I’ve had one of those fairly annoying days to be honest. Mostly work related but also because of the work the necessity to play the role of male me and fit in with expectations, all of which was a bit annoying and left me feeling not great.
One of my colleagues did comment on my hair getting longer and how I should aspire to a pony tail. I laughed it off, as it was hardly the time or place to explain that I am initially aiming to get it long enough for a bob cut but then I’m going to let it grow out until I can manage a proper femme ponytail. I very much doubt this particular colleague would ever understand any of the things I could tell him.
Joanne commented on my post from yesterday about being unable to explain why I feel the need to transition, that for her, she feels the need to make her body congruent with her mind.
I can certainly relate to that, and have probably even said something similar to that effect in my ramblings on here at some point. I wonder whether it is about my body matching my own perception of myself that matters though, or is it about my presentation matching the person I want to be? A major driver for me is a need to fit in with other women and be part of the female world. That is possible with a close friend after time to be accepted, but for new people or more casual acquaintances, appearing to be a man is a shorthand to give them an expectation of who I am, ie he looks like a man, he’s probably a man (with all the associations that entails) and not one of us (women). I want more than anything to be one of the women, so if I look like a woman and the shorthand assumption is then, woman, so one of us, then I’m closer to being part of something that my masculinity denies me access to.
I have to feel real though. Trying to present as a woman and be accepted into the group, whilst knowing that I have no breasts and male parts, I won’t be able to feel real. And I think that it would always be in the back of the minds of the women I am with, that I’m a man really, under it all.
So congruence with body and mind is a part of it.
Being able to be seen as a woman and be part of that world through the shorthand of how I present is probably a bigger thing, and for that to feel authentic the need for my body to be changed is necessary.
Those aspects I actually can explain, which is good.
There is still a little more to it though, and which I can’t explain. My body shape doesn’t please me, but the idea of a female body shape does appeal to me and I don’t know why or what it is about it that feels like I should be that. This goes right back to the beginning when I started puberty and wished I was developing like the girls at school rather than the way I was. Why did I feel any of that? Why do I still feel now that I should have breasts and curves and wish my body had that feminine softness? This is the part that I still can’t explain.
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