I do wonder

Once again in the little sanctuary of Bar Wotever I find myself talking to my friend N she's a lovely lady who opened me up to the idea of being a female bodied male by saying there is no problem with transgendered people the problem is with the definition of gender in society. It's a deeply powerful statement to say that it's OK to be me and that it's the world that's got the problem, something I had never considered before until she said it.

I haven't seen her in a while the world being busy as it is so I made a point of thanking her and telling her just how important that was for me to hear. We spent the rest of the night chatting about all things Transgender which is always really great for me, to find someone else who I can feel comfortable with talking about these things is rare but rarer still to find someone with a passion for talking about it someone I can talk things through with who doesn't get tired of me working through my thoughts and ideas but actually finds them interesting. That is a truly wonderful thing.

I talked to her about the unspoken pressure to transition I feel in the transmale community and how it seems to me that it is almost as if transitioning is seen as a cure for the condition of being a trans. That it is seen as a natural progression of the condition that once I have identified as a male in a female body that I would want to cure myself by going through the process of transition, but I'm not sure I believe in that anymore. I don't think I am sick or wrong or whatever word one would like to use. I don't think I do need a cure I have found a richness and diversity in this garden that is my transmale identity, a continually changing and evolving identity that I am beginning to enjoy. Yes I have tough days, days where I am disconnected from myself, where I doubt my maleness and question my decision not to try and make my body look more like the body the world tells me I should have as a male, but don't we all have those days? I also have good days days where I feel at peace with myself, days where I feel as male as any man that walks down the street and real and here and connected to the world and this body I am living in. The fluidity of my existence is more and more important to me, more important than fitting into the box that will bring me acceptance. I have jumped out of my box and I am running around the garden, my hands waving above my head and the wind in my face, I don't want to go back, back there I cannot breathe. 

She is right it's not my problem that people can't see past the flesh I carry, in fact it is often the case that the passing glance reveals the real me. It is then that I am addressed as 'Sir' once a closer look is taken then it's the uncomfortable and uncertainty of 'Miss' and though I pretend not to mind it is disappointment I feel in this correction. Yes it's both right and wrong my body is female but I am not, this is a lonely garden few people it seems stay out here. The box is safe full of comfortable pronouns and others the same, sharing similar thoughts and responses and bodies making it all comfortable and safe. You know who you are, your wearing the right skin, and that skin attracts the right people to you.