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Jun. 19th, 2007 06:15 amThere's something about being up before the sun that I'm growing to really like. In summer, it feels decadent, anticipatory, and open (in winter it often feels full of longing and an awareness of lack). More things are possible in that sliver of time.
My body is changing. This is a big 'duh' moment, but there seems to be either a threshold or an acceleration recently. Already, I feel like I have to be very conscious of what shirt I wear in what context. Yeah, I know this is something 'women' worry about a lot, too, but I suspect it's a little different for me. There isn't ever the open space for choosing something to accentuate the changes I've been working so diligently to achieve, but always the worry of what shows, of how close to the line of awareness and visibility I am. I'm almost always read as a guy, and I hate that, but I'm realizing that I think being read as some Other, with implications towards not-human monstrosity, may be worse. When I'm willing to honestly look it in the face, I don't think I can be read as a girl except maybe, just maybe with a whole fuck ton of work, and even then it'd be iffy. I don't want to invest most of my waking energy trying to convince people that I am, or want to be, something woefully inadequate to contain me.
Some of what I want (boobs, a butt, certain modes of self expression, no expectation of being bound by guy rules, etc) can be authorized behind 'girl', but a whole lot of me will not fit there. The same is true of 'guy'. I'm losing the ability to pass in the latter, and I don't think I'd ever have the ability in regard to the former. At best, I think I could pass as a 'guy' who wants to be a 'girl' (but never really will, poor thing). I don't really want this, anyway, but... the idea of constant exposure, of not having a sort of primal tribal identity, scares the ever living fuck out of me.
Already, in a few recent circumstances, I've had strangers stare at my chest, as if trying to integrate what they think they see there with what they think everything else means. It's not liberating or exciting; it scares me, and has a sense of inevitability behind it. I don't know why I can't make do, fit some part of me in some identity and use it as a base for growth beyond. Other people certainly do, so I know it's possible, I just... can't, or can't seem to. It makes me feel flawed, maybe weak, stubbornly insufficient, and yeah, scared.
My body is changing. This is a big 'duh' moment, but there seems to be either a threshold or an acceleration recently. Already, I feel like I have to be very conscious of what shirt I wear in what context. Yeah, I know this is something 'women' worry about a lot, too, but I suspect it's a little different for me. There isn't ever the open space for choosing something to accentuate the changes I've been working so diligently to achieve, but always the worry of what shows, of how close to the line of awareness and visibility I am. I'm almost always read as a guy, and I hate that, but I'm realizing that I think being read as some Other, with implications towards not-human monstrosity, may be worse. When I'm willing to honestly look it in the face, I don't think I can be read as a girl except maybe, just maybe with a whole fuck ton of work, and even then it'd be iffy. I don't want to invest most of my waking energy trying to convince people that I am, or want to be, something woefully inadequate to contain me.
Some of what I want (boobs, a butt, certain modes of self expression, no expectation of being bound by guy rules, etc) can be authorized behind 'girl', but a whole lot of me will not fit there. The same is true of 'guy'. I'm losing the ability to pass in the latter, and I don't think I'd ever have the ability in regard to the former. At best, I think I could pass as a 'guy' who wants to be a 'girl' (but never really will, poor thing). I don't really want this, anyway, but... the idea of constant exposure, of not having a sort of primal tribal identity, scares the ever living fuck out of me.
Already, in a few recent circumstances, I've had strangers stare at my chest, as if trying to integrate what they think they see there with what they think everything else means. It's not liberating or exciting; it scares me, and has a sense of inevitability behind it. I don't know why I can't make do, fit some part of me in some identity and use it as a base for growth beyond. Other people certainly do, so I know it's possible, I just... can't, or can't seem to. It makes me feel flawed, maybe weak, stubbornly insufficient, and yeah, scared.
