kerrianna
06-16-2008, 09:47 AM
I don't know if I'll make any sense with this thread. I've just got off the graveyard shift and this is kind of what was bubbling in my head earlier tonight.
I think some of us try too hard, for whatever reasons.
In our attempt to convince others, or even ourselves, that we are in fact the gender we self identify as, we end up pushing too hard, drift away from ourselves, or attack others because we want to be more 'real' than them. (I'm not sure I've seen FTMs do this as much as MTFs for whatever reasons - you guys could tell me if it happens for you too.)
I understand why we make changes, move towards a truer expression of ourselves... but I think sometimes some of us, myself included, are guilty of straying into some unhealthy thinking and behaviours in a misguided attempt to consolidate who we think we are, and especially how we think the world needs to see us.
By unhealthy I mean things like coming across as being more 'authentic' in your gender than maybe someone else, who may be just as authentic but not expressing the same way or maybe without the same kind of needs and drive due to their own situation and personality. It doesn't mean one is wrong and one is right, or one is more valid.
I understand that the medical profession has to sometimes make those kind of judgements, but I don't think we should be making them on our fellow citizens.
I've found myself thinking that way before - that so and so isn't as 'real' a girl as me because she doesn't say this or doesn't do that. And I am always ashamed when I find myself thinking like that because I know that it's coming from a place of non-confidence in my own self, of non-acceptance of my own being. I'm trying to make myself feel more validated by one-upping someone else. It's not only hurtful to them and ignorant, but it hurts me because it doesn't bring me anywhere closer to my own truth.
I also have found myself trying too hard to adopt gender attributes that actually go against my core principles.
For instance, I have always despised the cosmetics industry and the whole notion that women can't be beautiful as their natural selves. I've never had a problem being with women who use no or little make-up.
Now I have more make-up than any of my partners ever had in their entire lives. I mean, I do have fun with it, and I like what I can do with some of it, but I think maybe what I've really been trying to do is hoping that the 'magic' eyeliner or lipstick will make everyone see I am female.
Of course, it isn't that easy. And the thing is... I've always known that.
And yet I want so much to be seen the way I feel inside I keep trying to find some magic transformation formula. And that does include the real magic of surgery and hormones and training... all those things that I could do if I want to assume my proper social gender role. (and see my body as I feel it inside)
The thing is... again... I've always been non-plussed by the cosmetic surgery industry too. I cannot visualize myself undergoing a painful and expensive procedure to make myself look different. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it. Millions of people have no problem with it. That's ok. I sometimes wish I was like that.
But that's not really me. It grinds against my core values.
So why am I betraying, or thinking of betraying, core values?
Why do I seriously consider, and try, things which are not borne from my lifelong value systems and core beliefs? Why do I go against my nature and secretly wish to see someone not look as pretty as me? (ok, that might be part of being female in this society but it's not how I like to be).
I'm sorry if I'm rambling a bit. I'm trying to keep this on a main line of thinking.
I know part of the answer to my own question has to be in the growth and discovery of new self, of shucking away old values and beliefs.
I've been doing a lot of that, but I'm still me. I still do have some fundamental beliefs that are basic to me. It wouldn't matter what gender I was... I'd still be me that way.
So lately I've been thinking about self acceptance.
I accept that I internally identify as female in a body that is externally identified as male. It's not that I wouldn't want to change things, change is healthy, but I need to know what it is exactly that I need to change, and sometimes I think what I'm thinking isn't true to myself because it's a result of a feeling of 'competing' or 'joining' people who are like minded, and also satisfying societal expectations... which I never cared to do before.
I guess what I'm trying to locate is where my true heart is today, what is more important to me, what I can live with (it's not like I haven't lived with this for a long time), what I want to try, and why.
And I see and sense around me people who I think will judge me (as much as I work on not caving into that - it's hard sometimes not to) as not being really female if I'm not doing this, or not saying that, or listening to the wrong music, or watching hockey, or walking the wrong way, or not wearing bangles. It's absurd, really.
I had an interesting conversation tonight with my supervisor, a cisgendered woman who knows nothing of trans issues but who has been surprisingly helpful and sympathetic. We were talking about gender stereotypes and she was trying to make me feel better by telling me about so and so whose voice is so deep she's always mistaken for a man, or so and so who has to have laser hair removal because she has so much dark hair everywhere, and how they're still women. And I said "yeah, but for them they KNOW they're women, it says F on their birth certificate, so they can shrug those things off easier than me, who is working hard to convince people I'm NOT male." Which she understood.
But I was thinking how much easier and truer to my reality it would be to accept myself as I am today - a transgendered person on a journey to who knows where, but open to an unlimited future and not fighting so much to prove that I am who I say I am.
I think it can be tricky to make this journey your own, to not fall into trying to convince others, please others, denigrate others. There's a sense of disconnecting with your old self, which untethers you, but I think it's a mistake to believe everything has to be remade (esp when you're my age - that's a lot of throwing away to be doing). I think some of my anxiety and angst about this has come from a misguided notion that I have to totally destroy and sublimate my old self for the new one to be born. I know I have had some of you tell me not to do that. I think I'm starting to understand now, that this is all part of the same life, and there is no one I need to convince of my feelings, because they are what they are.
And the truer I stay to my soul the more in touch I am with those feelings and the easier it will be for me to find my own path.
...lol...I don't post much but when I do... I do make up for it with lotsa words. :p
Oh yeah... I had a little exclamation mark tonight at work.
Before work I noticed one of my thumbnails had a crack quite far down that was catching things. I knew if I wasn't careful I could rip half the nail off with it. So did I trim the nail down to safety?
Unh-uh... had to keep pretty nail. I just filed a bit off.
