GenderBendy

zenfish

monarch of the ocean
i would swim in you
i would be your zenfish
fleeting lambent silver
through your lights and shadows
your storms do not daunt me
your tide - my breath
your surge - my cradle
i would know
how a fish loves the sea

Naked Romance

There's a certain someone for whom, for a while now, I have been feeling tender feelings, and earlier this week an opportunity arose to mention my crush.  Naturally I was nervous about it, but it felt right, so out the words came...and I could plainly see that my words and the feeling behind them very much pleased and moved the object of my affection.  I don't have any idea yet where we might be headed, but we're talking, and in the meantime, two wonderful things have happened in our exchange which, regardless of outcome, already make it a complete and positive experience for me.

The first is that from my c.s.'s clearly unfeigned tender response I received a powerful message of the inherent value to this person of the love I have to offer.  I strongly exhibit the (what I take to be) feminine trait of instantly internalizing other peoples' thoughts/feelings/judgements about me, so one of the most insidious after-effects of my divorce a few years ago was a sense I could not shake of the worthlessness of my love.  No amount of rational self-exhortation has been able to lessen the profound conviction I have felt that no one could ever possibly want me...until my c.s. was so touched by my expression of affection.  Wow. 

The second wonderful thing is that, for the first time in my life, I approach romance honestly.  Always, until now, as soon as there was a possibility of significant emotional exchange, my gender-lie intruded.  As soon as I felt attraction, I had to start thinking what a man would do.  My dates/girlfriends/wife no doubt found me stiff, stilted, subtly false, because I was trying to impersonate a thing I never was.  And there was another pernicious side-effect:  I felt a secret contempt for women who were interested in me, because I could see that I was fooling them, that they bought the lie.

Now I have the chance to love as, and be loved for, myself.  Such a simple notion.  My risk is greater, because that old man-shell not only obscured me, it insulated me too...but the potential reward is also greater...to be seen, to be known, to be loved for who I really am.  Wow, double wow, again and again.  And one of the things which endears me so to my c.s. is that I do feel that this person sees the woman I am, and values and perhaps even cherishes feminine me.  For the first time in my life, when I begin to sense that the person I care for might also care for me, my respect for that person increases.  I am after all a very strange sort of woman...to be receptive to the idea of romance with me takes, it seems to me, rare human insight, generosity, and self-confidence.  What's not to admire?  :-)

I am keenly aware of the novelty of my experience, and so wary...I am in a way 16 years old and navigating my first crush...but I am also 48 and at least somewhat wise and more than a little strong and able to take care of myself.  So let what will happen happen.  I'm ready.

The astute reader will have noted that I have not only avoided mentioning my c.s.'s name, but also that person's gender.  Clever, no?  I'm enjoying being coy...one of many feminine prerogatives... ;-)

Working in femme mode tonight

It's getting to be routine...I'm going out tonight, going to work in fact, dressed.  It's the WMPG Fashion Show at Space Gallery in Portland, and I'm helping out.  It a great opportunity to take my evolving femme look out into a receptive place in the "normally" gendered world.

What little anxiety I'm feeling is around my outfit...I'm going to a fashion show, after all.  I want to look good, but still be a member of the audience, not trying to upstage the models.  So, jeans, a tight euro-style stripy top that Ardis gave me, funky low-platform shoes which, when we were shopping at Goodwill, Christina assured me were hip, hair tied back with the totemic pink crochet hair-tie, and then I think slightly outrageous eye-shadow, mascara, and lipstick to go with the necessary beard-concealing powder.  And fun jewelry...Deb gave me several nice pairs of earrings for my birthday, so one of those plus I don't know what else yet...scarf or not?  I'll know in the moment...zen and the art of cross-dressing...

The children are with me tonight, so they're going to see me before I go and when I get back...they seem blase about it.

Oh, and various co-workers will be there...I didn't even think of that at first.  Well, they'll just have to deal.

Maybe I'll see you there too...say hi!  :-)

I'll Get You, My Pretty

What about voice then?

For me this is one of the most puzzling aspects of transition:  how am I going to talk when I am a woman?

Oh, there are techniques.  For example, (if you are male) do your best impression of the Wicked Witch of the West.  Now loosen all the places in your throat where breath is constricted...mix in equal parts Marilyn Monroe...keep the pitch as high as you are comfortable going without breaking into falsetto...and the resulting creaky-breathy voice is the beginning of a workable feminine voice for you.

