Throughout my life things have always been a struggle, I have never truly felt adequate to others, I have always felt like somehow I was never good enough for anything in life. Even today none of that has changed, society all around me seems to knit pick at each and every little thing I do, say, or express. I have nothing but short comings it seems. I will never be good enough to be considered a woman, nor will I ever be able to measure up to being a man. Which brings me to this war of the genders. It seems so important to people to place you in one side or the other, and yet I begin to question whether I actually am placeable, and if I am than where? If I was in fact meant to be a man as is believed by many to be the case based on the physical appearance of my body at birth(still not 100% sure on this) than why have I always had conflicting thoughts, was this an effect of being some sort of secret spy created by men to have me infiltrate women and learn their secrets only to undermine their strategy? Am I just a non informed drone waiting for some kill order? Or maybe the reality isn't so hollywood style and I just wasn't paying attention when they were handing out the penis brains and missed out on recieving mine. All of these thoughts really don't do much for concluding but considering all of my life I have done everything I could to fit in, I just wanted to belong but yet it just never really felt right.
When I came out as being trans it felt liberating in a sense, finally I didn't have to hide so many feelings I kept bottled up. At the time I felt so sure in the statement, "I identify as a female" I felt like my each and every thought and emotion was female. How sexist right? I mean how can I someone who was born with a penis actually have any grasp on what a female felt or thought? How could I who was born in a male body really grasp what it meant truly to be a woman? I mean it isn't too tunnel visioned to say that simply wearing female clothes and makeup is mere window dressings. After all in reality what clothes you choose don't necessarely make you any more or less a man or woman right? I know strange to see someone like myself actually saying that it isn't dressing like a woman that makes me one. Truly tho, it would be very sexist to think that thats all women are about is dressing up and acting girly.
So let's get back to that coming out statement "I identify as a female" well that is an interesting thing to try and grasp and yet so hard for someone who isn't in my position. How can I say that? How could I ever really? Well let's ponder this for a bit, and we can start off with what it is to be a female. There is so much in a concept like that, and so much you can't even really put into words, more over each and every females experience is unique, but yet, there are alot of commonalities. For one example the day to day struggles women have to go through, do I even have to go through any of these? Well certainly, the day I had my gender marker changed I set myself up for those struggles to some degree, the day I walked out of my house dressed as a woman I set myself up for a great many of those struggles. I think it is abundantly obvious that given the fact I am built fairly petit and not exactly a tall person I am no more a hard target to any predator out looking to destroy another womans life. I have had countless crude men cat call me while walking down the street, and while it was validating and sort of felt good to be confirmed as pretty enough to be cat called initially, it did get old really fast. And before we go off on the tangent of that almighty period being something I will never have to endure, you are wrong, for the last 2 years of being on hormones I have to put up with cramping, bloating, and the emotional roller coaster of hormone fluctuation, I am not particularly sure if any of my trans counterparts go through this or not, I've never thought to ask. Alas the fact remains for whatever reason there is I do endure this. So the question begs to be answered, Have I had all the experience necessary to even qualify as a woman, and the answer is, I do not know, what amount of experiences does it take before you gain that title, or does it even require experiences alone?
We can easily say in black and white views that well having the ability to have a baby makes you a woman, but unfortunately that statement excludes each and every woman who for whatever medical reason cannot, so obviously thats not fair, but you could even go so far as to say that they still were born with the uterus and ovaries that if under normal conditions would have made them capable of that, and that is a pretty valid argument. But then what about those intersexed children that were born somewhere in between and wound up identifying as a woman or even as a man in the end, do they not have claim simply because they only had x amount of internal body parts? I think that is very unfair. So really what does it all take to gain this elusive title? Maybe the answer is too complex to even put into words, and maybe the feeling that drives one to decide this is beyond comprehension. But maybe the answer is so simple even.
Through all of those possibilities that I listed there is one consistant thing in my life that allows each and every one of them to be valid to me as a collaboration of things that make me who I am, and that is that those things come so naturally to me, no effort to make changes to myself, because the moment I actually stopped paying attention to the things I say or do for a lack of fear was the day I actually was first ME. I actually find more often than not that people catch me doing things that coincide with what I present that I would have never thought I did. It's actually funny that the simplest things that people do in their day to day activities unconsciously, speak volumes of who they are and what maybe they are hiding from the world, everything from how you step off a curb to what part of your torso rises when you breath. So than the answer to this question is? Because when I dont try to follow a guideline and be what everyone else wants me to be this is what comes naturally to me.
