Originally posted at In Our Words
As a basic introduction of my current sense of my gender, i identify,
among other things, as both trans and genderqueer. For pronouns, i use
“she/her/hers.” And if you can do it with respect and understanding of
significance, “it.” i use “she/her” and identify myself to most folks as
a trans person — or sometimes as a woman. i don’t do this because it
represents a true understanding of my gender but because it’s the
closest most folks can come to understanding my sense of myself. This
is especially true given our culture’s current climate around the
subject.
That said, i see myself as “neither/nor” in relation to the man/woman
dichotomy. i don’t mean that i’m between genders; i’m not. There’s no
“man” here at all. i’m, at least in some ways, femme. But i mostly
identify as a queerly gendered creature beyond category. i didn’t come
to this unique understanding of my gendered self overnight. It’s been a
journey, one i’m very much still on.
In some ways, my narrative fits the commonly known, and somewhat
accepted, transgender narrative. i have memories of longing that predate
a lot of other memories. i played with Barbies, dreamt of being a
Disney princess, hung out with girls growing up. Like many, a normative
gender was forced on me by culture, and i learned to hide my feelings
from the world and myself.
But that’s where my story stops fitting the “capital-S” Story. In
high school, i found the punk scene, thank god, and learned strategies
to not give a good god damn — or at least to pretend with a relatively
high degree of success. i painted my nails and responded with a “so
fucking what?” to remarks like, “He thinks he’s a girl.” i took dance
classes. I learned to fight, both literally and figuratively.
i went to college and hung out with activists and Gender Studies
kids. i dyed my mohawk pink and presented even more queerly. Thinking of
myself as a punk-rock faggot and as genderfluid, i started seeking
hormones and taught myself how to do makeup. i experienced a lot of
harassment and harsh violence. So, i hid again, this time more
consciously. i grew a gnarly beard and cultivated hyper-masculinity into
a wall. When i looked in the mirror, i saw a mask. i learned to live
with that.
But it was an untenable strategy and my queerness resurfaced, a
cetacean coming up from the depths for air. i got into therapy — because
i was under the impression that this was a prerequisite for a hormone
prescription. i started taking estrogen and tried to present in a more
classically feminine way. i thought that might be easier. But again, i
looked in the mirror and saw a mask.
i felt like feminine standards fostered a lot of self-loathing and
self-violence. i committed myself to tearing femininity down, brick by
brick, and reconstructing it in a way that didn’t feel poisonous. i was
cultivating a femininity that was, in no uncertain terms, completely my
own.
i re-shaved my mohawk and became empowered in the trans part of my
identity, in my visibility. i was, and am, something not “normal,” and
am at peace with that reality. i am something new and unique unto
myself. The harassment started again, but it mattered less. It can still
get really hard at times, but this time, i knew i had exhausted all
other options. Eventually, and luckily, someone referred to me as “it”
respectfully. Someone else said, in a very affectionate way, that they
saw me as a creature. It took a lot of reflection, and i was terrified
at how hard that identity would be to live. But it felt comfortable,
felt right. i came to embrace my itness and sense of self as creature
and as Other.
This is hard for a lot of people to really comprehend, but my gender
is just different like that. It’s still evolving, as creatures are wont
to do, and reacting to the world. It will probably always operate in
this way. My gender has been more of a path than a location and this is
sometimes incredibly difficult. But, the newness feels right, the
uniqueness gives me perspective, and the queerness feels like home.
