A Trans Story - Identity

A Trans Story – Identity.

So recently this has been rattling around inside my head. I am wondering what is my identity? I am not sure why I just started thinking about it, but I was also remembering a comment I made on Facebook identifying myself as a Proud Trans Woman. A person asked about that and the answer I gave was that was my way of owning the label that society has given me. I also mentioned that it was for pride and to open up the floor for honest questions. Also said that the fact that I was born in a male body is part of who I am and I accept that and realise that accepting my former self is a defining part of my journey and quite possibly my way of dealing with the fact that I will never be 100% female. All are good and possibly valid reasons, but I am now wondering if that is the whole reason. I have been wondering why I choose to identify that way, and am perhaps thinking there is an element of fear within that reason too.

Recently I have been wondering if I identify as a Trans Woman, just in case I do not blend. I present female every day at work, but I am under no illusions that people are not aware of me being Trans. I automatically think that everyone is aware of it, and so my identifying as Trans is a defense to being found out. It’s possible that it’s not even a necessary defense, but quite often, I don’t think I can completely pass as female and I think people become aware of my identity early on, whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but it’s what I think, and so my defense is to be Proudly Trans right up front.

But then I have also been wondering if I am carrying my Trans label around like a wound for all to see. At times I wonder if I take out my Trans status and wave it around on purpose. Kind of to make people feel awkward, because I have spent my whole life feeling awkward and maybe think others should have a small taste of that.

Perhaps another reason is because I don’t feel completely female myself. At times, well quite often actually, I feel like I am stuck in limbo, or maybe even purgatory. I am caught in between what I was and what I want to be, and despite being happier and more confident than I have ever been, I still don’t feel completely female. Actually there are times when I feel like a fraud, and I can only link those feelings to knowing that I will never be 100% woman, and so I feel like I am working towards being a fake woman. Usually I don’t like to face these thoughts and feelings for fear it will undermine my path, but I have to acknowledge them at some point. I know completely that this is the right path for me, but I did not expect to meet doubts, and such odd feelings as being a fake on this path and I wonder where these emotions come from.

One source for this turmoil could be the fact that I am indeed stuck in limbo. I have started to transition and am moving along the path, albeit slowly, very very slowly. Being in the middle of a journey has never been my favourite place to be, less so now. I know what I want, what I need, but I also know it’s going to take a while to get there, mostly due to health insurance limitations, which is really annoying. To be stuck in this place simply because health insurance will not cover all the surgeries and such is really sucky. It is beyond frustrating to know that one of the few things holding me back is a bloody health insurance company, like they should be able to dictate what is right for me. It is actually almost soul destroying to know that an Insurance company can dictate to me regarding my health and even those few that do cover Trans services only cover the bare minimum of the surgery, which will still leave me with a massive out of pocket. It is that out of pocket that is really holding things up. There is no way right now to afford to cover the surgery and I cannot begin to describe how that makes me feel. Truthfully I don’t know if I will ever be in a place to afford it, and looking at a life struggling to come up with money for a necessary surgery is not one full of happiness. Right at this moment I am looking at going through the rest of my life in the limbo that I currently find myself in, and that is actually rather depressing. I can hope that my health insurance will improve and will then cover Trans services, but who is to say if or when that might happen. Until that even does happen, I am stuck. And being stuck is a terrible feeling. Trust me, I experienced it for 30 odd years. The hormones were the first part of my liberation, but they only get me so far. It’s like you are stuck down a deep hole and you can see the light, but cannot reach it. You start to climb and with assistance you get ¾ of the way up, but then you have no more hand holds above you. You can still see the light at the end of the tunnel, but as you look up you can see no way to reach it. Talk about devastating. Just think about being stuck ¾ of the way out of a deep hole for the rest of your life. So yes that might have an impact in defining my identity.

But I must admit there are a couple of other things too. I am not as far along on my electrolysis as I would like to be. I still have a lot of facial hair and I am now limited to just one per month, due to work commitment and my inability to go out with two days of growth on my face.

Another reason could be lack of acceptance from some family. Most have been wonderful, there are a couple that I have not heard from and so I don’t know how they feel and ofcourse there is one I know will never accept me. I tell myself and the world that her acceptance is immaterial, but I do wonder if I am actually pretending she means nothing to me. I wonder if lack of caring about her acceptance is really the pretense. Maybe, at some level, we all want acceptance from everyone, despite knowing how impossible that really is.

