}

Memoir for Teaching Writing

The sun was always warm but never hot as it set over Lake Royal on our Wednesday night soccer practices. I was only seventeen, not quite sure what to do as head coach of the Red Barons, a group of enthusiastic five and six year olds who were as excited about being at soccer practice as they were about the rest of the world. The Red Barons, five girls and three boys, would run through their drills having lots of fun even though they didn’t really understand why they were doing drills in the first place but knowing that the promised scrimmage (or “real soccer,” as they called it) was coming at the end of practice. I would play with them and chase after their stray shots to keep the tiny, size three soccer balls from floating away in the lake or being stolen by ornery geese. Their parents were excited, too; they could be found sitting on the sidelines in lawn chairs and on picnic blankets chatting eagerly with each other about their days and their young soccer stars.
I was always nervous about what the parents would think of me, being that I was still a high school student, that I had never quite grown out of being a “tom-boy,” and that I was coaching their impressionable young children. Adults in general made me uncomfortable as I got older; I liked being the parent-friendly kid with good manners that my friends’ parents did not mind having around. As it became clearer and clearer that I was never going to grow out of being a “tom-boy” and that it became clearer and clearer that I was their son’s or daughter’s “gay friend,” I worried about what it would do to my parent-friendly reputation. I know that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that the last thing I should be doing is feeling guilty about it, but I could not help but shake that feeling that these kids’ parents would figure out that I was gay and start thinking of me as some evil pervert.
I just loved soccer. It should not even be a “gay” issue. Why did something so simple as soccer have me questioning myself so much? People do not have an issue with the “gay thing” as long as I keep my mouth shut. Don’t ask, don’t tell. That’s the way the world works. It is the “tom boy” thing that makes people uncomfortable, that makes me tell without ever saying a word. The formal word for it is gender variance. Being a gender variant individual is what gets me thrown out of public bathrooms and what makes me fear for my soccer moms’ and dads’ approval.
I did not, however, fear for my team’s approval. They were eager to learn the basics of soccer. I was more real than Mia Hamm or David Beckham and therefore better. At the ages of five and six, it did not matter that I was only seventeen. They thought I was thirty years old, at least. They certainly did not assume that I was gay. To them, I was Coach Felicia. That is all that mattered.
Once I got over being dumbfounded by the fact that it was me, in fact, that had to run practice and come up with the drills, I loved every second of it. Wednesdays were my favorite day of the week. I had certainly never looked forward to my own soccer practices over the years as much as I did to the ones with the Red Barons. It was an hour of life where I could be myself and combine two activities that I loved into one: playing soccer and working with kids. I came up with my own drills and I also had the chance to bring back some of the more enjoyable drills that had fallen by the wayside in my own soccer career as I had gotten older. I taught the kids how to do throw-ins, goal kicks, corner kicks, and all those essential parts of soccer. My favorite part, however, was talking about my team’s days had gone and having other meaningful discussions with them.
I have found over the years that talking with young children is one of my favorite pastimes. One can talk to a child about anything in the world if it can be simplified down to the child’s terms. Sometimes in trying to tell a child about a problem that I was having, I would break it down and realize that it was hardly anything that I should be worrying about at all. The other wonderful thing about talking with young children is that they are never afraid to ask about exactly what they want to know.
“Why do you wear boy’s clothes?” Lydia, one of the Red Barons, asked me one day.
I froze. What do I say? I certainly was not about to go into an explanation of gender identity, the gender binary, and how I do not fit in it, even though that is exactly what had been occupying my mind lately. I thought for a second and quickly came to an answer. Or rather, I came to a question.
“Why do you wear girl’s clothes?” I inquired.
It was her turn to think. She looked up to the sky as she twirled her finger in her gigantic mass of curly brown hair.