I've met several transwomen who have perfected 100% natural-sounding feminine voices.  With study and practice I too could develop a voice which will go well with my femme look, and with which I'll be able to pass on the phone, on the radio.  I've already started working on this.  It takes a long time.

What I want is a voice which is unmistakably feminine, but which is as free, expressive, funny, attractive, and (in its way) powerful as my male voice has been.  I don't know if that's something I can have.  Or, if I can, some experts imply I will have to give up my male voice to get it.  They say you can only really nail the female voice if you use it all the time...and I have met people who do so, and have listened to them struggle to demonstrate their old male voices.  They really seem to have lost that voice.

I don't want to lose my male voice.  It has been at the center of my work for 20 years in radio.  I enjoy speaking with it, singing with it...there's a physical pleasure in the vibration in my chest.  I like to do impressions and silly voices.  I really don't want to give all that up.

On the other hand, as I continue to feel more and more feminine all the time, I find myself wincing internally at my masculine volume and resonance, my explosive plosives.  I feel too loud, too deep, and my breath feels pent up, un-free.  My current voice no longer accurately expresses my character.  I feel softer than that, gentler...cuter.

What I really really want is both.  I'd like a natural-sounding pretty feminine voice for every day...and then every once in a while I'd like to still do a radio show back as a man again, or sing bass in an all-girl vocal quartet, or other mildly gender-subversive things like that.  The femme ache is so strong all the time now, it's hard to remember that I don't necessarily have to go all the way over to the other endpoint of the gender-spectrum if I don't want to. 

I have no idea if both is something I can achieve.  Even just the good femme voice is slow in coming.  I'm not yet using it out in the world...I'm bashful about it.  In daily conversation so far all that has happened is that my tone has gone up a little and I've become more soft-spoken.  I have a long ways to go.

So, as in so many areas of this work, and as hard as it is to be patient, the best plan seems to be to let the voice change as it will, in its own time, however long that takes.  Sigh.

"I'll get you, my pretty...and your little dog..." *cough*
"I'll get you, my..."  *throat clear*
Ah, to hell with it...just gimme the damn ruby slippers already!

Omniphilic Ambisexual

There are two questions which I sense people often want to ask but usually don't:

"Are you really going to have genital surgery?"

~and~

"So now that you think of yourself as a woman, who do you want to have sex with?"

The answer to the first question is, I won't know for sure until I've done it, but yes, that is the plan.  As they are now, things down there don't feel right any more.  Specifically, I'm tired of testosterone, and want to be quit of it.  It clouds my thinking and my natural being.

The answer to the second question is more elusive.  In recent weeks I have enjoyed flirtations with both women and men...but it's complicated because of the answer to question one.  I don't have a woman's body (yet) and that confuses the issue. 

I have at least been able to come up with a cool new phrase to describe my current emotional/sexual state. At least for the next little while, I have decided that I am an "omniphilic ambisexual."

"Omniphilic" means that I am equally open to loving either a man or a woman.  I can't remember now where I picked it up, but I deeply dig this phrase:  "Love is tender and knows no gender."  I feel open to love...meaning, an intense and exclusive emotional connection with a simpatico someone...and that person could be any gender.  What matters is the connection.  It' doen't necessarily have anything to do with sex, and it feels more important than sex.  A lot more.

The "ambi-" of "ambisexual" is meant to conjure up two associations:  The "ambi-" in "ambidextrous" and the "ambi-" in "ambivalent." I can imagine being sexual with anyone, but on any given day I don't care very much about it.  Funny, in our sex-obsessed society, "none of the above" actually seems like a provocative answer. 

I sure could do with some cuddling though...and sex could still be very hot if the love part was happening...hmm... *gets lost in erotic revery* 

(About whom?  not telling...)

Anyway, one thing I can say for sure:  I don't want to fake it.  From now on, whether it is love or the erotic impulse or both, I will only act if it feels real to me.  As a "man" I always felt at least a little detached, artificial...naturally, since my manhood was an act.  Now for the first time at the tender age of 47 (though it feels like 16) my naked heart turns outward, looking for connection.  That's exciting.  It's also scary, which is another reason to go slow.

One more thing I know for sure:  I never felt comfortable being the aggressor, the instigator.  I feel romantically and erotically passive, receptive.  Not that I want to be less loving than loved - I'm totally into that both ways thing - but I'd really like the other person to take the lead most of the time.

To put it another way, I think I might enjoy being courted.  Now there's a novel concept.  Never thought of that when I was passing as male...  :-)