I try not to let lack of acceptance define my life, or who I am, but I am sure that it plays a part. We all want to be accepted, particularly by family. And in these circumstances I really don’t understand the lack of acceptance. For one thing, what I am doing in my life has very little impact on there’s. All they have to do is get used to calling me something different and to be honest about it, what I want to be called is entirely up to me and no other person should interfere or object to that in any way at all, but ofcourse they do. Some people insist on calling you by your given name, like they have some kind of right to do that. They insist on mis-gendering you, without realizing they have no more right to do that, than they do to call you by your given name. It’s not up to them, it has nothing to do with them, if they care about you, then they should bloody well do as you ask, end of story. So yes not being accepted by family can cause issues, and perhaps that also plays a part in my identity. So like I said, I have one family member who I am pretty sure will never accept me, and a few others who have not been in touch with me, and so I am not sure where I really stand with them. Lack of support from family can be one of more upsetting parts of this journey, but I am still lucky in that I have far more support than many other Trans out there.

So I have a few things affecting my identity

1 – I am in limbo due to health insurance and electrolysis

2 – I often don’t feel as feminine as I want to be

3 – I am fearful that I cannot pass on a consistent basis

4 – It is a matter of pride for me to be different

These are a few of the reasons why I claim the label Trans Woman. I know that is how I may always be viewed and I am trying to claim it, make it my own and be as proud of my identity as I can be, but there are other factors involved in it and I need to recognize them. And I don’t feel that I have quite become Gia just yet. I think it may be part of the identity issue, or some other factors. I am not sure what it will take to make me feel completely Gia, since I am not completely sure who she is just yet.

But I also wonder do I want to be claiming the label the rest of my life, or do I just want to be a woman? I guess at the end of the day only I can decide what my identity will be, but then I have to ask the question – Who am I?

A Trans story - Imagination

A Trans Story – Imagination

Well I just had a random thought, but what else is new, I am full of random thoughts. This one is on imagination. Where does it come from? Why is it so much more developed in some? Does anyone else remember getting lost in their imagination? I know it happened to me a lot when I was younger, and actually still does. In fact getting lost in my imagination got me through some hard times when I was younger. It allowed me to live my life vicariously as my feminine self, so I guess it served a purpose back then. But my imagination was so much more than that.

When I read a book I could completely lose myself in it. My favorites were fantasy. I loved reading about Magic, Dragons and battles and I lost myself in the pages. But it was more than that. Quite often I injected myself into the story. I became a character of it and in my mind I interacted with the characters, even coming up with new scenes involving me. It was my way of escaping reality I guess, and also of being the woman I always wanted to be.

My imagination led me to remake so many stories in my mind. I used it to idle away time during the day, either in class, at home, on the bus, or driving to and from college and work. It was also a favourite past time before going to sleep. I would imagine interacting with the characters of the current book I was reading. I always hoped that this would help me dream about it and ofcourse there was always the wish that my dream would become reality in the morning. It helped me escape my circumstances, but waking up to find I was still me was never fun.

Using my imagination I decided that the character I had created – the alternate me, the me I wanted to be deserved to have her own stories and so I began developing her saga. This ultimately led to my book the Chosen One, which got re-written into Deanna – The Chosen One and Deanna the beginning. The story is ever evolving and right now I am in the middle of tweaking both books a little. But essentially they are all about the me I have always longed to be, and my imagination is what helps me develop them.

I have had a couple of reviews over the years, not completely favourable, as there are aspects of my writing that are not brilliant. For one I am not too great at dialogue – it’s a work in progress, lol. But most people, including professional reviewers, do say that my action scenes are really good. I can agree with that, I love writing action. I can visualize it in my mind perfectly and know every single step of what is going to happen, before I write it. And basically all I do is describe what I see in my mind. Plus given that my character is essentially me, I can act out the scenes too, just so I don’t have her do anything too improbable, although for that I can always resort to my character using magic J - a very helpful mechanism.

But what I still don’t understand is where this thing called imagination comes from. Some people think it’s a waste of time. I have had friends past and present that just don’t understand imagination, see no point in it and cannot comprehend where all my ideas come from. That’s a question I have been asked from time to time – where do your ideas come from? Well the only answer I have is they come from my imagination. My imagination created my character, but in a sense it also created who I am today. It created my stories and it gives me my thirst for learning. You see I love abstract knowledge. I love reading about philosophy, religious beliefs, myths, legends and the sciences, particularly physics – although I don’t understand anything but the basics when it comes to things like particle physics, but I find it all fascinating and I have noticed that my imagination integrates all of that into who I am.

Imagination is not all I wonder about. I wonder about creation, where we come from, what, who made us, made the world and all the living things. And I wonder about the point of it all. Why does life exist? What did it form our particular shape, our world, why did it form the laws of nature. What made all the particles form everything around us? What is the point of our existence and does our society actually serve a purpose. I mean when you get right down to it, the human society is really silly and a waste of time. We build cities, destroy the environment, use up natural resources and for what. All to make money and accumulate stuff that is useless to us when we finally move on to whatever is next. So what is the point in this stage of life? And then I wonder about what comes next. I figure something has to, since this stage of life has no real meaning. And since our society and existence are almost meaningless what and why are there Transgender people? What is our purpose in life?

