As I traverse this long road... from one little black box sitting inconspicuously beside the innocent word "female" to it's mirror image marked "male"... it occurs to me that this act of traveling, this journey, is a gift.
When you take a trip, you inevitably have to decide what to take with you and what you can do without. And with airlines charging more for baggage -thank you Southwest for being an exception to this metaphor- you start to think a little more carefully about those extra, just-in-case items.
The same has been true for me. I have things that I do, experiences, memories, thought patterns that come from the female box. Things that very few bio guys would ever have been allowed, by society or in some cases nature, to experience. An extreme example would be child birth. I have experienced the good and the bad of giving energy, blood, nutrients, life to another on the most basic, primal level. No cis-male* will ever be able to know that.(*a non-trans male, one who was born biologically and is psychologically male. I feel this term is more accurate than bio-male in that a man like me, on hormones is actually closer, biologically/chemically to male than female not to mention post surgical implications)
On another level there are things I learned and was allowed to embrace by society as female that I likely would have missed out on as male. For example, I learned how to distinguish my emotions and have words for them. Society often tells men and boys that aggression and anger are the only acceptable emotions... add the fact that testosterone does make the fight or flight response so immediate and drastic... and it is no wonder cis-males have a hard time with emotions.
And then there are these little things like cooking and hosting parties and like bubble baths. It took me a little while to admit, post transition that I still like a hot bubble bath, with candles and a nice glass of wine. It felt like that was "too girly" and somehow meant I wasn't actually trans. It was so scary to think about the implications of my bubble bath. [If you haven't seen the Friends episode where Chandler discovers a love of bubble baths, you must! All I need now is a battle ship to take in the tub with me.]
But seriously?!?!? The IMPLICATIONS of a bubble bath?
What in the world are we doing here people? Why do we allow that little box to tell us so much about ourselves? When did we decide that that little box got to tell us how we felt about bubble baths or flowers or football or being the President or being aggressive professionally or sexually?
Is it because it is easier? It is that it is simply easier, when the expectations don't generally clash with your essence, to just go along with them than it is to actually dig deep enough to figure out who YOU are? What YOU want? I mean you say something to yourself like, "I am a girl so that means: I like to shop, pink, to be on bottom, with a man, must be married by age ??, kids by age ??, sit with my legs crossed, be polite, etc." ?? For me, most of those things just did NOT resonate with me at all. I wanted the things on the boy list "play in the dirt, trucks, be with a woman, be the aggressor, protector, provider, sweat, muscles, etc." We use gender to explain things. And like most stereotypes they are stereotypes for a reason... because they are often or usually accurate. But why do we just take this stuff for granted? We should commit the time to ourselves to know ourselves well enough and be secure enough to depart from the stereotypes when necessary. Without fear.
And the flip side of that is that it is easier to put other people in these little boxes, rather than actually stop long enough, look deeply enough, listen hard enough to KNOW them, to know where our assumptions are inaccurate. I mean at the end of the day what are we? We are people and people are complex and complicated. We are not machines driven by binary code, hundreds of on/off switches. We cannot be reduced to flow charts.
But as George Clooney's character said in "Up in the Air"- stereotypes are efficient. Which is true. Without some type of filtering system, we would be paralyzed. You can't actually know everyone you interact with on a deep level, nor do you want to, nor do they want you too. I think we just have to be careful about not FORCING people into them or getting angry when they don't fit.
And yourself is another story. You have to be with you everyday of your life. It seems an investment in getting to know you might well be warranted. So, next time you get a haircut or pick a piece of clothing or accept or reject a date, take a good, hard look and ask yourself why you chose what you chose. Ask yourself it it is because you are "supposed to" or if it is really a reflection of you. But be warned, the worms in that can are squirmy and slippery.
I have gotten used to worm herding. And have come to realize that all this work I am doing is about being me. But that means I have to be willing to LOOK at me. And sometimes that is not fun. Sometimes it means admitting a weakness or cutting of a limb lost to gangrene. And often amputations are followed by phantom pains. But mostly I find when I let loose of the old, diseased, wounded rotten parts, something new and healthy grows in it's place or I learn to do without it... I discover I didn't need it in the first place.
Kinda like those extra socks and underwear I always pack. I mean really, when will I learn that if I have an real emergency, requiring extra underwear, there is surely a stream, sink or wal-mart around. Or, heck, if worse comes to worse I can always go commando. :)
So, I will take what I decide I need and want. I will take what is really important to me to the other side. And after a long hard day of deciding and packing and trudging along, you will find this MAN relaxing taking a nice long soak in my bubble bath, complete with candles and a good glass of wine.
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