So, I finally bought a
binder.
I've been wanting one
for so long, but I was too afraid to actually get it. Oh, they're
too expensive. Oh, figuring out the sizing is too confusing. Oh,
making one is beyond me because I have no arts-and-crafts skills. (Am
I still allowed to be part of the queer and/or blogging communities
if I admit that I have no arts-and-crafts skills?)
A
week ago, the excuses ran out. I just couldn't stand it any longer. I
ordered one online, and yesterday it finally arrived.
I'd
been really on edge waiting for it. I knew it was ridiculous, but I
just felt like putting it on for the first time would be this
~magical moment of truth~, an epiphany where everything fell into
place and I would be able to stand up straight and tall and say LOOK
AT ME, WORLD, THIS IS WHAT I AM.
Of
course, this is not exactly what happened. It's a nice thing to have;
I like what it does to my body shape a lot; but it doesn't make me
completely flat, and it certainly doesn't
solve all my issues in one swoop. But I did
think that my first day wearing it out would be a day without (or,
okay, with less) dysphoria.
It
started out grand enough. I went into the city with a group of
friends. It was a beautiful day, and I was wearing my new binder
under one of my favorite T-shirts. I felt okay about myself, or at
least as close to okay as I ever get.
Then
we went to a bowling alley, and I nipped to the bathroom. There were
non-gendered bathrooms, which was nice. I adjusted my binder and made
sure I looked okay, and then went to join my friends in the bowling
alley. They'd already paid for two lanes and entered everyone's
names. They'd split up the group into “men” and “women”, and
included me among the latter.
Do
you want to know what the dysphoria felt like? I will tell you. It
felt not unlike a panic attack: waves of nausea would crash over me,
so intense I could barely stand upright, and then recede just enough
to make me think I could cope before hitting me again in full force.
I
am not very good at confronting issues head-on, and anyway I didn't
want to ruin anyone else's fun, so I did not say anything. And it's
not that I expect my friends to read my mind or anything – I
haven't spoken about it openly with many of them and I don't expect
them all to be totally sensitive about it – but they see the
gender-neutral pronoun buttons I wear; they know gender is kind of a
difficult subject for me; they know I prefer gender-neutral language
wherever possible.
They
should've fucking known this would upset me.
Like,
I don't know, maybe gender dysphoria is trivial or a joke to them;
but it's really, really
painful
for me. Every time someone uses female pronouns for me, it stings a
little; every time someone calls attention to my assumed femaleness
in a major way, it's like a punch in the gut. It really does feel
like a physical injury.
The
other day one of my friends referred to me as a “girl”. I didn't
say anything, but afterward I cried about it in the shower.
All
my life, I've been suppressing this. At a very, very early age I
intuited the need to suppress it. I assumed every girl wanted to be a
boy, but nobody talked about it because (a) it would upset their
mother and (b) there was nothing you could do about it anyway. I
channeled all of these feelings into fiction: I desperately sought
out novels written by female authors from the perspective of a male
character as legitimation that it was okay to do this, and I wrote
all my own stories from the perspective of boys or
gender-non-conforming girls. I guess the gender policing I
encountered as a very small child made it clear to me that “not
being a girl” would have to sit alongside “walking with
dinosaurs” and “solving mysteries” as belonging to the realm of
pure imagination.
Well,
guess what? I give up. I give up trying to be who everyone wants me
to be. I don't have a clue who I am, but I know who I'm not. The
bowling incident has made that crystal clear: if I were a
woman, it would not have upset me so much to be called one.
I
packed up my not-girl-ness in a box marked PURE FANTASY at a very
early age. Inside the box, it festered and grew; now it's a big ugly
mess that has burst free of the childhood fetters, and what it will
look like once I've given it two decades' worth of care and attention
is anybody's guess.
I'm so sorry. Your friends are not respecting your requests, and your person, and that really stinks.
ReplyDelete*offers a gentle hug, or a hand-squeeze of commiseration, or tender thoughts-- basically, whatever form of sympathy / solidarity you would like best right now*
Thank you. Your kindness means a lot to me.
DeleteThank you for sharing, Rainicorn.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is the worst. I'm glad though, that, while it was the worst, you've found some strength in yourself out of it. That's the best possible outcome, and I hope that you can show your friends that gender-binary labels don't always apply.
GQC
P.S. - I'm not sure if my OpenID is working yet, but once it is I'll be following your blog for sure. Also, I've got you on my blogroll and have reposted that other post. Keep being awesome, and keep loving Parks and Recreation even if NBC hates it. Seriously, NBC. Where is the love for Parks and Community?
Thanks for the support, GQC. I've returned the blogroll favor - I really like what I've read on your blog. Are you planning any more of the Church/Gender/Sex series? The posts you've written so far are really thought-provoking, and there's so very much to unpack when looking at church attitudes to gender and sex.
Delete(Yay Community and Parks & Rec! At least they've both been renewed for next season...)
Oh, you sound uncomfortably like myself at this point in my life (I've just read most of you more recent entries too) And I'm glad things seemed to have cleared up for you. You go man.
ReplyDelete