“Because,” she replied, “they’re comfortable.”
“Well, that’s exactly why I wear boy’s clothes.” I said.
It was as simple as that. Lydia continued on with her drill, accepting my answer with no hesitation.
Another day at practice, we were finally getting around to our habitual “real soccer.” I was setting up the cones for makeshift sidelines and goals when I started thinking about how to split up the teams since we were missing one boy and one girl that day. In order to make the teams even, I decided that it would be the girls against the boys and me. I figured I could probably count for two Red Barons and make the teams even without making one of the girls be “on the boys’ team.”
I called out to end the water break and announced that it would be boys against girls with me playing on the boys’ team.
“But you’re not a boy!” Zach informed me.
“I know, but this way the teams will be even.” I told him.
It was at this time that the conversation went on without me as the Red Barns began to talk amongst themselves.
“Well,” Stephanie contemplated, “she does have short hair.”
“That’s because she has a Mohawk!” David protested. I did not have a Mohawk; I had a faux-hawk, a close relative of the Mohawk that involves more hair.
“No she doesn’t! A Mohawk has dots on the side. She has more hair.” Zach argued. I am assuming that by dots he was implying that the sides of my head needed to be shaved to qualify for the full blown Mohawk.
It was then that Lydia looked up at me and simply stated, “You’re weird.”
I laughed and we went on with the scrimmage. Not another thought was given to how my gender may or may not be determined by my hair that may or may not be a Mohawk. I chuckled to myself on the drive home.
I was glad to have the break of the soccer practices. It was a chance to get away from the heavy load of schoolwork as I neared the end of senior year as well as the thoughts that had been weighing heavy in my head about gender. I knew I did not fit into traditional gender roles; I had known that much for a while. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly manage to fit into this binary world in a way without completely alienating myself. I struggled to find allies I could talk to. Much of the world is unready or unwilling to think about gender critically. It is a system far too ingrained in society to be something to be messing around with. That was precisely my problem.
As I spent more time out in the world by myself, the fact that my gender ambiguity made people uncomfortable became more apparent. When I went to Starbucks to grab a latte, the barista would go back and forth between gender pronouns feeling embarrassed, apologizing profusely, and then forgetting my drink order. I would smile and reassure him that it was fine but I could not help feeling a little like it was my fault that I had embarrassed him so much.
I also developed a fear of public bathrooms, even within my own school. There is no place where it is more terrible to transgress gender norms than in bathrooms, it turns out. I have only been thrown out of one bathroom so far and barred entrance from another, but I learned quickly that I was not welcome in the deeply female world of the women’s bathroom. My entrance into the bathroom has often caused silence accompanied by horrified stares that were followed by snickers and loud discussion of whether or not I was in the wrong bathroom once I went into a stall. I learned which bathrooms in my high school were nearly always empty. I often walked across the school to use the bathroom in the music wing because I knew most of the people in band and was less likely to run into an uncomfortable situation.
As I got my identity more clearly into focus, the world around me seemed to start spinning out of control. Gender, I learned, dictates everything. Being ambiguous in appearance, and worse, actions made me an instant outcast wherever I went. I started to fear meeting new people, like my soccer parents, because I did not want to deal with their silent judgment and often awkward exchanges.
Toward the end of the soccer season, my hair had started to get too long to put up into its faux-hawk and I started wearing a hat to practice to keep my hair out of my eyes. The first day I wore a hat, I was shooting some goals with the kids who had come early while we waited for everyone else to arrive.
Zach, from far away, yelled out, “Who’s that boy?” He didn’t recognize me in the hat. I said nothing, waiting for him to get closer.
“You’re not a boy,” he yelled out once he recognized me. “You’re just Coach Felicia.”
I smiled. He understood me. They all did. Here, in the world of the Red Barons who were too new in this deeply gendered world to be made uncomfortable by my gender nonconformity, I was just Coach Felicia.

