Moving

Hello and goodbye. I've enjoyed the nearly two years I've spent here, even though I only stop by sporadically. I very much like some of the things I've written here and I intend to leave this blog intact, but I've decided to move somewhere new.

My life has been changing a great deal recently, mostly for the better, and I feel ready for a fresh start online to go along with those changes. While I will still talk about kink and feminism, the new blog will be more focused on gender and queer issues, because that is what is most relevant to my current life.

If you're interested, feel free to stop by some time and check out the new place.

On Letting Go of Privilege

As I discussed in my previous post, I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the disparity between my internal sense of gender and my outward presentation. The primary reason for this has simply been that in a lot of ways it is easier to present this way. I spent a very long time being very confused about my gender (in many ways I suspect I always will be) and during that time it seemed pointless to adjust my presentation.

I no longer feel this way. At some point in the past six months, being continually mistaken for something I am not stopped feeling like success. Now I can't ignore it. There's a constant crawling under my skin, a never-ending cry in the back of my brain.

I have spent over a decade desperately cultivating a semblance of femininity that I have never felt. Ever since my body started to change, becoming almost a caricature of what our culture sees as female, I have tried mold myself, my thoughts, looks and actions, to the way that my body is perceived in society. This effort has had mixed results. Passing as cisgender has become second nature to me in the years since puberty, and retracing the path to myself has not been and will not be easy.

However, now that I can see myself, and now that I've been seen by others, I can't go back. So instead I'm moving forward, and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I am terrified. If I had been honest with myself I would have done this years ago, but giving up my cis-privilege is a big deal, and it's scary.

I still seem "normal" right now. A little odd, definitely, past 25 and still a tomboy. Quirky, but certainly not threatening. That's probably going to change. People can get upset when they come across someone who they can't classify. I know, I've seen it. I know exactly what I'm giving up, and what I will be facing. But now, for so many reasons, it's finally worth the price to be free.

Gender Fucked

It's very strange being here. Everything is, for lack of a better work, normal in a way that I am not at all used to. I come from a unique place, I know that. It is easy to forget exactly how unique until I leave.

Where I come from, everything has been queered. Gender is highly variable, and is on display in a myriad of ways. That is my normal. I forget that this is not the case in other places.

And now I'm here, in the real world. There are no queers here. There are gay men and there are lesbians, but there are no queers. No butches, no androgynes, no high femmes, no fairies, no dykes, no sissies, no gender fucking.

It is suffocating in a way I don't think I could have imagined. There is no one here like me, no one who chafes at the boxes the way that I do. I am queerer than I look. Being here makes me want to try to look the way I feel.

"If I looked on the outside the way I feel on the inside, it would explode people's minds," he said to me. Exactly. This a million times over. At home it didn't matter as much, here it does.

It feels restrictive in a way that I haven't felt in years. Not since I was a child fighting to wear pants instead of skirts, begging to be able to cut my hair. I only won one of those battles, the other became an area of unquestioned discomfort, until now.

For some reason, when I was commonplace I needed it less. If I could see myself reflected in the people around me I didn't yearn so desperately to display it myself. And it is easy to be complacent when there is nothing at stake. That is at least half the truth.

The other half is that it matters more to me here and now. No one understood before and, even in my queer paradise, I was afraid. I wanted just one way that I could be normal and uncomplicated. I knew for a long time that it wouldn't work, but I tried. It's different now. I have someone I can talk to, someone who sees me. We look so different, and yet we are so alike. Except that he is far braver. He gives me courage.

I feel more and more like I am hiding. I don't look like who I am, I probably never will. I can, however, stop taking the easy way out. I can stop hiding in plain sight, disguised as a cisgendered, straightish girl (or as a lesbian, depending on who you ask).

At home it would have been unremarkable, here it will be a political act. More importantly, it will make me feel whole.

Checking in

I'm sure by now anyone who reads this is used to my incredibly sporadic posting style, so I won't apologize.

I'm settling into my new routine fairly well. School is much more challenging than I am used to, but that was one of my goals in coming here. I spent the first several weeks being incredibly miserable because I didn't know anybody. I'm used to having a group of peers to study with and the lack of that was difficult at first.

I probably wouldn't have made it trough the first two months if it hadn't been for Boy. After almost a year of casual friendship laced with sexual tension, we became much closer over the summer and finally slept together in August. Unfortunately, three weeks later I moved here. Since then, we've talked every day and been visiting each other as often as possible. He's incredible. Much more will be said on this subject in future posts, because one of the best things about Boy is that he makes me think.

So expect an onslaught of posts about sex and gender and kink and queerness, because I have an awful lot to say.

And Most of All...

I fear being brilliant and noticeably different. Being resented by my peers and mistrusted by those in authority. I am afraid that I will fail not because I am incapable, but because I grow weary of eternally fighting to prove my worth.

