A Wizard Named Androgyny
Once Upon a time I threw it all away before it could disappear on me.
At least I used to say that, but maybe I had tossed all my friends, family, and my life away before I should have.
Three years ago I took a walk from the home I was living in, and I didn’t come back to it. Instead I grabbed what things I could within two backpacks and I rode (or mostly walked) a bike to the edge of the Idaho and Oregon border. And that was just the beginning of my adventures to discover who I was.
Yeah, that’s right; I literally went on an adventure to find out who I was. It was filled with new and scary places, familiar friends and a world I had never imagined before. It is no wonder that I have such a deep love of fairy tales and folklore, I literally lived an adventure that could be written as a fairy tale. If I did, it would probably be something along the lines of ‘The Boy who became a Girl to become a boy’.
I know, confusing. For most people it is, so just imagine how confusing it was for me to figure it out. Hell, I don’t even have it all figured out, but I got some basics and it was a way better position than I was ever in before. Maybe a better title to my story would be ‘The Wizard Named Androgyny’.
Yeah, that sounds cooler, and not nearly as confusing. So I think my story really starts to begin when I stayed with my born-again Christian Aunt. It was there, in the guise of my free time that I once again experimented with wearing bras and skirts and stockings and make-up. Oh yes, I was a truly terrible person back then, in which I literally used my Aunt’s stuff without her permission.
Anyway, even though I had tried on femme clothes before (Like when I got to wear a Flower girl dress because the person who needed to be fitted for it wasn’t there and I matched her size), this was truly the first experience of me specifically choosing to step out into the light of day with an assortment of the most ridiculous outfit ever, together with sunglasses and a poor application of make-up.
I was the epitome of all that could have gone wrong with a makeover. But I didn’t care, because I was smiling and laughing. Hell, I was laughing at the group of boys passing by me yelling out the window various derogatory phrases that might be expected for someone who mostly looked like a guy in drag.
Laughing. I wasn’t going to cry in a corner because I suddenly got a taste of the world out there and the terrible things it smacks you in the face with (Not Yet anyway). I was laughing because they were yelling things that I didn’t feel were fitting to me. But even more so, because I knew I looked utterly ridiculous. I didn’t know anything about dressing up in femme clothes, other than walking in heels (which I am damn proud to say I can run in three-inch ones), but even so, the simple act of having done it felt so… liberating. I felt almost like a different person. I wasn’t just dressing up and hiding away, I was trying on some clothes that I wanted to wear and then going outside in them, sitting at a coffee-house and writing as I was!
Oh sure, I had more than just those boys give me weird looks, or ask me inappropriate questions or even simply tell me I was an offensive human being or other such terrible phrases. But even despite all that I still found a piece of me, a piece of myself I wasn’t going to let go, because I hadn’t felt it since before I had lost my alto singing voice.
It was while out, dressed like that, I soon discovered a paper that was opened to a section advertising a Women’s Festival in San Diego at their LGBT center. Now, at the time the only thing I knew about LGBT was what the acronym stood for (which has since become LGBTQI). So… I hopped on my bike, left my Aunt behind (while stealing some of her clothes) and made my way another good forty miles south to San Diego City, arriving the morning of the San Diego Women’s Festival.
I was so utterly nervous as I finally found the center that my palms were sweating to such a degree that I couldn’t wipe them off. I mean… what if I was kicked out because they thought I wasn’t a ‘woman’. Or even here people were going to call me by some worse names because I was in essence ‘cross-dressing’? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about this culture, and it scared me. Never once did I say to myself that I shouldn’t have been there though. I was simply afraid everyone else would think I shouldn’t be there. I mean, what if someone said I just wasn’t queer enough or something?!
My fears were getting the best of me, because this women’s festival and LGBT center was quite trans* inclusive as a whole. If there were any place I could have been to have my first inkling of what the LGBTQI culture was, I am glad it was this place. Not only was I greeted by friendly people of all types, consistently, but I also found not a single person saying I didn’t belong there. It was all my own fears hyping things up. I mean hell I walked in there with a bra on and a tight shirt with day old stubble!
The only situation I found myself thrown into among even workshops and interacting with a lot of the people was a single person asking at one point how a male bodied person could identify as a Lesbian. Now me, not knowing what proper language to use or pretty much anything, ended up answering that question so poorly, and looking back on it there were a hundred better answers I could have given, especially now since I often have to when I tell people I’m a boi (male-bodied person transitioning to female-bodied androgyny who practices genderfucking and is a lesbian). I know, I love screwing with my head too.
