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aravain -> A Different Kind of Trans (4/5/2009 9:30:38 PM)
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(apologies and warnings meant to everyone, the following, I'll admit, is a rant. A load of things have fallen onto me, and while most of my friends *know* about my situation, many can't empathize in the least, and some find it downright strange or confusing. I'm posting it here in the hopes that a kindred spirit, or at the very least someone willing to read/listen will do so... I don't know what I want, really, except that someone sees it, someone reads it... that it's not dismissed as unimportant. This is the most likely place for that to happen, to be completely honest [&o] so do try and go easy on me.)
Most people hear about those transsexuals who are stuck in a body that is opposite of who they are, those that are FTM (female to male) or MTF (male to female), and who desperately desire to be that which their body isn't. I am not this kind of transsexual. Sometimes, I worry that it's all in my head, that what I feel, what I think, my entire reality and perception of it is somehow skewed and I'm the problem, that I'm willfully hurting myself over something that doesn't matter... but almost immediately that's rebutted with a gut-wrenching reaction. I feel sick, physically sick, when I think about myself, when I think about what I feel, when I think about how I see the world.
But when I talk about it with others... no one understands. They call me strange, they tell me I'm just screwed up in my head, that I should see a shrink to 'straighten' myself out so that I'll shut up about this "nonsense."
You see, I'm transexual, but not in a manner that most people are used to. I'm not someone of one gender stuck in the opposite body, I'm not someone who is, biologically, between the two sexes. I'm some 'other' entity, biologically male but... I'm *not* male, I have an aversion to being male a significant amount of time.
I'm neither an androgyne (an amalgamation of both sexes/genders in a binary understanding), nor sexless/genderless (the distinctions between this and androgyny are faint and difficult to expound upon). There isn't one thing that fits, and trying any have hurt more than anything.
I use inter-gendered, or bi-gendered now, depending on the day and how I feel. They mean only mildly different things, distinctive by semantics; as they apply to me, however, it's quite simple. I'm neither singularly male, nor female; I'm not some amalgamation/combination of the two (40%male60%female); I'm both. It's hard to explain, but in simplest terms... I am both male and female. This usually requires further clarification; I'm not 'half male' or 'half female,' I'm literally both. Instead of having two sides of a single coin... it's like having two completely separate coins. It's like having two seperate "me-s" which are both "me" (and no, it's not in a mental illness sense, which is also one of the more difficult things to explain).
I don't hate myself for it. I don't love it either... I just wish I understood. Even worse, or more pressing at least, I just wish somebody ELSE understood, even if it was just as little as I do.
When I talk to others about it, I always talk about what it is, defining it, explaining what I mean... I don't actually get a chance to just... talk. I'm so busy trying to get them to understand just how little I understand, at the very least... it's entirely frustrating.
And then there are those who don't understand, who refuse to understand, who think this is something that needs 'fixed.' Believe it or not, I've run into this more with those who ARE trans than those who are not. They're so very focused on 'fixing' themselves, on changing their bodies to what they are.
What am I?
There's nothing to 'fix' because... there's nothing to change it to. How can someone be fully female one day, and then male the next?
Others are usually more supportive. They want to understand, they want to know what it's like... but I don't need that. I need someone else who understands already (not who may understand some day), who I can just... be myself with. Someone who I can talk to about completely unrelated things... just knowing that, if I wanted to, I could talk about it, and get MORE than sympathy, get MORE than assurances that I can 'fix' it, or suggestions how to feel better, or what type of counselor I need to see. I want someone I can just... talk to, complain to, cry on occasionally, who *gets* it, who *gets* the struggle.
And, truly, there's no one. I've never quite met someone like myself; any counselors I've had have said it's incredibly rare, that the nature of it is still not even well understood, either. It's been theorized that it's caused by my mental illness... or that it's caused my mental illness. It's been theorized that it's in my head... or that it's so basic and ingrained a part of me that there's no way it could be 'wrong.'
I... don't care about the cause. I don't care about whether it's changeable, or wrong, or whatnot. I just want people to stop trying to diagnose it, to understand it, to change it... and just accept it. I don't need to be fixed, I need to just completely destress about it, every once and a while, without being judged, without it changing a friendship or how someone sees me.
It's made worse by reading, by watching information. I long for a life as a woman, for a woman's body... among other things. As a man I'm well fulfilled, I'm not particularly macho, I don't feel a need to be, either. It's these times that I wonder about it.
And no, cross dressing doesn't 'help,' it's not the same. It's woefully innaccurate, and it *hurts*. The whole time I KNOW I am a man in womens' clothing... and it's like rubbing salt in a very open wound.
The problem is... I just want/need to BE a woman... only some of the time. I'm losing steam as I write this... so I'm just going to stop. It filled its intended purpose of making me feel better. Thank you, if you got this far.
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