Well I didn't 'scream like a girl' when I ended up ripping off half my nail at the end of the night but I did scream like a non-specific gender person "AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" :eek::cry:
I think some of us try too hard, for whatever reasons.
In our attempt to convince others, or even ourselves, that we are in fact the gender we self identify as, we end up pushing too hard, drift away from ourselves, or attack others because we want to be more 'real' than them. (I'm not sure I've seen FTMs do this as much as MTFs for whatever reasons - you guys could tell me if it happens for you too.)
I understand why we make changes, move towards a truer expression of ourselves... but I think sometimes some of us, myself included, are guilty of straying into some unhealthy thinking and behaviours in a misguided attempt to consolidate who we think we are, and especially how we think the world needs to see us.
By unhealthy I mean things like coming across as being more 'authentic' in your gender than maybe someone else, who may be just as authentic but not expressing the same way or maybe without the same kind of needs and drive due to their own situation and personality. It doesn't mean one is wrong and one is right, or one is more valid.
I understand that the medical profession has to sometimes make those kind of judgements, but I don't think we should be making them on our fellow citizens.
I've found myself thinking that way before - that so and so isn't as 'real' a girl as me because she doesn't say this or doesn't do that. And I am always ashamed when I find myself thinking like that because I know that it's coming from a place of non-confidence in my own self, of non-acceptance of my own being. I'm trying to make myself feel more validated by one-upping someone else. It's not only hurtful to them and ignorant, but it hurts me because it doesn't bring me anywhere closer to my own truth.
I also have found myself trying too hard to adopt gender attributes that actually go against my core principles.
For instance, I have always despised the cosmetics industry and the whole notion that women can't be beautiful as their natural selves. I've never had a problem being with women who use no or little make-up.
Now I have more make-up than any of my partners ever had in their entire lives. I mean, I do have fun with it, and I like what I can do with some of it, but I think maybe what I've really been trying to do is hoping that the 'magic' eyeliner or lipstick will make everyone see I am female.
Of course, it isn't that easy. And the thing is... I've always known that.
And yet I want so much to be seen the way I feel inside I keep trying to find some magic transformation formula. And that does include the real magic of surgery and hormones and training... all those things that I could do if I want to assume my proper social gender role. (and see my body as I feel it inside)
The thing is... again... I've always been non-plussed by the cosmetic surgery industry too. I cannot visualize myself undergoing a painful and expensive procedure to make myself look different. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it. Millions of people have no problem with it. That's ok. I sometimes wish I was like that.
But that's not really me. It grinds against my core values.
So why am I betraying, or thinking of betraying, core values?
Why do I seriously consider, and try, things which are not borne from my lifelong value systems and core beliefs? Why do I go against my nature and secretly wish to see someone not look as pretty as me? (ok, that might be part of being female in this society but it's not how I like to be).
I'm sorry if I'm rambling a bit. I'm trying to keep this on a main line of thinking.
I know part of the answer to my own question has to be in the growth and discovery of new self, of shucking away old values and beliefs.
I've been doing a lot of that, but I'm still me. I still do have some fundamental beliefs that are basic to me. It wouldn't matter what gender I was... I'd still be me that way.
So lately I've been thinking about self acceptance.
I accept that I internally identify as female in a body that is externally identified as male. It's not that I wouldn't want to change things, change is healthy, but I need to know what it is exactly that I need to change, and sometimes I think what I'm thinking isn't true to myself because it's a result of a feeling of 'competing' or 'joining' people who are like minded, and also satisfying societal expectations... which I never cared to do before.
I guess what I'm trying to locate is where my true heart is today, what is more important to me, what I can live with (it's not like I haven't lived with this for a long time), what I want to try, and why.
And I see and sense around me people who I think will judge me (as much as I work on not caving into that - it's hard sometimes not to) as not being really female if I'm not doing this, or not saying that, or listening to the wrong music, or watching hockey, or walking the wrong way, or not wearing bangles. It's absurd, really.
I had an interesting conversation tonight with my supervisor, a cisgendered woman who knows nothing of trans issues but who has been surprisingly helpful and sympathetic. We were talking about gender stereotypes and she was trying to make me feel better by telling me about so and so whose voice is so deep she's always mistaken for a man, or so and so who has to have laser hair removal because she has so much dark hair everywhere, and how they're still women. And I said "yeah, but for them they KNOW they're women, it says F on their birth certificate, so they can shrug those things off easier than me, who is working hard to convince people I'm NOT male." Which she understood.
But I was thinking how much easier and truer to my reality it would be to accept myself as I am today - a transgendered person on a journey to who knows where, but open to an unlimited future and not fighting so much to prove that I am who I say I am.
I think it can be tricky to make this journey your own, to not fall into trying to convince others, please others, denigrate others. There's a sense of disconnecting with your old self, which untethers you, but I think it's a mistake to believe everything has to be remade (esp when you're my age - that's a lot of throwing away to be doing). I think some of my anxiety and angst about this has come from a misguided notion that I have to totally destroy and sublimate my old self for the new one to be born. I know I have had some of you tell me not to do that. I think I'm starting to understand now, that this is all part of the same life, and there is no one I need to convince of my feelings, because they are what they are.
And the truer I stay to my soul the more in touch I am with those feelings and the easier it will be for me to find my own path.
...lol...I don't post much but when I do... I do make up for it with lotsa words. :p
Oh yeah... I had a little exclamation mark tonight at work.
Before work I noticed one of my thumbnails had a crack quite far down that was catching things. I knew if I wasn't careful I could rip half the nail off with it. So did I trim the nail down to safety?
Unh-uh... had to keep pretty nail. I just filed a bit off.
Well I didn't 'scream like a girl' when I ended up ripping off half my nail at the end of the night but I did scream like a non-specific gender person "AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" :eek::cry: