Pages

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Anger, Part 2

I am finally ready to apologize for my angry post a few months back about being misgendered and being expected to look traditionally "masculine."

Actually, I've been ready for some time, in a sort of submerged, subconscious way, but haven't had the time to consciously sort through my thoughts on the matter or write a post about it. Now that I'm so wrapped up in depression that it's hard for me to work on music writing or any of the five zillion other things I'm supposed to be doing, it seems like a good time to sort through my emotions and get this one put to rest.

Being angry - attacking others, sarcastically sniping at them and their beliefs, fuming over perceived wrongs to myself or people whose struggles I identify with - is not a way I want to live my life, and also not the way I want to write this blog or the message I want to send about the people and causes that I defend. It is also not productive, as it makes "the other side" defensive and so more entrenched in their beliefs, or even divides people into opposing sides when they really weren't in the first place. For instance, the person whose comment set off my first angry post is far from transphobic, yet my anger could have made her an enemy.

Anger, ultimately, causes us all to suffer more, both the people who express it and those who receive it, and so expressing it doesn't really help make the world a better place.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to apologize, because, as I wrote back then:
...a part of me still thinks, if I don't express myself, explicitly and vociferously, then how will cis people ever know how I feel? How will they be able to have compassion for trans* people if they don't know how we suffer? And if I have to hold back my anger, doesn't that make me complicit in my own oppression? With the sort of things that happen to trans* people, don't I have a right to be angry? Shouldn't everyone be angry, when confronted with the alarming numbers of attacks and murders and suicides that happen to the trans* population?
I was still angry. I was still attached to that "us vs. them" mindset. Cis people are oppressing trans* people. When the reality of it is, we're all oppressed - by gender norms that set unattainable ideals of what's "masculine" and "feminine," and that limit us to only one side of that spectrum based primarily on our genitals at birth. That doesn't sound fair to just about anyone, does it?

I'm not saying we should do away with binary genders altogether (a lot of people like them), but just that the gender system should be more open and relaxed, with more freedom for everyone to decide where they fall and how to express themselves. And I'm saying that this is a better mindset to approach these issues, as an effort that will benefit everyone, than as a battle between cis and trans* people.

The comment I received about how "hard" it was to gender me correctly before I started HRT could have been an opportunity to discuss these issues, but I shut the discussion down by launching into an angry tirade. (I didn't yell at the person at the time, but I yelled about it later online, and the next time I talked to her about the issue, I was still venting frustration rather than engaging in dialogue.)

There was an article by Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron which was central in helping me dissipate my anger and think about alternate ways of dealing with situations like this, but it seems to have disappeared - I have the link but it doesn't work anymore, and I can't find it by searching. At least I saved some quotes from it, although I think there was more to it that I can't quite remember now. She has a book called Working With Anger which I should probably read. I'm also re-reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Anger, which was actually the book that got me started on Buddhism in the first place.

In that now nonexistent article, Thubten Chodron pointed out that expressing and suppressing anger are not the only options. If we try to look at the situation from a different point of view, "we will find that there is no reason to get angry to start with. Then there is no anger to express or to suppress."

Oftentimes, we trans people get upset when others' view of reality comes in conflict with our view of reality. We very clearly see our gender identities one way, while some people see them another way which is to them just as obvious and clear. Sometimes, people who are otherwise kind and respectful people just don't know how to be kind and respectful to trans people. This is through no fault of their own, but because their experience never included anything other than cis male and cis female. There's no reason to get angry about that; these people can usually be turned into allies by kindly and respectfully making them aware of our existence and what are and aren't nice ways to treat us.

Sometimes, people can't stomach the view of reality where sex and gender are more complicated than cis male and cis female, and they get angry (and hateful, and violent) first. Leaving aside the question of self-defense (cause that's a whole nother blog post I need to write at some point..) I don't think anger is a constructive response here, either. It seems so justified - someone may have been assaulted or killed; isn't that worthy of getting angry about? Certainly, feelings of anger are likely to rise in such a situation. That can't be denied, and we would need to deal with them. But taking them out on others, even on society as a whole, won't bring back a person who was killed, and won't do as much to prevent another person being killed as would efforts based on building compassion and mutual understanding. I don't, of course, have any data to back this up, but I feel it in my gut. Appealing to people's sense of compassion and fairness will be more effective at spreading tolerance than yelling at them, even if the yelling is generalized.

