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"
6.22.2006
6.19.2006
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"
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"
11.13.2005
Drag
I apologize for beginning this project and then never updating it. The truth is that this will probably never really be regularly updated, more, updated when I think of something of substance to write on. Hopefully, you will bear with me...if anyone actually goes about reading this, anyway.
November 20th is the National Transgender Rememberance Day. You can go here for some information and whatnot.
Anyway, I got put in charge of doing a memorial of people killed due to anti-trans violence. I have it all worked out in my head, I just have to do it. We are also doing a Bathroom Reclamation thing, which I think is the activity that means the most to me. We are putting up signs that declare bathrooms "Gender Neutral" to kind of get people to think. I know that it will make very little impact on the population as a whole, most people will not even bother to read the sign or think about why it's important...but if only one person does, then we are one person closer.
The other thing we are doing, though, is we are having a Drag Ball. All the money we make off of it will go to the local free Transgender clinic which is awesome.
What this Drag Ball entails for me, personally, is that I am performing with one of my friends. Getting dressed up in drag is always fun, even though I've officially only done it one and a half times. Well, and the other night, when I was practicing the make-up.
It's fun because I get to have sideburns. You laugh, I know you do, but sideburns are something most people take for granted. Guys can grow them. Girls cannot. And maybe one of the things I wish I could do is have sideburns. Well, facial hair in general. And it's something most people don't even think about at all.
It is also fun because I am an attention whore and I love getting up in front of people. So I get to do that all while having sideburns! What more could one ask for...
There's been a small bit of other things going on, but I haven't quite sorted them out in my head, so I promise I will write about them once I get them fully sorted out.
November 20th is the National Transgender Rememberance Day. You can go here for some information and whatnot.
Anyway, I got put in charge of doing a memorial of people killed due to anti-trans violence. I have it all worked out in my head, I just have to do it. We are also doing a Bathroom Reclamation thing, which I think is the activity that means the most to me. We are putting up signs that declare bathrooms "Gender Neutral" to kind of get people to think. I know that it will make very little impact on the population as a whole, most people will not even bother to read the sign or think about why it's important...but if only one person does, then we are one person closer.
The other thing we are doing, though, is we are having a Drag Ball. All the money we make off of it will go to the local free Transgender clinic which is awesome.
What this Drag Ball entails for me, personally, is that I am performing with one of my friends. Getting dressed up in drag is always fun, even though I've officially only done it one and a half times. Well, and the other night, when I was practicing the make-up.
It's fun because I get to have sideburns. You laugh, I know you do, but sideburns are something most people take for granted. Guys can grow them. Girls cannot. And maybe one of the things I wish I could do is have sideburns. Well, facial hair in general. And it's something most people don't even think about at all.
It is also fun because I am an attention whore and I love getting up in front of people. So I get to do that all while having sideburns! What more could one ask for...
There's been a small bit of other things going on, but I haven't quite sorted them out in my head, so I promise I will write about them once I get them fully sorted out.
9.29.2005
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"
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"
9.28.2005
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.
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.
Beginnings
The title of this blog comes from a Dream Theater song, "As I Am." I have often felt that this song describes my attitude towards life when it comes to Gender Queer issues.
This is kind of a "Been there, done that" blog for me. Four years ago, or sometime around there, I started a "secret" Teen Open Diary account when I realized that I liked girls, one girl in particular, and used it both to post some intelligent musings, but also to post my fears, and my bad poetry.
I don't have any bad poetry this time around. I just felt like I needed an outlet other than my LiveJournal. You see, it always feels really risky when I don't let all my friends see my posts. I'm afraid that one that knows another might say "Hey, did you read what AM wrote?" (Yes, I revert back to my age old pseudonym...not that it isn't widely recognized or anything) and the other person will go "No, what?" and then check and realize that I did not trust them enough or want them knowing what I wrote. I think it has happened once, but it was an odd circumstance.
Also, I wanted to maybe embed search engine stuff into the template so that other people who maybe wanted to read someone's musings on being Gender Queer could read. Maybe I give myself too much credit, but as far as I can see, there is not a resource out there like this.
So today I being my journey, at least for the time being, and don't ever expect this to be coherent or anything of that sort. Only my thoughts, how I feel, and my experiences.
"To those who understand: I extend my hand,
To the doubtful I demand: Take me as I am."
This is kind of a "Been there, done that" blog for me. Four years ago, or sometime around there, I started a "secret" Teen Open Diary account when I realized that I liked girls, one girl in particular, and used it both to post some intelligent musings, but also to post my fears, and my bad poetry.
I don't have any bad poetry this time around. I just felt like I needed an outlet other than my LiveJournal. You see, it always feels really risky when I don't let all my friends see my posts. I'm afraid that one that knows another might say "Hey, did you read what AM wrote?" (Yes, I revert back to my age old pseudonym...not that it isn't widely recognized or anything) and the other person will go "No, what?" and then check and realize that I did not trust them enough or want them knowing what I wrote. I think it has happened once, but it was an odd circumstance.
Also, I wanted to maybe embed search engine stuff into the template so that other people who maybe wanted to read someone's musings on being Gender Queer could read. Maybe I give myself too much credit, but as far as I can see, there is not a resource out there like this.
So today I being my journey, at least for the time being, and don't ever expect this to be coherent or anything of that sort. Only my thoughts, how I feel, and my experiences.
"To those who understand: I extend my hand,
To the doubtful I demand: Take me as I am."
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