I AM...

Thoughts on Identity

I read an amazing piece by Transexile here:

Who’s Afraid of Sex? Why No One Understands What Gender Is

That really helped affirm, solidify, justify certain thoughts I’ve had about myself, and about Queer/Trans identity.

I’ve been on a very “slow-burn” journey of my own identity discovery, as I’ve learned more about terminology and philosophies around Queer/Trans identity, and more about myself, and how the two intermingle.

When I distill the essence of who/what I am, I can clearly say:

I Am A Woman.

That is the purest, clearest statement on how I identify.

I was assigned the “Male” sex/gender at birth, because of my genitals. I grew up as a boy, lived my early adult life as a man. Thoughts and feelings that went against this were stuffed away into the back of my mind in denial. I had to prove myself as a boy/man. The faintest feminine characteristic I saw in myself made my incredibly nervous of being “found out” I was really a woman.

When ideas around Gender started to become more open and I gained more insight as I got older, I felt since sometimes I felt more masculine, but others I started to let the feminine feelings creep in, maybe I was “Genderfluid.”

I still saw my physical body as a “Male” but felt my inner identity was a bobbing needle swaying in the middle ground of sometimes more femme, sometimes more masc.

But as I learned more, and started to go to therapy for a variety of reasons, my therapist also began to peel back the layers of my gender identity, as they felt deep seated anxiety around this was making other issues worse.

Finally one day, I came out during a session saying the thought I’d buried for so long out loud:

I Am A Woman.

I couldn’t deny it anymore. Fully recognizing and saying out loud to someone else relieved a massive burden, but led to new ones. The thought of “coming out” and transitioning, and the impacts on my life led me to hitting a wall in my progress. I stalled out for a few more years.

While the idea that one doesn’t need to physically be a certain way, or wear certain clothing to hold a particular gender, eventually this idea of presenting as a “Man” to the world, but feeling as a “Woman” on the inside wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t take it anymore, and finally I came out to my spouse, and myself in a way by fully embracing my next phase:

I Am A Trans Woman.

I expressed my desire to begin presenting more feminine, be referred to in feminine pronouns, and alter my name to the feminine.

I know I have the 40yr old body of a man, and I’m starting to dress more as a woman, I’m starting to work on physically presenting as a woman, but I know to some degree my previous life experience and wherever I end up, will mean I’m somewhere on that fluid spectrum still. So, if I want to get extra specific, I guess this now leads me to thinking:

I Am A Non-Binary Trans Femme Person/Woman.

There’s lots of discourse around how Gender and Gender Identity doesn’t require changing ones body, ones clothes. You feel it, you say it, you are it. I respect this, and agree as well. One’s internal Gender and their Gender Expression while intertwined are not one in the same.

But then how do I define myself, when clothing and pronouns and names and mannerisms still aren’t enough.

I feel a physical incongruence with my body, as well as my mental and emotional being. I don’t just want to feel like a woman on the inside, and dress like a woman on the outside, I want to physically embody Womanhood in my being.

I also wanted to begin taking HRT.

I want breasts. I want curves. I want less body hair and softer more sensitive skin. I want a vulva and vagina. I want my body and brain to run on Estrogen instead of Testosterone. My secondary and primary sex characteristics do not align with the physical body I feel I should have. I want to change these, or “transition” my body more to the feminine side of that gender-meter.

I want to be clear I don’t believe all Trans identified people must do this to be considered “Trans” and the Gender they feel represents themselves. But I do.

So now, this leads me to defining myself as:

I Am A Transsexual Non-Binary Trans Femme Person/Woman.

That’s a mouthful, and confusing enough to myself, let alone trying to explain it to anyone else.

I feel comfortable shortening it now to:

I Am A Transsexual/Transgender Woman.

I feel this now embraces who I am currently, and where I want to be. I don’t feel I need to fully express a “non-binary” identity, although I feel it still exists in the “subtext” of using “trans” identifiers. I am in a process, a journey, I am transitioning from a predominantly masculine gender expression to a feminine one, making me Transgender and I am transitioning from a predominantly masculine body with male sex characteristics to a female one, with feminine characteristics, thus making me Transsexual.

Just as the word Queer had been a slur for a long time and then reclaimed by the LGBTQ2IA+ community, I find those Trans folx that feel comfortable with it, should feel free to reclaim and express themselves as Transsexual. We need to reclaim it from being a slur, and reclaim it from trans-medicalists (those that claim one MUST medically transition to be trans).

So, I feel comfortable in owning this term, and I fully support anyone else who does as well. It reflects my being, and my journey. I do not consider “Transsexual” to be a slur, I am reclaiming it as my own.

I Am A Transsexual Woman.

I Am A Transgender Woman.

Both can co-exist freely, and together, they help me to define myself fully and more simply:

I Am A Woman.