The thing is, we are all human, and sometimes we screw up - sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in bigger ways. Getting angry about it doesn't help anyone, but only makes things worse. Again in that lost article, Thubten Chodron writes,
It is clear that living beings are imperfect. So my expectation that they be perfect is totally unrealistic. When I accept this, I understand why they act like that and am more compassionate regarding what they do. They are caught in this dreadful prison of cyclic existence. I don’t what [sic] them to suffer, and I certainly don’t want to inflict more suffering on them by getting angry.
When someone hurts me, it may seem natural to be angry - to protect myself from further hurt, to call attention to the wrong that was done. But these things can be achieved in other ways, without causing more hurt as a result of being angry. In fact, they can be better achieved if we find ways to work with people instead of fighting against them.

So does that mean I will never go on another angry rant? I dunno. After all, I am imperfect too, and very forgetful to boot. But at least for now, I'm calm enough to say I'm sorry for taking my anger out on the internet, and that I will make an effort to talk about things more benevolently and compassionately in the future. That is the way to less suffering and more happiness for all of us.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

In Defense of 'Transgendered'

I'm going to take advantage of the fact that my girlfriend, who is staunchly opposed to the word 'transgendered,' is away at Wacken Open Air to write about this without starting any arguments. Hah, kidding, we certainly don't argue about grammar other than facetiously, and I actually already miss her and wish she were here to present the counter-argument so we could start a semi-serious discussion on this.

It's not that I have a strong opinion on the word itself, but I do have a virulent reaction to anyone telling me how I can or can't describe myself. And 'transgendered' is a word I choose to use, and I defy anyone to tell me I can't. This past weekend, a Funny or Die put up a video on transgender terminology (which wasn't even funny - it actually felt like it was satirizing people who insist on proper terminology for the trans community, and not the people who mess up said terminology) and the Advocate snarked on how getting rid of the term 'transgendered' is "a service to society."

It's not a service to me.

My preference for 'transgendered' over 'transgender' is partly an aesthetic and intuitive choice, and partly one influenced by trans activist Matt Kailey. Matt Kailey was one of the first trans authors I read, and was, for a long time, a staunch advocate of 'transgendered' over 'transgender.' He eventually changed his tune (but not his mind), but I don't plan to.

To me, 'transgendered' sounds like an adjective; 'transgender' does not. 'Transgendered' parallels 'normatively gendered' and 'differently gendered' and any other way you might want to modify the word 'gendered.' That's why I say, "I am transgendered." To me, saying, "I am transgender" is like saying, "I am Finn." It's just not the right form of the word; you're supposed to say, "I am Finnish" or "I am a Finn."

I have started to use 'transgender' when it comes before a noun, such as 'transgender man,' 'transgender woman,' or 'transgender person' or 'people.' That's solely attributable to my girlfriend. Seeing her use 'transgender woman' a zillion times on Facebook, and knowing that she preferred me to call her a 'transgender woman' rather than a 'transgendered' one, made that usage rub off on me, so now my use of the two terms is mixed, but consistent: When it comes before a noun, I use 'transgender.' When it comes after a form of 'to be,' I use 'transgendered.' (And when I don't want to choose, I use 'trans.') Because 'transgendered' sounds like an adjective that could describe a person. 'Transgender' does not.

That doesn't mean I support using 'transgender' as a noun. When, for instance, a non-trans person refers to a trans person as 'a transgender,' it comes off as dehumanizing. I'll admit, I have used it (though mainly just in my head) in the same joking or informal way that members of the LGBT community might talk about 'queers' or 'gays.' This isn't a way that's appropriate for people outside the LGBT community to talk about us, though, for this reason: if one isn't trans, queer, or gay, it's very hard to know which terms are offensive when. Better just stick to sanitized forms (ie. add 'person' or 'people' to those terms) lest you hurt someone's feelings.

I may seem like I'm out of touch for clinging to 'transgendered' when it has apparently gone out of style, but I reserve the right to choose the words that describe myself, and 'transgendered' is one of them. I try to avoid foisting it on people who don't like it (see above about why I started saying things like 'transgender woman' in the first place) but if I am talking about myself, I don't see why anyone should be offended that I describe myself as 'transgendered.' I view it as akin to the way that some people in the trans community have differences of opinion about how to use 'transsexual' as opposed to 'transgender(ed).' Language changes, but sometimes people get attached to their words and don't want to change just because their chosen word is no longer fashionable or no longer means the same thing to a wider audience. And that's okay. What is this struggle all about if not about being uniquely, authentically ourselves? The first step to that is choosing and defining the words that describe ourselves, and that's something no one should ever take away.

