In the early days of my self-discovery I blamed my mother for the long repression of my femininity, but that's wrong. I did it myself.
It's a matter of character. Central to my being is a fierce drive to thrive, coupled with a perpetually renewable naive enthusiasm...which means that, all my life, every time I've found something (or someone) new, I've thought, "This is it! I've figured it out! I'm set for the rest of my life, oh joy!" I'm a willful survivor with an unfortunate propensity to get carried away.
So at age four, despite confusing feelings I couldn't express even to myself, I perceived that my only real option was to be a boy and someday a man, and I threw myself into the project so completely that for 42 years I remained unaware of my own feminine nature.
Then I quit. I gave up on the man thing. And, perhaps inevitably, I immediately launched myself just as hard into the femme thing--this is it, oh joy!
That was eight months ago, and the femme thing has filled my mind since then...until this week. This week, all of a sudden various other things, work, a flirtation, seemed more important. I still dressed each night when I got home, but not full aiming-to-pass dressing, just comfortable clothes with no makeup. And I've been thinking, maybe this man thing has its points...I was good at it...it still feels fairly natural...maybe I could keep doing it at least part time...stay in the middle.
The amusing twist is this: I consider the "I've made up my mind and I'm sticking with it no matter what" way I've always been to be one of my more male traits; and I consider my quickly developing comfort with flux and willingness to change my mind constantly to be more feminine. So: The more hard-driving, decisive, and masculine I feel, the more likely I am to end up pushing hard toward transition; and the more comfortable with ambiguity, flexible, and feminine I feel, the more likely I am to sojourn indefinitely here in the middle and never seek transition. Each gender tends to the other. Isn't that a fun little paradox? :-)
Comments