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.