Monday, July 20, 2015

At Ease With Uncertainty

There's a platitude that the only constant in life is change. Nothing is certain; everything changes. We all know this, and yet it's a hard fact to live with. We want to be sure of things in our lives; when uncertainty rears its head, we get anxious.

Uncertainty about my gender -- who I am, and what to do about it -- has been a source of anxiety to me for over a year now, but especially in the last few months. Since making the decision to start HRT, I've been angsting about even more stuff than before, though you'd think the opposite would happen. Am I "all the way" transgender or "just" genderqueer? Am I really trans* at all? Do I really need to transition medically? Am I ever going to "get there" with transition?

When I made the decision on January 14 to start T, I thought I had all the answers. I was a man. I wanted a male body. It wasn't long, though, before the doubts started. I wrote about feeling like I was in a no-man's land, having left the shore of femaleness definitively behind, and yet not having reached the shore of being perceived as male. I didn't know who or what I was. Eventually I started to question whether I actually was a man. I still wanted to look like one, to be one physically, but I didn't feel like one inside, or outside. I felt like I couldn't be female, but I didn't know if I could be a man, either.

Oftentimes, this stemmed from noticing something about my body or my appearance that rang the "female" bell in my head. You wanna be a man? Uh, nope - your waist and hips say otherwise. Or your chest in that sports bro says otherwise. The way you're walking, or sitting. The way your voice comes out high when talking to your kid, or on the phone, or speaking in Chinese. (Yep, although I'm doing all right in English, I still haven't learned to speak Chinese with male intonation >.<)

I can't even tell if I'm comfortable being perceived as a man, because most of the time, I think I'm not seen that way. I don't want to be seen as a woman, and knowing that I am (for instance, when I hear female pronouns or words like "ma'am") rankles me. I prefer to hear male pronouns and male forms of address. But does that make me a man, or just more masculine than feminine? Is my way of "being a man" sufficient? Is "being a man" something I want to do?

I just want to be myself, but at the moment I don't really know who or what my self is.

Part of that is because gender, once you open yourself up the idea that it can be more than just binary, is far from clear-cut. There is no right or wrong other than what your gut instinct tells you - but I'm so unused to trusting myself that I can barely make out what my gut is saying. (Even when it's hungry, I have a tendency to ignore that feeling, too.)

Part of it is that my gender -- my understanding of it and my expression of it to the outside world -- is in flux. I am looking more and more masculine, but I'm not at the point yet where I'm broadly perceived as a man, or even by myself. I feel a disconnect with femaleness and an affinity with maleness, but I'm still learning about both these things. I don't understand women and I don't know enough about men.

And so, I've been having a lot of moments where I don't know where I'm going, or if I'll get there, or why I'm doing this.

But you know what? It's okay.

For the past week or so, I've finally been feeling okay with the uncertainty of my transition. I think I've learned to "hold the questions" -- a phrase that I think comes from Pema Chödrön, but I can't find the exact quote right now. It doesn't mean to stave them off but rather to sit with them, to let the questions be and not seek after answers, to accept uncertainty. After all, nothing is certain in life.

Not even the self. I am not the same person I was in high school, in college, when I was 25, or even five minutes ago. The only way to be yourself is just to be. Yes, the human mind likes to label and categorize. I would feel more rooted if I could proclaim "I am transgender!" or "I am a man!" with absolute certainty. Letting myself drift in the vagueness of "genderqueer" and "masculine" doesn't feel secure. But that's reality. Nothing is certain. Everything changes.

And I think I'm finally learning to relax and go with the flow, at least as far as gender is concerned.

Because more important than the other shore, which I may or may not reach, is what's going on right here, right now, where I am. Where I'm being me, making myself in each moment, just by doing what I'm doing. It's okay to just be, without even knowing how.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Fantasy Women Fight Back

Warning: Discusses rape and sexual assault. Also spoilers.

I meant to write about this last year after reading a post about the attempted rape scene in the Divergent movie, but never got around to it. But now I've restarted work on my massive femslash Little Mermaid retelling Surface of the Deep, and so it's time to write this post.