My new answer? It’s a matter of social values. A Male-bodied person can identify as being a lesbian (or female-bodied person identify as being a gay man) because based on how they have viewed and seen the culture and the way in which lesbians (or gay men) interact with each other is in line with how they view their relationships and lives in a direction of their happiness. Essentially, a male-bodied person might identify as a lesbian because the social constructs they created around what a lesbian is (a girl loving other girls) is the same mentality they believe they personally fall in.
I know, I probably just lost like most the readers with that one, but hey that’s the best answer I got, and that was with soaking up a ridiculous amount of gender-theory at random intervals, and I guarantee not only is that answer not encompassing for everyone but it isn’t really still even complete. But usually it confuses the hell out of the person I’m talking to that I can get away with it.
Anyway, after that little incident that I failed miserably at, one of the people working at the place stopped me to inform me about a transgender meeting that was happening later that same day. I knew what transgender was to a mild degree but luckily the person was able to give me some more information and I agreed to wait till then.
So… my first exposure to a fully trans environment was my first coming out meeting in San Diego and it was filled with people being supportive and informative and some interesting questions that were new to me (my whole life I’ve been gendered both male and female, but being gendered as a trans-guy was entirely new). I walked away from that meeting hardly knowing a damn thing about myself, but I walked away with more information than I had before and more language than I had before, which I could use to try to describe who I was or who I thought I would be happy to be.
And that is where it really comes in.
The language.
Because that is what I was missing. I had no language to explain how I was who I was. I knew nothing about it and I knew no labels or words I could associate to myself. It made me feel lost and left me with only the words of man or boy to latch on to and hope that would be enough. Oh… but no… even now I still learn new phrases and words each day among the LGBTQI community. If my identification of me isn’t enough to show how intricate my gender and sexuality mapping is then clearly I still am lacking words to describe it. But once I had even a small amount of this new language; these new words, I had a new world to explore. A new life… I had myself. I wasn’t just the closet girl-clothes wearing boy, I was a cross-dressing, gender-fucking lesbian boy (or boi), and no one could tell me otherwise who or what I am, because as Popeye said ‘I y’am what I y’am’.
Who would have thought Popeye was advocating for Trans* all those years ago?
Unfortunately, even though I have now spent around three years discovering who I was before I made any further decisions in my transitions, I have run into the issue of re-obtaining all the friends and family I had thrown away (well most of them), with one distinct advantage: I was out to all of them as being transgendered (at the very least). Including the relationship I have started to build with a straight cis-girl with a little gender-role-fucking.
And that is when being scared shitless came back into my life. Oh, I could walk down the street in a tutu, or work festivals and fundraisers in skirts and crazy make-up, but trying to explain my feelings to someone who identified as being attractive to the piece of me I was shedding and all hell comes crashing down. I was right back in the situation of feeling like I was in the closet again. She knew all this kind of stuff about me, and that I would be going through hormones and what that entailed and she is incredibly supportive of the process. What scares me so insanely is that both of us are unsure whether she will be attracted to me as I start to transition to more of a female androgynous body instead of male.
I’ve never been so frightened in my life. It’s like if I make one wrong step toward my personal goal I’ll lose the most amazing partner I’ve ever met. We both recognize the possibility since she’s never been attracted to girls but that doesn’t just stop it from happening. And so… it scares me, more than anything in the past. I practically have panic attacks thinking about one day just not being sexually fitting anymore for someone who I fit so perfectly with before!
It makes me second guess whether I can go through with the whole process, whether I can just let myself change over or whether I am making a terrible mistake? Will she feel betrayed if I go through the process like so many other partners of trans-women have felt? I’ve been open about the whole process before we even first went out, but people feel what they feel. I knew that better than anyone considering I was going off my feelings to decide how I interact with the world!
Luckily as we both had gone over this, I had settled into the decision that at the very least I could do things one at a time as I had the money for them. Hormones would be first, then clothes (etc), then chondrolaryngoplasty, followed by hair removal and then if that all goes well the big one with the bottom surgery. Each one in steps and each one I could evaluate with my partner how I feel about it and how she does. That way not only am I fulfilling myself to a further point of where I want to be, but I’m taking my partner into consideration.
It seems like a good plan, and it isn’t me just sacrificing myself to be able to fit into everyone else’s plans once more. After all, I had learned over the years of soul-searching that you can’t hide yourself in a relationship and still be happy. Eventually it will kill you inside, long before you will actually die.
So I move forward into my severely gender-skewed life with a lot of experience in the social and mental transition, and hope the physical transition will be a lot easier. Even though I already know it won’t. That will never stop me from hoping though; because who knows, it might actually be a lot easier than dealing with all the emotional baggage.