These questions and more plague me all the time, and they stem from my overly active imagination. I wish I could find some kind of answer to some of them. Oh I know I will never know all the why’s, but understanding some would be nice. I wouldn’t want to have the answer to all questions, cause then life would be really boring.

But I know that many people don’t care about these random questions and to be honest I cannot imagine a life where I am like that. I cannot imagine why some people don’t ask questions and wonder about things like this. I cannot imagine why some have closed minds, just like I cannot imagine why some people find one belief and grasp it to their chest, never letting go and closing their eyes and minds to everything else that is out there. Why do some people not want to know anything beyond their few beliefs? Why do they think their beliefs are the only correct ones? Why do they think they are right when it comes to gender? Why do people not wonder and ask questions all the time? And why am I constantly questioning everything?

It is possible that without advanced imaginations we would still be a hunter gatherer species. I believe that it’s the imagination of the human race that forces us forward, to change and grow. But right now it has also caused us to create a pointless existence. I mean, lets look at our daily lives. I go into work 5 days a week, helping to pay invoices for a large corporation – what purpose does that serve? It helps the company stay in business and it helps others stay working too, but to what end. Money is meaningless, beyond pointless, and everything else this society do has no overall impact on the Universe. Surely there must be more to life than our society. I see very little purpose in it at all. Oh don’t misunderstand, I am not in any way depressed or suicidal, I love life too much for either of those, but I am also looking for a purpose and a point to it all.

In some regards I am so very thankful for my imagination and my constant questioning, for it made me who I am. It set me on the path of realizing the true me. It gave me my desire to be a writer and it gave me my character. It gives me a thirst for knowledge, but in some ways my imagination drives me nuts, because I know I will never be satisfied with the answers, because if I find an answer, I know I will question it, lol – its who I am. My imagination helped me get through my teenage years. It still helps me get through things today. It is active all the time, in my dreams, when I am driving, when I am working, making dinner, or doing anything, and it does help me pass the time, particularly when time is moving slowly. But in a way it’s a curse, because I am always wondering what could have been different.

What would my life have been like if I was born a cis gender male? What would my life have been like if I was born a cis gender female? Both of these questions I ask myself all the time and I know I will never understand the answer, or understand why I was born Transgender.

But the other curse of my imagination is the character of my stories. Deanna is my salvation, but she is also the biggest curse I have created. She is the epitome of all that I desire to be (ok maybe not the magic, cause I’m on the fence on the existence of that, lol) but her bravery, her desire to live life to the fullest, to help people, to have a purpose in life, her being a genetic female – basically everything that I am not. She was my escape for so many years, but part of me hates her, because I know that I will always fall short of that dream. And that’s the biggest curse of an over active imagination – I dream HUGE, and I know that I will never ever reach the heights I set for myself.

A Trans Story - We are what we wear

A Trans Story – We are what we wear

 

So recently I have been thinking about clothing, makeup (what else is new, you might ask?) – lol – but this thought is going in a slightly different direction, mainly my love of being able to wear a dress, heels, makeup etc.

This thought was begun when I read the blog of a very good friend, when she was telling the story of her Hijab and how difficult it was for her to be authentic. I consider her to be a remarkably strong, brave and spiritual person and when I read her story, it me thinking about my trials in trying to be myself and wear what I felt I should.

Those trials were mostly in the past, more recently I have been thinking how strange society is and how odd that we tie so much value and identity into a piece of material. I find it confusing why we are defined by what we wear and why certain groups should only wear certain types of clothing.

Now on articles like the Hijab and other articles of faith, I can understand, as there is a great deal of spiritual faith and belief that goes behind the Hijab and recently I have been seeing just how difficult it is to wear on in public, and I have to say I am seriously impressed by the bravery and strength of those I consider true Muslims – i.e. those that follow the teachings of Islam and believe in the peace and love of that spiritual path. Every Muslim is faced with adversity these days, adversity caused by a minority of confused people and by the ignorance of right wing, conservative Christians who criticize what they do not understand.

Well now that I have finished my tangent, I will return to topic. Society and its clothing rules and what that means to some of us.

I am going to try to clarify and make sense of my thoughts, but I am not sure how successful I will be. Firstly let’s talk about society and its rules about Gender roles and what genders should wear. I think they are stupid. I think gender roles are a useless construct of a society that is incapable of understanding true gender. I think they are the result of a bunch of people scared of anything different and only comfortable when everything around them is the same, quantifiable and explainable. Utterly boring and a complete waste of our true potential if you ask me.