Because much as I hate how much rape there is in fantasy fiction as well as in slash (whether fan fiction or original), I wrote a rape scene in Surface of the Deep.

*SPOILERS*
Toward the end of the novel, one of the characters is married against her wishes, and her new husband has sex with her, which she also does not want. She goes along with it because she's trying to lie low so that she can escape from the household later. There's no physical coercion involved, and it's in keeping with and sanctioned by the Ancient Greek-like society of the novel - but she doesn't consent, so by our modern standards it's rape. And I knew that going in, and hated the fact that it had to happen to her, but I wrote it anyway. It had to happen for plot reasons, because that sex act caused something else to happen that was a crucial part of the plot.
*END SPOILERS*

I hated it not just because of the pain and unfairness inflicted on the character, but also because it made me a part of a trend of rape scenes in fantasy and slash fiction, toward which I feel squeamish and uncomfortable.

Reading Beth Lalonde's post on Medium started to clarify for me why I felt that way. I haven't seen the Divergent movie myself, but I don't think that's really required to understand the point of the article. (I haven't read the book, either, and I know there's a debate about the differences between them, but it's a little beside the point here.) *SPOILERS* Ms. Lalonde describes how the main character, Tris, fights off a would-be rapist in a sort of training simulator, and then is applauded by her trainers for successfully defending herself. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" Ms. Lalonde writes in amazement. "Have you ever seen a teenage girl fight off a rapist on camera, let alone be congratulated for it?"

Crucially, the rapist in the training simulator is a simulation of Tris's boyfriend. *END SPOILERS* So we're not just talking about an attempted rape, but an attempted date rape, which is an area where some people seem to find it difficult to understand what consent is. Ms. Lalonde compares the scene in the movie to her own experience: "I had been there, in that bedroom, with someone I liked, and I had been too afraid to hit back. Too afraid to say no." And, well, this is hard for me to say publicly, but I've been there, too.

When I look back on it, why the hell didn't I fight back? And I know that were I in that situation again, now, I would fight like hell. But it took me years of processing not just to understand but to really believe that I was not at fault for "putting myself in that situation," for letting things progress and saying no pretty late in the game - to know that no fucking means no, no matter with whom, or in what state of undress, or whether I said yes to something else five minutes ago. That every inch of my body is mine to control, and that I can tell someone stop if and whenever I feel uncomfortable.

And I can enforce it.

This was what I took away from Ms. Lalonde's post about Divergent. That far too often in the media - fantasy fiction being my preferred segment of it - women are depicted as the passive victims of rape culture, whether it's our culture or a made-up culture loosely modeled on some past period. Ms. Lalonde points out:
Divergent marks the first time I have ever seen a teenage girl articulate, in no uncertain terms, that her body belongs to her. That she gets to decide who touches it, and how, and when. That her yes and her no are final, and unambiguous, and worthy of respect.
Fantasy fiction, my own writing included, seems to have accepted that it's the sad lot of women to be victims of sexual assault, that no doesn't mean no, that consent will not be asked and that women's refusals will be trampled on, or even considered irrelevant, as in the socially sanctioned marriage rape in my novel. There may be some token struggle, but by and large, fantasy women don't really fight back when they are sexually assaulted, never mind kicking ass and leaving their attackers as the broken ones. (There are surely some exceptions, though, and if you know one I'd love to hear about it!)

Take my character from Surface of the Deep, for instance. Given her personality, would she really take a sexual assault lying down? (OK..sorry..terrible pun.) Hell no! She's tough, determined, and oh, she trained as a soldier for a while and was ready to go to war to find her fiance, and she just happens to be armed with a knife during the rape scene. How could I be so stupid? She would fight like hell, she would win, and then she would find some other way to escape.

By the same token, as well as characters (often women, but not always) who enforce their consent or refusal, we also need other characters (often men, but not always - in Surface, this actually happens with a female character) who ask for consent and respect refusals and boundaries. We need visions of societies that are past the problem of rape culture, where respect for everyone's bodies is the norm. That's not to say that rape can never happen in fantasy fiction - after all, we shouldn't ignore the problem either - but it shouldn't be a constant, unavoidable fixture, which fantasy women are helpless to resist.

