A Moment of Truth

I have been struggling with writing this for a while now. The fact of the matter is, I have been silenced. I have been intimidated, scared by a culture where my gender identity is judged as valid or not by those around me. I am a human being and I am female, yet I am afraid to admit perfectly normal things about myself. I am afraid that should other people find out that I do not conform to their ideal stereotypes about what a woman, or a transgender woman, ought to be I will not only be labelled a bad woman but not a woman at all. This absolutely horrifies me.

Yet at the same time, our complacency in these stereotypes, our public obedience to acting the part, our failure to speak out acts as a kind of social pornography for our young and the cisgender public. By failing to speak, we allow these stereotypes and misinformation to perpetuate and continue to control and oppress our lives. Yet to speak out against them, to tell our truth, we risk everything we transition for.

Today, in honour of the Day of Silence, I will take advantage of my pseudoanonymity and come out, as it were, about many of the ways which I am not a "good transsexual." I know that much of what I am going to write here could jeopardise the security by which I am able to present myself as female. I know that in the eyes of many, and in the eyes of most "professionals," what I am going to write could call into question the very legitimacy of my gender identity. Nonetheless, I can not stay silent.

I hope that the following might make a young transgender woman who is struggling with shame and doubt feel a little less alone:

[Too Much Information Warning]

* My gender identity was not always clear to me and my feelings expressed themselves differently at different times in my life. Sometimes my gender dysphoria expressed itself only as insecurity with my maleness. Other times I experienced a deep sense of longing. Sometimes a feeling of what "ought to have been" consumed me. During parts of my puberty my feelings were even erotic.

* My gender identity and the wrongness of the body I was born into has not always been a central part of my life or even something I thought about much, even before I transitioned.

* I delayed seeking hormones for almost a year, not because I was unsure of whether I wanted them or about my gender, but because I was unsure of whether or not the doctors would turn me away for "not being transgender enough" or "being the wrong type of transgender person." I was deathly afraid of being labelled a crossdresser. Part of me was afraid that being labelled a crossdresser by a doctor would force me to reexamine my gender identity and that I might not like what I saw.

* For several years into my transition I felt as if I had a part of my soul that I dared not examine closely. I was afraid that I was wrong about my gender and about my transition. I was afraid that if I examined my soul closely I would learn that I was really a man and that my coming out had been a mistake. It took a very serious psychological meltdown to really explore that part of my mind.

* Transition can be sensual!

* I do not hate my penis. In fact, I enjoy my penis. It is part of my body and it gives me pleasure. My penis does not cause me discomfort. The idea of surgery has always been problematic in my eyes and I do not feel that I will ever choose to have SRS. Nonetheless, I am woman.

* I enjoy sex very much. I enjoy pornography and erotic art. I enjoy and have fantasies of both being penetrated and penetrating others. I masturbate regularly.

* Sometimes the thought of myself as woman is erotic.

* Clothing is sexy, even for transgender women.

* When I came out I doubted myself very seriously. Much of this doubt had to do with my shame and confusion regarding sex and how I felt erotically in regards to my gender.

* Internally, I feel very masculine. In many ways I feel more masculine than feminine. Nonetheless, I know I am female and not male. I am butch, boi, gederqueer. I am woman.

Edit: * My choice to come out was a decision to improve my life and increase happiness. It was a decision to escape something I found to be unpleasant, a way of life I did not enjoy. I did not feel that I had to do so or that it was, at least at the time, a life-or-death decision. It was a choice and it was the right one.