Hard to post here

[alpha12]

I've been lurking so much and writing so little. On the one hand, there is so much to say. On the other hand, I have had a whole lot of the marginalization that seems to be a part of the ftm experience.

It's a little irritating to be drawn relentlessly into series of realizations about the nature of me and my concept of self only to have any attempt at even mentioning it being met with a whole lot of *yawn*. Or the helpful individuals who lectured me about how rude it is to use the word "queer".

My general attitude towards me being stuck in a female life that is so full there is just no room for contemplating transition at all can pretty much be summed up in the phrase "Suck it up Marine!" (Although the Marines wouldn't take me.) I don't like a lot of fuss and bother, another reason I present as female nearly all the time, so I generally just deal.

But from time to time that is unsatisfying. I find myself very self-consciously self-editing. Instead of trying to be as expressive as possible for the sake of precision, I find myself deleting everything I write before posting. Saying anything at all doesn't seem masculine enough around real guys who have really transitioned/really are transitioning.

In my daily life I struggle to deal gracefully, or at least appropriately, with trying to fit in to various feminine things that I just don't understand. One of the places I work is staffed entirely with slightly older women and the chintz and scented candles and fancy teas and generally overpowering femininity of the place really gets to me, things like that. Or a yoga instructor always maundering on aobut how various poses are so good for "all those girl problems like bloating and such. (Yuk! Please don't call me a girl, and can we not talk about bloating?) But here, I find myself self-editing into silence.

A little while ago, I wrote, and actually posted, some thoughts about childhood and identity, and that sort of took my breath away. Somehow I've conflated silence with masculinity. I guess just because I find myself needing to keep quiet about my feelings much of the time doesn't mean that this in necesarily a part of the male experience, or a prerequisite for somehow qualifying as transmasculine or genderqueer or whatever the heck I am (I prefer gender ambivalent, but that seems to be a phrase only I use)

Still, oddly frustrated and uncomfortable by the opportunity to finally stop being frustrated and uncomfortable. Irritating paradox.