(Divided for fluidity: part 1 safe, part 2 male, part 3 transition, part 4 female)
When I am female, I want to learn how to dance. I want to swing, to flow, to twirl and be twirled, to move organically without hesitation, feeling my partner with the playful intimacy of the platonic or an electric incandescence. I want to feel the visceral joy of physicality as music flows through you, linking the mass of humanity writhing in unison. It's intrinsic, intense, not necessarily ecstatic, not necessarily desolate, but intense and so, so real.
When I am female, I want to learn how to dance. I want to swing, to flow, to twirl and be twirled, to move organically without hesitation, feeling my partner with the playful intimacy of the platonic or an electric incandescence. I want to feel the visceral joy of physicality as music flows through you, linking the mass of humanity writhing in unison. It's intrinsic, intense, not necessarily ecstatic, not necessarily desolate, but intense and so, so real.
Unfortunately, this is problematic because although my maleness is, arguably, an impediment to that state, this all reeks of self-image and self-esteem. The dichotomy I've established is not one between male and female but rather between right and wrong, inanimate and alive. It's not exclusive to transness but almost certainly to many who find themselves in various states of discomfort about themselves.
I say this is unfortunate because it leaves me searching for identity. I am not, as the stereotype goes, a woman trapped in a male body. I am a genderqueer individual who, for an inexplicable reason, identifies with and seeks female presentation. Not just feminine, but female.
I say I want to dance when I am female, because I can't as a male. Oh, I've tried. Importantly, I don't want to lead. I don't want to be the aggressor, the controller. And that shouldn't be a problem, since that's a matter of gender. And I wonder, if our culture was different and women could lead me instead, would I not feel this dysphoria? Are cultural norms the things responsible for this? Is it all just a matter of me not liking what society tells me to do?
Perhaps. But so too I'm aware of how people look at me and see something that shouldn't be there, that I can't stand, that isn't me, isn't expressing what I want it to. Only in words can I express what I want, and there my gender doesn't come into play. Perhaps I dislike the role of the male (or much of it, anyway). But I have distaste for the role of the female, too. What I want is to be authentic, whole. I want to be real instead of a construct. And even though so much of identity is a construction, there is something essential there that points us towards certain avenues of expression, certain presentations, certain ways of being that are truer than others.
In many ways, dancing is emblematic of how I'd like to feel in general. As a male, I simply cannot express myself physically because my physical express are not me. I like me, for the most part; it is the maleness that I am so worried about. And I hope that I can overcome that worry and anxiety by becoming female. The stiff, self-hating, self-consciousness resulting from my maleness dropping away like shed skin and leaving a female fluid and vividly alive.
Again, not just feminine but female. Female and feminine are distinct. I would say that I already foster a great deal of femininity. As far as stereotypes go, my body is slight, my mannerisms submissive (more often than not), my preference to be submissive rather than dominant, my valuation and facility with empathy, etc. I am masculine, too, in some regards: I am assertive sometimes to the point of being aggressive in debate, I have a masculine frame and facial structure, I have interests that probably veer towards culturally masculine although the way I interact in those spaces tends to be closer to feminine. Point being, becoming female is not simply a matter of feminisizing my personality; I've already, significantly, done that.
What it is, though, is a set of signs and signals, understood implicitly by our culture, to represent the female. Clothing, obviously, is very significant. Voice, a make-or-break. Ways of taking up physical space, gait, demeanor, hair, shoes, makeup, and more and more. These all have elements of femininity to them, naturally; gender is a construction, after all. But they're learned on a level that make them difficult to crack. I'm trying, but it's difficult to feel "female" without them, which is discouraging because it's difficult to practice them if I don't feel female.
I say this to try and say that it's a difficult thing for me to conceptualize and make real. I can crossdress, I can work on my voice, I can do all these different things, but to actually feel female? To actually believe? I cannot simply say "I am letting my true self come out" because what I'm doing is constructing myself according to cultural norms of sex. They're norms that, mostly, I'm pretty ok with meeting (in the theoretical "You can do it!" kind of way). Yes, I want to wear skirts. Yes, I want to speak like a woman. Yes, I want to be pretty. But one of the reasons it's taken me so long to get here is because I know how fake it all is. I can wear a skirt and be male, I can speak differently and be male, and I can, to some people, be pretty and be a male. Hell, I can have a vagina and still look, talk, think, and act male.
So is being female just a matter of critical mass? It's not just the clothes, not just the mannerisms, not just the voice, not just the physical aspects, but instead an amalgamation of them all? As if gender is a scale and at some magical point one trait or prop or the other tips it from one side to the other.
You can note my incredulity, but I cannot conceive of an alternative. And maybe that's ok. I don't know why I want these things. I don't know why I identify this way. But when the pieces start falling into place, and the scale finally tips, I feel... right. I feel joyful. Not because I think only females can feel joyful, but because I am thankful for so much, excited about so much, engaged with so much and this maleness stands like a wall, a dam blocking it from flowing. And I wish I knew why. I wish I knew why.
Comments (0)
Post a Comment