That's not all, though. There's a much worse issue with rape that especially comes to the fore in slash fiction, though it's pretty common in regular fantasy fiction, too, and that's the eroticization of rape. There seems to be a whole subgenre of slash fiction devoted to "questionable" consent and even unquestionable rape, and the way it's written is intended to arouse, rather than to horrify. This was the second reason why I was uncomfortable writing a rape scene in my femslash novel - I definitely did not want to be seen as someone who was writing about rape in an erotic way.

I was so uncomfortable writing about rape that I had it happen off-stage, and to make it clear that it was in no way erotic, I depicted it primarily by describing the character's distress at what happened. In this way, she is the subject rather than just a sex object - the reader sees the rape through her eyes, feels the trauma of it. In eroticized rape scenes, the character who is raped becomes an object, and even if they cry out or struggle, this is portrayed in a way that contributes to the sexual fantasy, rather than a way that brings us into the character's mind and engenders sympathy for them and horror at what's happening. And a lot of this is coming from women writers, like Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, and Tanith Lee. How does that make sense? I would think that women would have a pretty clear idea that rape is not sexy. But I guess rape culture is so entrenched that even when women write about rape, they may find themselves making it erotic, perhaps unintentionally. After all, I couldn't sort out my own mix of arousal and squeamishness toward these sort of scenes until recently. Rape culture is a well kept secret.

Some people think that rape has no place at all in fantasy fiction. In a way that's true, in the sense that rape should have no place in our world. But it is a problem that exists in our world, and as such, it shouldn't be ignored, either. Writing about it can be used as a way of calling attention to it, standing up to it, and encouraging changes in thinking and action that can bring an end to it. These things won't be accomplished, of course, if fictional characters are mainly portrayed as the passive victims of victims of inevitable attacks, or if sexual assault is eroticized. To overcome rape culture both on and off the page, we need to do the same for our characters as we'd do for real people: listen to their consent or the refusal, know that they mean it when they say no, and enlist them to fight back.

This may not work for every character or story. Sometimes sucky things have to happen in a sucky way. But the deluge of uncontested, eroticized rapes in fantasy and slash fiction ought to be turned around so that these situations are the minority of cases; they shouldn't be the status quo. And it's up to us on the front lines, us writers and our characters, to do it.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Oppressed by "Passing"

Since reaching a more nonbinary understanding of my gender identity, I've run directly into the problems with society's demand that we all "pass" as one gender or the other.

My situation is complicated by the fact that I'm in the early stages of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and that to an extent I still wish to live and be seen as a member of one of the binary sexes, just that it's not the one I was assigned at birth and had been living as for most of my life.

What happened was this. Last week, I wanted to wear a shirt that I like. It's a collared shirt with blue and dark gray stripes and maybe three buttons - it doesn't button all the way down, but just has a few under the collar, like a polo. And, it's technically a "women's" shirt. It was sold in the "women's" department, buttons on the right, and the stripes are thinner and so more "feminine" than they would be on "men's" shirts.

I really like that shirt though. I think it looks nice, and it doesn't really look feminine to me, or make me feel like a woman.

If I wore it work though? How would other people see it, and as a result, me? What would they think of me going into the men's restroom?

Seeing as I'm still early (just over three months) in HRT, clothing and grooming play as much, if not more, of a role in how other people see me as does my physical body. So despite how I rail against the idea that trans people ought to conform to cisgender stereotypes in order to help them be accepted, I do the very same thing myself. In order to avoid difficulties, especially at work and especially regarding which restroom I use there, I strive to dress and groom myself in a way that is more or less traditionally masculine (my waist-length hair is the exception, but even then, I wear it simply pulled back or braided, rather than down or in a bun or just about any other hairstyle. Hairstyles, apparently, are the prerogative of women).

Right now, the clothes make the man. Because my body is still only somewhat masculinized, I have to use my clothing to convince people, and I have to convince people so that they'll leave me alone in the bathroom.

Which means I can't wear a shirt that I want to, just because it could be perceived as a "women's" shirt, leading to confusion or misperceptions about my gender, and therefore to trouble for me.

Then again, it could also lead to productive conversations about gender and stereotypes. But at what risk to me? I've been lucky that my trans identity has been so readily accepted at my workplaces and that barring a couple weird looks in the restroom, I've gotten just about no reaction to my switching bathrooms after I came out. It's been going so well, I'm reluctant to overturn it all by throwing nonbinary identity and transgression of gender norms into the mix.

But if I remain closeted, as it were, about the queerness of my identity and my wardrobe choices, then how is that helping to change anything?

