I woke up earlier than expected this morning, my eyes, full of grit and dry with tiredness against my will, creaked open and forced me out into the world again. I haven't had a dream like that in years dreaming I was lying there quietly knowing, waiting for some dream entity to kill me. I am calm inside, I see it coming but I don't try to run from it like I have before. My dreaming mind conjuring every image or sensation it can in am effort to illicit that cold sweaty terror I don't seem to feel anymore. Finally hands around my throat, it's a new sensation not the usual knife frenzy I knew so intimately in my younger days. It's cold hard hands trying to squeeze the life out of me, I feel myself struggle, the urge to stay alive kicks in and I fight back against these dream hands, then I am awake. It's morbid of me but somewhere in those seconds of awakening before I get out of bed there is a small me in the pit of my gut that's a little disappointed. Here I am awake again, alive again, stuck in this flesh again.
I thought I was past this and somehow here it is creeping back and gnawing at me, I'm angry that it's here, kicking it's heels against my ribs in tantrum. Insecurity and doubt eating at me, filling me with questions again. Is it real or my imagination, how can I say I am this, how can I prove it. Must I prove it, why do I need to change myself now after all these years, I have found revelation and acceptance and here the same old dusty questions come on out again. I went to a trans salon last night, I thought it was more of a forum, I should of read the blurb a bit better maybe. I thought it was about the diversity of the trans community but it was really about transition itself. For the first time in a long time I felt the pressure to change hang in the air around me. That I could not be a male without the hormones or the operations to take away the offending parts and give me the parts I feel I should have. I don't think it was the intention of the people who put on the show to say this it's just the feeling it generated in me. I needed to talk to them but I didn't, I should of, but I didn't.
I completely get where you're coming from. I have yet to find a trans-based webgroup where transition is not the be-all-end-all thing. I have, however, met a suprising amount of people who identify has male-in-female body or female-in-male body, or even something more in-between and dealing in vagueries. Regrettably I have yet to find a set 'community' of us, but then again, as one male-in-female-body commented to me when we first met "I avoid [trans-websites] because all they want to talk about is their GID and their transition plans, which is fine but after a while it becomes tediously dull and unhealthilty obsessive- people living for their transition and their GIDproblems rather than focussing on their hobbies and passions and sharing them instead." and I have to say his words have a ring of truth in them. I still recieve emails from an email-based support group for ts-ers and even when people are looking for guidance, or feeling low I can't help but wonder if ten emails encouraging them that life will get better (the fine print being 'once you transition') is more harm than help.
ReplyDeleteThank you LF it is good to hear there are people out there who have made a choice to look past the obsession of transition. I am heartened by the fact that I am not the only person out there thinking like this, though somedays it does feel like it. maybe we should set that group up?
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly an idea that might be worth pursuing- the only difficulty is knowing- in general, would the type of people who don't like to go on usual gender-vague groups be willing to join one, despite its aims not to be focussed on those issues? I don't know the answer to that, in truth.
ReplyDeleteI tend to stumble accross people for whom transition is not an issue when I least expect it- the first was a bloke at uni who is physically female but in every other way pretty much male. He is happily handfasted to his wife and I had no idea about anything to do with gender-vaguery being linked to him at all until I realised he not only has a male name but his friends refer to him chiefly in the male pronoun. Another person I met is online- randomly the boyfriend of someone whose fanfiction I used to read when she wrote in a different fandom. He's the one who first verbalised the view I mentioned to you about avoiding trans-websites. I know of even more people who cross that kind of barrier world out there- at least one or two more in different fandoms and one in real life. The tricky thing is is that because it isn't an issue with them, sometimes you might only find out by accident that they consider themselves in any way gender-vague.
I have a policy of total honesty when asked direct questions regarding my gender and sexuality. So far, only one person has ever actually directly asked me- everyone else I just let them take what they want from my remarks about people I find attractive or whatever :)
I see, that could indeed make it a difficult, something to think about though I do feel people who are questioning their identities need some sort of visibility regarding non transition options and speaking for myself personally I know as someone who is alone it would be nice to have a bit of a support network of people I could talk to when I am feeling in need of support.
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