A Response

I should have expected so much intellectual shit from you. ;-) Now back to my normal aloof writing style (read the comments on the previous entry to catch up):

Where do I even start? I would like to say that I’ve thought about everything you’ve said, but I haven’t quite thought about all of it. Reading Transgender Warriors brought a lot of these issues with the social construction of gender identity to the forefront of my mind. And I appreciate and understand all of these. To step back and say that gender is all this social construction and we should just throw it out the window is great and postmodern and I am a great fan of postmodernity. I wish that it worked.

It all goes back to why I'm writing this blog. Why am I? Okay, so I am a bit of an attention whore. But fishing for attention aside, it was to figure out where I stand. It has a lot to do with the title, with the words to that song: To those that understand/I extend my hand/To the doubtful I demand/Take me as I am. I know exactly who I am and how I feel and how I want to be seen. What I want to know is where do I fit into this binary society? How do I exist and stay true to my inner self in this binary society? How do I teach those around me that there is no such thing as "normal"? How do I teach myself? How do I not absolutely despise the girliness that is such a key aspect of my personality? How do I not fret over every interaction with a stranger, wondering how I'm going to be read?

I am constantly trying to understand gender. Why do I like baggy pants? If girls wore baggy pants, would I want to wear tight pants? If I were male-bodied, would I want long hair? The funniest part about this whole gender thing is that it is such a big fucking deal, 90% of the world doesn't give it a second thought, and it is all completely ridiculous and totally arbitrary. If we took all the clothes away though, what would I have? How would I convey to the world how exactly I want to be treated?

There is a picture of me that I think is the exact expression of my gender. I was going to describe it, but then I decided to just post it. I don't know where the original one went, but this is slightly photoshopped, but you can see that:
That is me. It was before I started wearing boxers, but I had stolen the whole gym shorts under my pants thing from Jim. I want to be my image of masculine and this is it; my pretend-boxers (now real) sticking out of my pants and a sports bra. I know that there is nothing traditionally masculine about a sports bra, but in my little genderfucked world, it is one of the highest forms of masculinity. On a side note, I was probably 16 in this photo and I miss that stomach!

So I know in my brain that gender is this big social construct that shouldn't mean a damn thing. My biggest struggle with this is why, then, does my body not fit? As the Gender in Plaid photo suggests, why does my nudity end at the boxers? There is something there, tying sex and gender together, I just wish it made an ounce of sense.

_{Taking in the view from the outside
Feeling like the underdog
Watching through the window I'm on the outside
Living like the underdog}

The Return

I've long ignored my own issues, long enough to have forgotten the password as well as the existence of this blog. Long enough to settle into a weird comfort zone with myself and the conflict of my career and my identity pushed far into the background.

I probably would have continued down this road of pretending everything was okay until something happened. Rather, until someone happened. Through the grace of the never ending web of dyke drama, the girlfriend met someone over the summer who, for lack of a better term, is a lot like me. I don't know what else to say there without going into too much detail. What matters is that I finally have someone to talk to and that I've realized I can't keep running from my life, from who I am.

I also have it good because the girlfriend has some gender issues of her own. I mean, I have somewhat of an ally. Someone who takes care to pay attention to how I feel, to how I want to be seen, to how I want to be treated, to how I want to be touched and where. And that is truly incredible. I'm not sure, however, if I am stable enough in my own gender identity, which for the most part is static, to help her deal with her own fluid gender identity. I am not exactly the person to help because I don't understand wanting to be girly one day and masculine the next. I have trouble dealing with this changing identity and how to deal with it. It present a whole new set of challenges that I don't know if I am in any shape to deal with. I apologize.

This new person (who shall henceforth be denoted with the initial C) can be more of an ally, I think. At least, in a different way. Spending a week with C gave me a really interesting chance to see how the world sees me. C is my height, of similar gender presentation, and similar mannerisms (including the whole valley girl aspect). I was always fascinated watching her talk because it was sometimes akin to looking in a mirror. I was also elated that my mother got to meet her because here was someone else, like me, in my house. I quickly realized, somewhat to my disappointment, that I wasn't seeing C like the world sees C, or like the world sees me, for that matter. I was seeing C through the tainted lense of being in a similar frame of mind.

