One Small Step...

With Her Through The Mirror
The TGArtist
This artwork was created by a transwoman who has since retired from creating transgender art.  While I completely understand and support her decision to step away, her work has been inspiring and helpful to me and to many other people.  Her artwork, and the statement she gave when she retired from it, has inspired me to be more open to others.

Last year, I created a separate online identity with a separate blog to express my thoughts, feelings, and personal experiences with being somewhere on the gender non-conformist spectrum.  This felt wrong because keeping these feelings segregated was a form of self-shaming.  I have been working through feelings of embarrassment and guilt about my gender identity since I was in grade school, so treating this as something to hide felt like a step in the wrong direction.  When you look at it objectively, the only reason that my gender identity stands out from any other aspect of who I am is because of the social stigma around it.  If we lived in a world where expressing your gender in whatever way feels right to you didn't come with so much baggage, it wouldn't be any more worth mentioning than the color of my hair or the color of my eyes, both of which could change without too much judgment from others.

I am not transitioning, nor is the focus of this blog suddenly going to shift to being entirely about gender identity, but this is a part of who I am.  With that sprit in mind, the text below started off as something that I wrote for that other blog.  I read it again and didn't feel like it captured what it is that I'm trying to express, so I spent most of the day re-writing it.  The text below these two National Geographic covers is about my eighth or ninth attempt and I still don't think I'm doing a great job of explaining how I feel, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

Gender non-conformity has captured the attention of the American public.  On one hand, I've taken some comfort in this.  It's nice to know that I'm not alone and that there are a lot of supportive people in the world.  On the other hand, it has shined a light on the hatred, bigotry, and violence that the trans community is faced with on a daily basis, and that scared the hell out of me.  The extra attention has also inspired quite a bit of hurtful sarcasm and jokes.

Artwork by Sophie (Assigned Male Comics)

Even if everybody in the world was supportive and understanding, this is a pretty damned confusing issue to deal with in and of itself.  In my case, this mental salad has a few extra croutons of autism, ADHD, and social anxiety tossed into the mix.  Fun, huh?

I'm 36 years old and I'm still not entirely sure where I fit.  Some days, I wake up and I know in my heart that I am a woman.  Other times, I tell myself that I'm being ridiculous and that I'm just a guy with a feminine side who has a hard time fitting in with others.  I suppose the label that makes the most sense is genderfluid, but I'm not sure if that's right either.  I would feel a lot better if I was assigned female at birth but free to express her masculine side instead of it being the other way around.  Maybe I'm just transfeminine and just too lazy or scared to see it through?

If I was born twenty years later, or was standing on more solid ground as it relates to my mental health, or if I was raised in an environment where I could have felt free to express these feelings with my family without being judged or dismissed, I might have considered transitioning, but I don't think think that's a step I could take.  I have all the respect in the world for the people who overcome all of the obstacles in their lives to live their truth, but I think that the negatives would outweigh the positives when it comes to my own peace of mind.  In the words of Dante Hicks, "I can't make changes in my life like that. If l could, l would. but l don't have the ability to risk the comfortable situations on the big money and the fabulous prizes."  I express femininity in ways that are comfortable to me, and those ways are more or less prominent depending on who I am around and how safe I feel to be myself.

Artwork by Maijin Rose

This artwork was commissioned from Maijin Rose on Tumblr.  I wanted to see an artists rendition of me as a transwoman.  While I'm sure I'd explore with styles that are a little more fun than this if I were to live my life openly, I asked her to draw me in t-shirt and jeans because that's what I typically wear today.

Look, I realize that I am coming as guarded, or uptight, or ashamed of who I am, or some combination of the three.  I wish that I could snap my fingers and be absolutely confident and fearless about all of this, but being transgender or genderfluid or whatever it is that I am is far from the only thing I've had to come to terms with in my life.  I've worked through a hell of a lot of other issues and have been lucky enough to get through it and find happiness, so if I'm overly protective of the peace that I've found, it's only because I remember what life was like before I found it.

I don't really have a graceful way to end this piece, but thank you for reading it.