April 2005

gender dysphoria

00:27 4/30/2005

Met a ftm transgendered fellow today. For those not informed, he had a girl's body when he was young and lived as a woman till he sought and recieved treatment for it. Now some folks think that it's a gender change but the transgendered community considers it not a change of gender but a correction of incorrect body gender.

I've said it often enough that I'm masculine in my mind. I find myself wishing I had the kind of courage this man has to upset my whole world and start out all over again like that. I would like it if I could hang out with the men and be one of them instead of an oddball female. I'd like to have a beard and speak in a deep voice and build strong muscles. But I also like admiring the female body I have. I suppose if I were a full man I'd just date a woman and choose one feminine enough to offer the curves and soft hair and skin I love so much. However, as a transgender I would have a very hard time attracting one. Easier to live with the situation as it is and be the curves and softness. I guess for this fellow it wasn't. I don't know. If I had known in my 20s that it was actually possible, had met people who'd done it, knew I could reassign my physical gender, would I have made that choice? Would I give up my colorful fabrics and long hair and painting my face up? I rarely wear makeup but now and then I do love to put on the fancy. Could I possibly have found women to date and gotten my "fix" that way? I doubt it. I think this man would find himself pretty lonely romantically. He is Bi so could date either gender but gay men want a fully functioning male body to play with and his isn't complete in that sense. A woman he dated would have to be somewhat gay yet attracted to men. All in all, it's a quandary and frankly the doctors still cannot really make a penis. They can make a doppleganger of a penis and continue to experiment with the science but it's imperfect yet. I don't know if I could cope with that choice.

I do know that I'm in love with a man who could not love me if I weren't a woman. He clearly loves me with my masculine brain and in fact he's lucky in some ways to have a woman who thinks like a man. I have a lot of interests he can relate to and can relate to him in a lot of ways and lack a lot of the faults of women which cause men such grief. Yet I'm an extremely attractive woman even though I'm not young and sweet anymore. How would I cope as a man?

I think, though, of being able to go into a garage or shop and be treated as an ordinary person. Able to converse and learn and interact and be taken seriously. To go for a beer with a guy and not have him making sexual references on any level whatsoever. To sit with some men and make sexual comments about women that pass! If I do it now it freaks them out. sadly, however, even if I had gotten gender reassignment treatment including the full surgery, I still wouldn't be part of the fellowship of man. If even one of them learned of my history I'd be ostracized. "Coming out" is also being "thrown out" in most cases. I never have belonged with women but I can never be fully accepted with men either.

I fear I might have bored my new acquaintance with my musings on the subject. Hence this write-up. I am hoping to get it out of my system. Frankly I wish someone would tell me I can and should do this and lead me into it, but at the same time I don't want to let go of the things I have as a woman. I truly have got my feet firmly fixed in the life I have. I love Dan so very much. I could never make a choice that would break his heart. Well I could if he was abusive, but not something like becoming someone else like that. Ah but I am feeling a little envious, just a little, of this man I've met. He's so male. He's male on every level I could sense. A little bit soft but not enough to be effeminate. However, I don't envy him the challenges he must face. He can't be completely honest with the male friends he makes without risking not only ostracism but potential physical and mental abuse. He cannot ever really just slide into being a man in the normal sense.

Ultimately, I could not embark on the path he chose. I'd like it if I could though. I would. Best I can do is find a man who won't treat me like a weak woman and will let me embrace his masculine world through him. I think Dan can do that. He's pretty open minded and really enjoying how I embrace masculine interests and seems able to handle my masculine bravery.

I still don't expect anyone in the world to take these thoughts seriously. Either they'd think I'm joking, or that I have some pathological need to take on everyone else's conditions and try and use them for my own drama. So here it is, in writing, maybe I can learn to shut up about it in the presence of others even when encountering transgendered ppl. Hmm, that or seek out a chatroom online. I should try that.

getting fed up

00:05 4/28/2005
Did some wrenching on the bike (again). I'd taken off the wheels to try and get this lighted disk unit onto the bike. It didn't fit but the wheels going back on were too loose. It's a fine point, tight enough, and I'm not really good at tightening with wrenches. So the bike keeps falling over because the fucking kickstand is a piece of shit and I can't find one that isn't. Well I did see one, but it's only available in Holland. Lemme tell you, when you have 100 pounds of newspaper on the bike you need a sturdy stand that holds to both sides of the bike. Someone pointed me at a thing that looks flimsy and costs $50 USD and the only way I can find out if it's as good as they say it is, is to spend the money!! Apparently it's the choice for people touring on tandems and recumbents. I dunno, I still think I'm loading a lot more on that bike than they are! So the bike falls over and knocks itself all out of whack. Busts any rear view mirrors I'm stupid enough to install. So there's the wheels going sideways, the handlebars and seat going crooked and the headbolt that holds the all-important front forks in place was loose enough to spin with my fingers! Time for some wrenching. I hadda carry the silly thing downstairs because it's colder than this witch's tit out there (for spring) and I just don't relish working on a bike in freezing temps, even if I work in the garage with light and windbreaking.

Boy I hate this paper route. I hate it in so many ways. I'd like so much to go to bed around 11 or midnight or even 1 or 2 am and get up in the morning, sometimes early enough for a sunrise paddle on the river. Who's stupid goddamn idea is it to have a paper full of yesterday's news arrive in the wee hours of the morning anyway? I mean back before TV, radio and internet news delivery it'd be nice to get a paper with your morning coffee but what is the point now? Why too is it that the faster our world gets, the long it takes them to put out the news? When I was a kid the newspaper I delivered at 5pm contained the day's news, from that morning. You could get news that was only just arriving on your tv for supper time! Morning papers included news from the previous evening. Stuff that was being packaged for the morning tv news. Now the cutoff for news is something like 4pm the day before. Yesterday's news. Old, not new. Why not just put out a daily damn magazine? Well in truth, it's not a newspaper anymore but an overblown flyer with articles thrown in as incentive. ~sigh~ To think they actually charge for it! I really gotta quit this job but I need the extra money too desperately. I hope Dan doesn't take too long getting here. When he arrives, I quit the paper route!