And yet I allowed myself to be constrained within those very rules that I think are foolish, and to an extent I still allow it. I grew up allowing society to dictate to me. I let it dictate what I wore, how I presented and even how people addressed me. I grew up being ashamed of wanting to wear a dress, and yes even makeup, since they were defined as feminine in nature, and externally I was defined male, so they just didn’t fit at all.

The true issue I have with that, is that it almost seems we are allowing our clothing to define who we are. I couldn’t wear a dress and so I was defined as male. If I did wear a dress I would have been defined as a transvestite or drag queen, or just a freak, depending upon who was talking at that moment. But its not like the dress makes a woman, or the trousers make a man – they are just bloody pieces of material stitched together and serve no purpose but to cover our modesty. So why does it affect us so much. And why does it affect me so much, given how I think and feel about Gender roles.

I really don’t know the answer to that. I only know that the first time I got to wear a dress outside the house and truly be myself was the most exhilarating experience of my life. And I can also tell you that the reason I wear dresses so often is because I felt I was denied them in the past, and so I take great joy in wearing dresses almost every single day. When I have a dress on, I feel complete. And so once again I am allowing society to define how I feel about myself, or is it because even I associate a dress with femininity. It is odd how our perceptions always color our attitudes and beliefs.

One thing I think is really sad is that we grow up being taught, by society, to be ashamed of somethings. We are shamed out of wearing certain items because they are not seen as decent. No person should be ashamed to present themselves as who they really are. Muslims should face no adversity, or fear in wearing the Hijab, and Trans, or any other person should not be ashamed to wear a dress, a skirt, trousers or anything – it should be a personal choice that is accepted by society as a whole.

But since I cannot magically change society, I must live in it, even if I reject their idea of gender roles and what people should and should not be wearing. So that being said, I still grew up feeling shame at my desire to wear dresses and other trappings that were considered the purview of women.

It’s a sad reflection upon society where we dictate what people can wear. I think we have far more serious problems to deal with than a man wanting to wear a dress. But no, if an obviously masculine man was to step outside in a dress he would draw many stares and ridicule. To wear a dress you have to look feminine, which for me was not a problem, since I knew I had to be a woman anyway. But for others who are fluid in their gender, or who just want to wear a dress, why is it such a big deal?

So I grew up keeping my desire behind closed doors, and even when I was an adult, I would only wear feminine clothing inside the house. When I first started to transition, I still felt that shame about clothing when outside. So you cannot possibly imagine the joy and liberation I felt when I wore my dress outside for the very first time. Finally I felt like I could breathe and I was no longer trapped.

Male clothing felt like a trap to me, it stifled me. Even to this day I detest ties, they are like a noose choking off my air. I hated wearing them when younger too. And we had school uniforms, where boys had to wear dress trousers, a shirt and a tie, it was horrendous. I went through primary school actively not wearing one, but when I got to High School I was forced to. Fortunately the girls had to wear ties too, misery loves company they say. But in most regards a neck tie is attributed to Men, and I hate, hate, hate ties. I see absolutely no purpose in them whatsoever and yet I can see the purpose in a pair of heels, lol.

This idea that we have clothes for males, and other clothes for females is just a silly preoccupation with trying to make everyone fit into a box that can be easily explained and understood. Well sorry to say the human race doesn’t fit too well into a box and its most certainly not easily understood.

But I am forced to wonder if we didn’t have those silly little rules would I have still felt such exhilaration when wearing my dress in public? Who knows? All I can say that for right now wearing a dress, for me, makes me feel vulnerable and empowered at the same time. It’s a wonderful mix of feelings.

People may find it amusing, or not understand my need to wear dresses and makeup before I leave home, no matter where we are going. Particularly given my disregard for Societies rules on gender conformity. But despite my feelings on conformity, I nevertheless grew up being denied what I thought I should be wearing. And despite my hating rules for gender conformity, I still seem to be trapped by them and to a degree have to live by them. For 30 and more years I was denied the right to wear dresses, makeup and other girly trappings. If I have to live by society’s gender rules, then I am going to be the best woman I can be. And being able to dress feminine now is so very liberating. Not only do I have a lot of time to make up for, but to force myself back into male clothing is one of the most difficult things I ever do. That’s one reason I hate electrolysis days, since I need to let facial hair grow, I look more masculine than feminine and I find the sight detestable. And putting on male clothing. That is just like putting a band around my neck, cutting off my oxygen. So yes when I am getting ready I need to go that extra step, to try and look my best, because the alternative, to my mind, is to look manly and that is unacceptable. I take great joy in my femininity, for its something I never truly had before. And that is why I feel so joyful when I step out wearing a dress. It’s me stepping out as ME.