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Jan. 5th, 2007
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Jan. 5th, 2007 04:58 pmVisiting the endocrinologist the last few times left me a little unsettled. Today, it was more than a little. I find myself extra conscious of how others (might/probably) view me, probably because I'm going to the endo specifically to mess with my "natural" body, and because what I'm doing is working. I don't like going anywhere in work clothing if I can help it, but today found me extra concerned about the comfortable way to wear my messenger back with t shirt versus the "safe" way. I go to this doctor in part because I want breasts, but I don't want to draw attention to them? I opted for "safe", and felt weaker because of it.
My endo is pretty low pressure, and seems to be willing to let me steer my own treatment, but he's informed by no doubt all the other trans folk he's dealt with, and invariably asks me questions in terms I don't really like (zB, "Do you try to pass when you go out in public, or are you happy how you present yourself how you are?") The thing is, I don't know how to answer, and I'm hyperconscious about giving a sign of insecurity or uncertainty to the doctor I see a few times a year who manages my hormones.
I'm not sure where I am is what I wanted (want?) for myself. I had this vague idea that... what? That I'd be able to find some place in androgynous, tomboyish girl territory that I could enter and leave as I liked, that would magically have room for me? I don't know that that's possible, but I don't know if it's fear or pragmatism that tells me that; I suppose it could be both, but neither is welcome.
I get a fair amount of credit from very important people for making hard choices, for refusing to give in to a system that wants nothing more than to impersonally erase my sense of a different self. Hell, I take a lot of my own identity from that. But is "reality" something with which I'll have to deal, and on its terms? Will I have to accede to have any measure of social stability or wider recognizability (not a word, but fuck it)? Is this one of those moments that a "mature" person would put aside childish rebellion and bend themselves to die Welt an Sich?
I deny myself a lot. I know this, and I'm not OK with it, but I'm also not OK with the social labelling and rejection I've faced in the past when I've tried to allow myself things. I'm not OK with being kinky crossdresser, the drag queen, the ugly transsexual, because I'm not any of those things, but what I am has no traction in the larger world, and no traction in the closer world because I don't let it out for fear of not being able to bridge the gulf between the close and wide. Am I only understandable to the extent that I make sense to others, even if the way they make sense of me is wrong?
I don't want to have to overcode 'femininity' to purchase what I want. I don't want to have to engage in paranoid self scrutiny, excising every trace of 'masculinity' lest I "give myself away". I just want to fucking be; that alone should be revolutionary enough, but I can't pay the price of that, and I can't pay the price of accommodation (the largest of which would be facing myself daily).
I don't know how to live this way, yet I've done it for too long. I don't know how to live a different way, yet desperately need to. I just don't know how to live in this far from perfect world, but I've got to find a way.
My endo is pretty low pressure, and seems to be willing to let me steer my own treatment, but he's informed by no doubt all the other trans folk he's dealt with, and invariably asks me questions in terms I don't really like (zB, "Do you try to pass when you go out in public, or are you happy how you present yourself how you are?") The thing is, I don't know how to answer, and I'm hyperconscious about giving a sign of insecurity or uncertainty to the doctor I see a few times a year who manages my hormones.
I'm not sure where I am is what I wanted (want?) for myself. I had this vague idea that... what? That I'd be able to find some place in androgynous, tomboyish girl territory that I could enter and leave as I liked, that would magically have room for me? I don't know that that's possible, but I don't know if it's fear or pragmatism that tells me that; I suppose it could be both, but neither is welcome.
I get a fair amount of credit from very important people for making hard choices, for refusing to give in to a system that wants nothing more than to impersonally erase my sense of a different self. Hell, I take a lot of my own identity from that. But is "reality" something with which I'll have to deal, and on its terms? Will I have to accede to have any measure of social stability or wider recognizability (not a word, but fuck it)? Is this one of those moments that a "mature" person would put aside childish rebellion and bend themselves to die Welt an Sich?
I deny myself a lot. I know this, and I'm not OK with it, but I'm also not OK with the social labelling and rejection I've faced in the past when I've tried to allow myself things. I'm not OK with being kinky crossdresser, the drag queen, the ugly transsexual, because I'm not any of those things, but what I am has no traction in the larger world, and no traction in the closer world because I don't let it out for fear of not being able to bridge the gulf between the close and wide. Am I only understandable to the extent that I make sense to others, even if the way they make sense of me is wrong?
I don't want to have to overcode 'femininity' to purchase what I want. I don't want to have to engage in paranoid self scrutiny, excising every trace of 'masculinity' lest I "give myself away". I just want to fucking be; that alone should be revolutionary enough, but I can't pay the price of that, and I can't pay the price of accommodation (the largest of which would be facing myself daily).
I don't know how to live this way, yet I've done it for too long. I don't know how to live a different way, yet desperately need to. I just don't know how to live in this far from perfect world, but I've got to find a way.