Nerves

I got in to my first choice of colleges, and I'm even going to be able to afford the tuition. Enrollment deposit has been sent, I'm registered for orientation, and I've been busily calling and emailing about apartments. This is an incredible opportunity for me...

It's also completely terrifying.

The thing is, I tend to have a huge case of Impostor Syndrome even in the best of situations. I routinely score in the 99th percentile on standardized tests, but so what - those tests are generally biased and don't say much about actual intelligence. All that means is that I'm good at taking standardized tests. It doesn't matter that I am at the top of the class in what are generally considered the hardest courses available. I can still tell myself that because those courses are offered at a community college they are easier than they would be at a four year school. I've been known to self-sabotage in ways that prevent me from being as intellectually challenged as I could be (that's how I ended up at the community college in the first place) because I'm incredibly afraid that my lifetime's worth of experience is false, that really I am at best average and if I try for anything more I will fail.

So I got into one of the best technical universities in the United States, a "New Ivy" according to whoever it is that makes up that kind of distinction. I'm not a traditional aged student - not too far off, but enough that I will stand out in classrooms full of 18-20 year olds. I'm female, going to a school that is about 70% male. I'm queer, and unapologetically feminist. And I know that for a woman to successfully travel the path I want in life she must be exceptional. I am horribly afraid that I am not.

I also fear that I am.

I'm Back

I should probably apologize for not posting in months, but anyone who bothers to read this has most likely come to expect that I only post sporadically.

So, updates...

Giant and I have come to some sort of peace with the fact that our relationship is ending. It's not ideal, but at least everything isn't as painful as it was before. Things would have been better if we could have talked about everything several months before we did. As it stands, I spent so long being hurt and frustrated by his lack of ability to deal with things that now I can't really be as emotionally invested in him as I used to be. I'm not sure if he really understands this, but he seems to at least be accepting of it. I'm glad, because it means that at least we can sometimes be friends again.

Because I attended (writing that in past tense is very odd) a rather small community college, and majored in mathematics, I've had essentially the same peer group in at least one class a semester for the past two years. Needless to say, we've become rather close. Now, everyone has graduated and will be following different paths in the fall. We are all going to miss each other very much, and one of my goals for the summer is to spend as much time with Skeptic, μ, Picasso, and Old Man as I can. I also plan to spend some time with Boy, who made a year's worth of General Chemistry bearable.

I think that's all for now, but I suspect more will be forthcoming. Expect another post to arrive in less than four months this time.

Stress

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm planning to transfer in the fall. On the one hand, this is very exciting and, academically speaking, I definitely feel like it's time to move on from my current community college. On the other hand, the whole thing is incredibly stressful. I have a fairly good idea about which school I would like to attend, but I am not sure yet if they will accept me, or if I can afford to go there if I am accepted. The cost (total - including fees, books, and housing) is about $52,000 a year. That's a lot of money. I am certainly eligible for financial aid, and I intend to apply for merit-based scholarships as well, but I don't know if it will be enough.

Sadly, the actual logistics of the application and transfer process are not the most stressful part of the whole thing. Giant and I have been together for about two and a half years, and we've been living together for a while now. As far as I know (he's a bit vague on this topic) he is not planning on transferring. He has certainly not expressed any interest in applying to the school that I want to attend, despite the fact that they have a fantastic program in his major. Oh, and it's over two hours away from where we live now.

Needless to say, this is creating some conflict. Neither one of us is incredibly good at maintaining long distance friendships, let alone a relationship. So, as things currently stand we are facing the end of our relationship sometime over the summer. The whole thing really sucks. We care a lot about each other, and we've been through quite a bit over the past few years, but that doesn't seem to be enough to maintain things next year.

Really, it's not up to me. I can't just stay here, and if I did I would end up hating him for it. So it's all up to him and he's not making any moves at all. Which kind of hurts, you know. Actually, it really hurts - he's just going to let me leave without doing anything about it. Well, except for acting standoffish and slightly mean, which only makes things worse. If we have to say goodbye in a few months I'd really rather try and make the most of the time we do have together.

I'm pretty sure I've got a lot more to say on this issue, but I'll leave the rest for another post.

Update

I just realized that I haven't posted anything since October! If anyone actually reads this blog, I'm very sorry to have disappeared for so long. I've been very busy graduating and deciding where I want to transfer next year. Now that I've got that figured out I just have to hope my top choice will take me.

In addition to being busy, the winter holiday season is my least favorite time of year, and I've been struggling a bit with my mental health. Now that the spring semester has started and the days are getting longer, things are starting to look up on that front.

As you can see, I've changed the look around here. The background is a tiled version of one of my all time favorite photos. It's the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image, which contains 10,000 galaxies and looks back 13 billion years. The best part - the section of space shown in that photo looks completely empty to the naked eye here on Earth. For some reason I find the absolute enormity of it comforting.