Gratitude

Two years ago, my living room was a quiet place populated primarily by cats. I'd head to the coffee shop after work rather than bounce around the apartment like the last piece of taffy in the box. When I thought about surgery, I'd shoot myself down because I couldn't picture taking care of the apartment without being able to lift my arms above my head. I wondered whether I'd be able to take care of myself when I got old.

Now, my son comes out of the living room to give me hugs. My partner smiles wide when I get home from work. I trust that I will not be the only one taking care of the place if I am privileged enough to have top surgery. I know that we'll take care of each other when we're old.

This kind of love, this family would be as loving and as supportive regardless of our gender identity or how our bodies happen to be shaped at a given time.

My family is worth it.

Why is it Important to Make an Effort?

Today I spent some time working closely with one of my teammates. This individual used the word "she" for me when talking with myself and my team manager. I did not have the energy to say anything about it. Then, she caught herself and switched to "he".

I smiled.

When I was wrapping up to go back to my desk, I took a moment to thank her.

She started apologizing for needing to make the correction.

I do not need an apology for being human. We all are. We all make mistakes. I told her that it means a lot to me that she was thinking about it. To catch oneself is to take an active step to overcome the pre-programmed assumption that anatomy equals identity. That is worth as much to me as someone using my preferred pronouns effortlessly.

Naked Lies

For some folks, going to a clothing-optional space can be liberating and empowering. People of all shapes, ages and sizes are walking around comfortable in their own skin. Tall and stort, svelte, curvy, gaunt, rotund, smooth and folded all spend time together paying more attention to what's inside their frames than what's on the surface of them. 

A year ago, I was one of them. I doffed my clothing and patiently explained to folks that I prefer male pronouns despite the obvious discrepency of my form. It was a lot of work, and I'm sure I didn't catch every onlooker. The novelty of the freedom of motion and sun on my skin was more powerful than any reservation I may have had about going bare.

However, this Sirius Rising festival I found myself covering up: t-shirts and shorts, cloth to wrap around them, a harness to truss up the bobbling globes of flesh that contradict my best intentions toward sharing myself. While my friends new and old revel in not caring about the image projected by the ideosyncracies of their bodies, I find myself unable to escape the gravity of trying to let my personality speak more loudly than my anatomy. 

Despite my efforts, more people address me in feminine forms than remember to speak to who I am on the inside. The freedom to bare my skin does not feel nearly so free as it did when I had the energy to speak up at every turn. My body screams propaganda.

Are you comfortable with your body? What does your body say about you? Does it speak the truth, or does it lie about what kind of person you are on the inside?

Grandma's Sweater

*Picks up this blog and dusts it off*

We all have that sweater. An article of clothing knitted, crocheted, or sewn by a well-meaning relative. They put so much time and effort into it and presented it as a special gift, but no matter how hard we try it doesn't fit right. The arms are too long. It's too small in the middle. The last button doesn't line up and keeps falling open at awkward moments. We try to hide it in the back of a closet or the bottom of a drawer, but we know that we have to put it on in front of relatives. We squeeze into it. We keep tugging at the corners. The yarn is way too itchy. We cannot wait to escape it again at the end of the evening.

This is what the hearing the wrong name and the wrong pronouns is like. We're forced into them because they are labels given to us by doctors and by our parents. When we have the freedom to, we use language and names that are much more comfortable. We use terms that make us feel alive and whole, that fit us well and reflect who we are. Then we go home for the holidays and face a barrage of itchy, way-too-tight, just-plain-wrong language that makes us feel ridiculous and empty like Grandma's sweater.

Except we are not just expected to wear this guise on holidays. Every bus ride, every cashier, every server is a potential closet stuffed with awkward and ill-fitting clothing.

The day before last, my family went out for Thai food at The King and I restaurant. The food was delicious, but my son got a taste of what it is like to be misgendered. Throughout our meal, our server addressed him as "Young Lady". At 13 years old, he is going on 5'8" tall with hair just long enough to put into a small ponytail.

I asked him about how it felt for him: "The first few times, I could just shrug it off. After awhile it got very annoying."

This is what it is like when people call me "she". A time or two, is easy to smooth over. I notice the roadbump and move on. The more it occurs, especially from the same source, the more difficult it is not to stumble over it.

This would be so much easier if I didn't care about my gender identity. The feminine pronoun keeps rearing its ugly head despite shirt and tie, despite 1/8" long hair, despite posture, scent, behavior and speech that fall for the most part within masculine lines. When that pronoun comes out it feels as if the speaker isn't really looking at me, just at a small fraction of anatomy about a foot or so below the eyes. This reduces the moment to an acknowledgement of anatomy I should not possess.
This doesn't just happen to folks on the trans* spectrum. Everyone faces roles or expectations that constrict them in day-to-day life. In the comments, please share with us your own experiences with misgendering or with assumptions that rub you the wrong way.

The Language of Gender Variance

We should start this adventure by examining some of the language surrounding sex and gender. Many of these are terms which are lumped together by folks whose anatomical sex, chromosomal sex, gender identity, and preferred pronouns all match up. As we enter the world of gender adventuring, lets take a moment to define these and separate them out. I am among those folks for whom these are each distinct qualities having only passing influence on the others.

Anatomical Sex - The physical shape of a person's genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. These can be changed by use of hormones and/or surgery. Most genitalia can fall into the descriptors: male, female, and intersex. Many people incorrectly assume that a person's anatomical sex must match their chromosomal sex. These are generally what doctors and parents look at to assign a gender to a child: "It's a boy!" "It's a girl."

Chromosomal Sex - What a person's genetic makeup has to say about a person's sex. Note: Someone can be XY and be assigned female at birth and may grow and live and identify as a woman. Someone can be XX and be assigned male at birth and may grow and live and identify as a man. There are folks who are XXY and XXXY, folks who test as different genotypes depending on what part of them you test, and folks who have genetic mosaicism, etc.

Gender Identity - How a person identifies in their heart and in their head with regards to gender. One might identify as a man, as a woman, as a genderqueer individual, as a gender-neutral individual, as an agender individual, as a bigender or multigender individual, and many other gender identities.

Gender Expression - The visual cues a person presents to the world with regard to their gender, usually described by terms such as masculine, feminine, and androgynous. If you think about it, someone can be one spot on a range of more masculine to less masculine, yet also be an independent spot on a range of more feminine to less feminine. Qualities which fall outside those spectra are androgynous.

Gender Roles - Sets of behaviors generally ascribed to a gender by society. Western society generally assumes two sets of gender roles: male and female.

Preferred Pronouns - Given that language often assumes a gender of most individuals, a person's preferred pronouns are the set of pronouns with which a person is most comfortable. In some cases there is more than one set of preferred pronouns. Some individuals' preferred pronouns change either slowly over time or on a day-to-day basis.

Sexual Orientation - The set of others to whom an individual is sexually attracted. Someone who is attracted to same-gender individuals is homosexual. Someone who is attracted to "opposite" gender individuals is heterosexual. Someone attracted to male and female individuals is bisexual. Someone attracted to people of all genders is pansexual or queer. Someone who isn't interested in sexual activity with others is considered asexual.

Sexual Behaviors - The behaviors, habits and practices through which one expresses their sexuality alone or with others.

Take a moment to think about the qualities we're used to ascribing to each of these definitions. Each can be a distinct spectrum or matrix of qualities. In my own gender adventures, separating these out has helped me find language with which to describe some of the complexities and conflicts as manifested in my own personality.