Last summer, I sat in Jim's driveway and had a conversation with him about gender. It was about how he had fallen into the gender binary and how I was still out at sea. I bring this up because I told him that I had come up with percentages. I'm not even a math person, so I don't know why I bothered putting it in terms like this, but I had come to the conclusion that my gender/sexual identity was 30% lesbian, 40% straight guy (ish), 30% gay guy. The straight guy is in sexuality only, not in personality, thank you. Although I realize the broad generalizations I am making about straight guys being douche-bags, but I don't want to be lumped into that generalization myself. Jim made the observation that, yes, that is 70% male. And of course, this doesn't really quantify my identity in any real way, only in an extremely limiting system that somewhat makes sense to the average joe. It also more applies to the laws of my attraction and not how I act and/or present.

Back to my time with C. After I realized that I wasn't seeing what the world saw, I began to think about what I did see. C emanated male energy, and I am not even one who puts a whole lot of whatever into energies and auras, but there was a definite maleness about her. (I realize that I struggle with pronouns, as I often do about myself, but I am not quite comfortable with gender neutral pronouns; I also realize that if I used them more then I would be more comfortable.) A maleness that I can't quite explain nor address adequately in this post. I, per usual, began to wonder if only she had this maleness. That I was making it up that we were similar. Yeah, we ID'd similarly, but what does that really mean in the long run if she is standing there emanating this energy that I could only aspire to in order to be taken seriously.

We talked on our last night together about this. I confided to her that I was so excited to be around her and to have finally met her and to finally be with someone who was more like me than anyone I had ever met. I sounded like a total fanboy for sure, but I have made it a point lately to tell people how I really feel about them. I think it is important if at times awkward. She seemed to echo the sentiment (at least I remember that, it was two am so hopefully I didn't make it up). I told her that I saw her mostly as a gay man and to my surprise (and excitement!) she said the same about me.

I'm not sure how my girlfriend sees me, but it meant so much to hear someone say that. Instead of someone telling me that the male illusion failed because I was too girly and giggled too much, that I was being seen as I acted. I suppose in response to the first statement of this paragraph, I need to have that conversation. Granted, she knows how to treat me most of the time, but she's never told me how I appear. I've gotten so used to being seen as male until I open my mouth, that I never thought that anyone could see past that.

I have a lot more musings about my adventures in Women's Choir and the ever looming issue of Sex. I'm determined now, with new vigor, to figure myself out in the quietly public forum so that I have a record of it, so that those close to me can read what I can't say aloud, and so that maybe even perfect strangers can have a sense of what lies beyond the binary.

_{But some day we'll catch a glimpse of eternity
As the world stands still, for a moment
And I guess we will be making history
When we all join hands just to watch the sky}

Always on My Mind

I cannot stop thinking about it. I have never had these issues stay in my head so long. I think a lot of it has to do with me being home for the summer and not having much other stuff to do than sit and think.

Just now, I was asleep for like six hours and I kept waking up. I was so restless because it was all I could think about.

I do not want to think about it anymore!!! I know where I stand. I think. I like my body. I really do...ok, so a lot of the time I wish I was male below the waste but that is the one thing that I cannot do anything about! I also know that I want to pass.

I want to be a fucking teacher. I cannot be a teacher if I am female bodied passing for male. This is hell. Why does the world suck? I want to teach, but I do not think that I will be able to. I do not know how I am going to deal with this. It keeps pressing closer and closer.

Do I change my name? I like Felicia. It is so overtly feminine. I like Ryan a lot. It is my middle name after all.

How would I tell my parents? I guess I do need to get some input from experienced people. I am so tired of my mother being "disappointed" in me. This is just one more thing. Now I never will turn out to be her darling little girl. It was bad enough I had to be lesbian. It would be bad enough I wanted to be a boy. Something in between? Never.

I do not think that even if I transitioned I could ever be a high school teacher. Nobody would want some freak teaching their kids. I would have had to do it already. I would have to at least do it before I get out of college, get all the legal stuff done, make sure that it would say Ryan on my diploma. Make sure that they thought I was male my whole life.