Yet I can't bring myself to be a martyr for the cause of genderqueer identities and expression. When my body is more generally perceived as male, then I think I'll be able to more freely choose my office wardrobe, and to stand up for my choices.

My ideal world would be one in which each person can declare their gender as they see it, and be respected for it. But we're far from such a world. Like I explained in my previous post on "passing," trans people have to convince the world of their identities through appearance and behavior, through being indistinguishable from binary cis people, in order to be accepted. And now I'm running up against that sad truth personally. I can conform to the standard for male appearance and meet with a modicum of acceptance, or I can follow my heart and have to fight every step of the way to be recognized as who I feel I am. And at this point, I really don't know which one will bring me more happiness, less stress, more reward, less pain. It's just a decision I have to make on a daily basis, balancing my need for self-expression with my need to be gendered correctly, to avoid harassment, to survive. Perhaps someday I won't be in this bind. Or perhaps what I really should hope for is the strength to break free.

I wore the shirt on Saturday instead.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

I Can't Be Trans Because...

I'm going to do something that probably very few other people would dare to do, which is to publicly list the reasons why I sometimes doubt that I'm really trans. I'm probably willing to do this because my whole gender journey has been public anyway. And because other than a few select people, probably the one who doubts my transness the most is myself. If I tell you all the things that go through my head, maybe you'll make it clear to me how baseless my doubts are. At the very least, I won't feel like I'm deceiving people or hiding anything, because you'll have the whole story in front of you to judge for yourself.

So. Sometimes I think I can't possibly be trans because...

My brother is trans. What are the chances of that, two siblings both being transgendered? Doesn't this only happen to like 1 in 1000 people? Besides, he was trans first. I'm just a copy cat. Odin only knows why I would choose to follow him down such a difficult path, but surely two transgendered brothers can't be for real. I can't really be trans.

I didn't figure it out till I was 28. I don't mean I waited till I was 28 to start transitioning because I wasn't sure. I mean I honestly had no idea I was transgendered until last summer. I'd toyed with the idea of being genderqueer in college, but discarded it, and honestly believed I was just a very unfeminine cis woman until last June. And I never felt any intense body dysphoria until last summer, either. I mean, I think most cis women hate their periods, and I'm sure many find their boobs inconvenient, so that doesn't count. How could it come on so suddenly? I can't really be trans.

My dad doesn't believe me. And you'd think I could ignore this and go on my own path, but I live with my parents, and it's pretty difficult to construct and maintain your identity when a person that you see every day insists on tearing it down. Even without saying anything. I just know, that no matter what I do, he's not convinced, he's not going to view me as a man or as his son. I'm defeated before I even start, so why bother? I'll never really be a man.

It all happened too quickly. In less than a year, I went from blithely living as a cis woman, to taking hormones, legally changing my name, and contemplating surgery and changing my gender marker. This is the sort of thing you're supposed to angst over for years. Surely, three short months isn't nearly long enough to make the life-altering decision to take cross-gender hormones. I don't know what's driving me to make these decisions, but I can't possibly be certain they're the right ones. I can't possibly really want to be a man.

It's too hard. Never mind that I have to stick needles in myself every week or force myself into a binder every day, but I've had to turn my life upside down by telling everyone I know to call me by a different name and gender, by barging into men's restrooms, by fundamentally altering my identity as a parent. And now I need to save up thousands of dollars for surgeries; and even if they wind up being covered by insurance in a few years, I'll have to lose work hours - lots of work hours - for the surgeries themselves and post-surgery recovery. And I run the risk of everything from being beat up in the bathroom to not being able to get housing or change jobs. Why the hell would I do this to myself? I can't be trans; I don't want to be.

It's impossible - I have a female body. And that's internalized cissexism speaking, but damn, it just won't die. The thing is, I would never say or even think this sort of thing about any of my trans* friends or family. They are who they say they are, unquestionably. But myself? Come on, how could I be a man, with this body and 28 years of living as female? I'm deluding myself; I'm trying to be something I'm not. I can't be trans and I can't be a man.

And yet every day I get up and put on my binder and my male clothing; I go to work and I hope people are seeing me as male; I rejoice when I get called by the right pronouns and cringe when I hear the wrong ones; I use the men's bathroom cause it would be even weirder to use the women's; and I feel like me all day long. I do what I want, I wear what I want, and I try not to let anyone else define me.

If only it were so easy, though, as just doing what makes me happy...