True Authentic Self

With each day that passes, I continue to feel the cold shoulder and hand of judgment from my mom regarding anything that might have something to do with my transition (and many things that have nothing to do with my transition, but are blamed on it nonetheless).  I understand that this is not easy for her.  I get that she’s losing the daughter that she had or at the least the idea of that person.  She’s mourning the loss of her hopes and dreams for me.  But no matter how many times I try to put things into perspective by explaining that this isn’t easy for me either, she comes back with a response of how I chose this and how I’m doing this to myself.  So apparently being born into a body that feels utterly wrong and uncomfortable, and living 28 mostly miserable years of your life in said body, garners no sympathy from mom.  Fine, but what she doesn’t seem to comprehend is that I am losing that girl too.  I have to mourn my own loss of a daughter.  Of a girl I didn’t really ever know.

         Transitioning is all about righting a wrong.  It’s about fixing the parts of you that can be changed (body) to match the parts of you that cannot be changed (brain).  It’s about finally feeling comfortable in your own skin and being your true authentic self.  But I have a bit of a conundrum.  First of all, I’m not one of the media hyped “classic” transgender cases.  I did not know I was transgender as a child.  I did not refuse to play with dolls or wear dresses or go to tap dancing class.  I did not even know the term “transgender” until college, and I didn’t start transitioning until I was 28.  On the gender spectrum, my gender identity feels somewhat more in the middle than all the way towards male or female.  I’m a bit of both or neither.  I was socialized as a girl and thus experienced my girlhood as being wholly perceived and treated as a girl.  There is this part of me, deep, deep down, practically disconnected, hidden under layers and layers of feminist ideals and anti-heteronormativity, this part of me that wishes that I could have been that woman who enjoyed being female, who had aspirations of marriage and being pregnant and having a baby, who felt strength and empowerment from femininity, who wanted the kinds of things that most woman want.  There is a part of me that mourns the loss of this girl, this daughter.  I did not experience girlhood as an authentic girl.  Sure I had girl parts and could act like and walk like and dress like a girl.  But I was an inauthentic girl who would never grow up to be an authentic woman.  On the other side of the coin, I will never get to experience boyhood.  Sure I can take hormones and feel some of the effects that a teenage boy would have gone through, but I’m experiencing it through the body and mind of an adult.  And how can one who has never authentically experience boyhood hope to feel fully authentic in manhood?  Which takes me to this point:  How can I fully feel like an authentic person in any gender?

          People have social expectations of males in our society.  As children we try to create an identifying relationship between ourselves, those around us and the rest of the world.  We do this by identifying with common characteristics and subconsciously molding ourselves to be more like our families, friends, and the belief systems of our society.  We start learning our gender roles from around 15 months old.  But even before that, from the moment we are born, people place a high importance in needing to know if a baby is a boy or a girl.  The baby doesn’t care whether it’s wearing a pink or blue hat.  It’s only concerned about whether or not that hat is keeping it warm.  It’s everyone else that needs to know the assigned gender so they can fit that baby into the correct gender box with all its expectations and roles.  Males are expected to have less emotional range (though as babies, they actually have more than baby girls), to be tough, aggressive, strong, dominant, bold, extroverted and insensitive, to dress up in suits for special occasions, to open doors and pull out chairs, to be bread winners.  Let me make this clear, I am not socially and physically transitioning to male with the intention of living up to the stereotypical male gender roles in this society.  I am transitioning to male so that I can feel a little bit more authentic in my own skin or at least a little bit less inauthentic in my own skin.  To feel like a real me.  And let me also make it clear that I am not at all talking about “real men” or “real women”, which are terms that are hurtful and inaccurate.  One’s maleness or femaleness has nothing to do with what’s between one’s legs and has everything to do with what’s between one’s ears.

            I guess this all leaves me stuck somewhere in between my definitions and societies definitions of male and female.  It leaves me mourning the loss of a boyhood which I shall never get to experience.  It leaves me mourning the losses of a girlhood that was not lived authentically and the womanhood that would have never been lived authentically either.  It leaves me with a manhood on the horizon, that will ultimately be defined by how I choose to live my life, and what parts of me I choose to express.  It is all dependent on where I feel that I fit into this world (and where this world chooses to fit me in).  It probably won’t be neat and clean and simple.  It will probably confuse people or even alarm them, inciting hate and intolerance.  For me there is no real end point.  Mostly because there is no real defined starting point either.   I just need to stick to what feels right for me, even if I have to go against the grain and fail to meet societies expectations.