I cannot pass for male. I am too feminine. Everyone would just think I was a gay guy. It would scream it on my resume. Even if I had a beard, everyone would know. I giggle too much. There's too much of the valley girl left in my system. I guess the male horomones would quelch my inner valley girl.

Why did I have to want to be a teacher? I do have a small ambition to be a librarian at the Library of Congress now, though. Or do youth outreach work. If I worked somewhere like NOVAM, I would be accepted. Hopefully.

Maybe I need to talk to someone. I think I know who I want to talk to if I decide to talk to someone.

I apologize for frantic jumpiness.

_{"Helpless hysteria
A false sense of urgency
Trapped in my phobia
Possessed by anxiety
Run
Try to hide
Overwhelmed by this complex delirium"}

Playing Catch-Up

So I did the worst thing you can do when you start a project. I forgot about it.

The drag show went amazingly. I made a few people jealous and gained a girlfriend. Now forgive me for not being linear.

The whole girlfriend, lesbian, genderqueer thing. It's such a confusing thing for me. Labels suck anyway, but they are so important to this world. I was earning myself $15 today by filling out a trans health survery. It was funny because I did not really have anything of value to contribute, because being young, not out, and still under the health-insurance wing of my parents, I have had little to no medical harassment. I know that maybe, one day, if I ever get the guts to come out and do something along the lines of transitioning (not saying that I want to, I have not figured that out yet) I will face it. Anyway, after I filled that out and felt kind of silly because they did not want to hear my side of it, I was reminded that I have to go to the dentist, and last time I went to the dentist, he came in the room, thought I was a boy, and then looked at my chart and it was awkward. Of course he kept making comments about how pretty I was the rest of the time.

Wait, that's not where I was going with this. Where Iwas going with this was, at the beginning of the survery it asked me how I identified in the gender spectrum. I clicked "Gender queer." Then, it asked me my sexual orientation, and out of habit, I clicked "Lesbian." Those are two very conflicting statements, and there was also a day when I would have fought to never identify as a lesbian. In fact, I changed my answer to just plain queer because my motto is "Odd as in Queer." The fact of the matter is that no matter how I see myself inside, because I'm not out about it, the world percieves me as a lesbian...so why not just tell the world that is what I am?

At DC Pride I bought a shirt that says LGBT on it and then under that it says "Ask me which."

Anyway, I already wrote about labels once, I do not need to go on another rant about that.

By the way, I love my girlfriend. Yeah, the one I got at the Drag Ball. Well, I found her a little before. Probably right when I wrote the last post; then she took over my life and I forgot everything. Haha, no, that is not what happened. Close enough though. Anyway, about a month into the relationship, I came out to her and she was awesome about it. I suppose it helps that her mother performed sociological gender experiments on her as a child. Wow, that sounds a lot worse than it really is. The point is, she is awesome and supportive and I could not be more thankful for having that in my life.

I have been reading a lot lately. I read Genderqueer which was an amazing book. I definitely recommend it. Now I am reading The Riddle of Gender which is right up my IB brainwashed alley. It's all science and history, whereas Genderqueer is more anecdotes and "Wow, I don't feel alone anymore" stories. These have really been making me think and making me have lots of conflict in my mind. Do I come out? Do I change my name? Do I want to transition? If I do, how far? Do I only want to do it to get out of the awkward situations? Wouldn't I suck as a boy anyway?

I had a dream last night that I had surgery but not really; I was awake and I just had my ears pierced, but it magically made me into a boy. Not really that either, but I went in the men's room and then the guy in there wasn't like "Get out of here." Now that my dreams are hopping onto the gender identity conflict bandwagon, I imagine I will have to do something soon.

_{"Don't suppose I'll never know
What it means to be a man
Something I can't change
I'll just live around it"}

Labels

Ah labels, you truly are the bane of all of our existences.

It seems that as a whole, we are all constantly trying to find the right lables to fit into while denouncing them completely. So much of what we do is based on our identites. Because I often identify as "gay" and more recently as a "lesbian" (even though I will continue to hate labeling myself as so, I will also slowly get used to it), I am and was involved in many activities that revolved around that identity. I was the president of my school's Gay-Straight Aliance, I did outreach work with NOVAM geared towards gay youth, now I am a memeber of Queer Action at my school.

Even male and female are labels that are created for us to fit into. I played on a girl's soccer team (and enjoyed it very much, thank you; once again, something I'll go into later). I was in the girl scouts. I live in a dorm with other girls. I'm not allowed to interrupt on my guy friends' "guy time." When I played sports in PE, the guys didn't want to pass to me. My mother expects me to want to wear dresses, women's clothes and shoes, and feel like I belong in them. When I perform in my upcoming concerts, I won't be expected to wear a coat and tie.

Transgender and Gender Queer are just more lables. More of us using one or two word phrases to explain to the world what we are. They don't do anyone justice, no one fits exactly into them. Yet we continue to use them.

I mentioned in my last post that I respond "no" when people ask if I'm transgender. It's not that I don't think I am, because it's certainly something I could choose to identify as. Transgender is a huge umbrella term that includes very many things. Gender Queer is an even larger umbrella term. I like it more because, I think, it is a term that is used less often. The common world associates transgendered people with the only ones (they think) they know which are the ones on Oprah or the Discovery Channel and the phrase "Man/Womand trapped in a woman's/man's body" is what comes to mind. There's a lot I like about my body, I am by no means trapped in the wrong one. I would feel just as awkward in life, I think, in a male body.

And that is what is hard to explain. To a world that sees everything in black and white, being a shade of grey is incomprehensible.

_{"I'm becoming this, All I want to do,
Is be more like me, and less like you"}

Beginnings Pt. II

Let me tell you a little more about myself. This is all stream of consciousness, with the only editing done in cases of extreme incoherence, misspellings, or missing/extra words, punctuation, etc.

Maybe I would start from the beginning, tell my childhood, but I don't feel like that right now and maybe it's not the place to start. I think the best place to start is to tell you where I am right now.

So where am I? Mostly struggling for a sense of identity. A way to function in society fairly normally without alienating myself completely. Here in the college world, it's a lot easier than the rest of the world. I fear the day that I get thrown into the real world.

If put on the spot and asked if I'm transgender (which has happened on several occasions, before I even began considering my gender identity), I say no. I don't know if it's true, a defense mechanism, or a lack of wanting to explain myself.

No. I do not want to identify as male.

However.

No. I do not want to identify as female. But I do, because biologically I am.

Which gender specific pronouns do I want people to use? I think that I could care less. I hear them either way. I don't know if you can imagine, but anytime someone uses a gender specific pronoun in relation to me, it catches my ear. It doesn't matter that I've been hearing "her" and "she" my whole life. Just as much, I don't turn around when people call me "sir." That, I think, is because I'm not used to it. However, for a while, very few people who I didn't know yet had to interact with always called me "sir" and now when someone addresses me directly as "ma'am," it catches me completely off guard.

Which gender specific pronouns do I want people to use? I think I could care less, but I also think that I like hearing the male pronouns more. I don't know if it's because that's what's different or if it's really what I want people to use.

I know that I like being percieved as male. I know that I hate when people try to reassure me that I look feminine. I know I look feminine, that's what a lack of testosterone does to my features. I don't get mad at him or her (but it's usually a her) because I know that they think that I feel 100% female.

Why do they think this? I act like it. Besides the times when I start acting like a tomcat fighting over turf, I am really, really girly. I think this is my biggest struggle. It's hard to want to be percieved as male and still act girly. It's what feels natural to me. Maybe I'm part gay man, except I don't like men. Well, I do, but I'll go into that another time.

My self identity is full of maybes. Maybe I'm this. Maybe I'm that. The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm me.

That seems like an appropriate stopping point.

_{"I'm waiting for a sign,
I've gotta leave this place behind,
Where no one knows my name.}