March 14, 2013

• Gender Dysmorphia: I’m Not Really a Girl.

  I made a pulse this morning about how I sometimes forget how bad my gender dysmorphia is, and by that I mean, I’m always forgetting that I am, biologically and anatomically female.

  You see, I’ve never, ever thought of myself as female. In fact, some of my first thoughts I remember having were how I wish I had been born a boy. If I had been born a boy then it would be okay for me to play with G.I. Joe’s over Barbies and play sports instead of having tea parties. As I have mentioned numerous times before, I was raised in a cult. A reformed evangelical christian cult, but a cult all the same. I was raised to believe that men were superior to women, and that a patriarchal/complementarian society is what God really intended for his people. Girls were expected to dress modestly so as not to cause men to stumble (because controlling a man’s lustful thoughts is totally our responsibility as females…), girls cooked and cleaned and learned how to run a home but not much else besides that.
  Girls didn’t go to college.
  Girls didn’t have careers or jobs, their career was motherhood, their workplace the home.
  Girls stayed at home until a man came along and married them. Then their submission was to the husband where up until you said, “I do” you submitted to your father.
  But even before my family got sucked into this subculture I still struggled with my gender. Even when I was in public school (for all of 2 years, then I was home schooled until I graduated) I still wished I could be on the boy’s team instead of the girls. My best friend was a boy (he even ended up being my first boyfriend when we got back in touch during senior year of high school after losing touch for 10 years. He never knew about any of these feelings).

  All these things made me really depressed. I wanted to do all the things the boys could do. The boys got to go out on father/son camping trips. There was nothing like that for girls. Boys got to play sports (I was forbidden more than once from coming near other people’s children for fear my “rebellion” towards my assigned gender roles might rub off on them). I was accused of being a homosexual when I was 12. I didn’t know what homosexuality was until much much later. When I was 12 I donated my hair. I had 17 inches cut off at the ponytail, and then more shorn off until I had a nice pixie cut. That was the happiest I ever was with myself. I looked like how I felt. I looked like a boy. I was mistaken for a boy more times than I can count. My parents and grandparents on more than one occasion had to explain that I was a girl, not a boy even though I wore overalls and hiking boots ever day. Even though I was starting pitcher for the boys softball team. Even though I did all the things girls weren’t supposed to want to do in God’s so-called perfect world. I didn’t start developing at all in a biological sense until I was 17 (I stopped playing sports when my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After I stopped playing I finally put on enough body fat to have a period and start developing breasts.) I was 85lbs when I was 17 years old even though I ate like the world was ending, my metabolism was just that high. I thought of myself (and still do sometimes) in male pronouns he/his/him. I wanted to change my name for the longest time to Aryn because it was more male sounding but also a girl’s name sometimes. I liked names that could go both ways because I could go both ways. In my mind’s eye, I still think of myself as looking more masculine. It still catches me off guard when people say I look pretty or beautiful because I don’t think of myself that way. I always thought people saw me the way I see myself in my mind.

  I loved being androgynous, I miss it sometimes. It’s hard to hide the fact that I don’t feel comfortable looking feminine when you have longish hair (it’s down between my shoulder blades right now and I hate it. The ONLY reason my hair isn’t just a few inches long anymore is because I’ve been growing it out for when I get married. Whenever that may be. I just want to be able to do my hair nicely for my wedding and then afterwards I’m going straight back to shorn. Hell, I might even pull a Sinead O’Connor).

  This is the first time I’ve ever openly spoken about this to anyone other than my boyfriend. He has known me since my “butch” days (I put italics because I don’t really like that word to describe myself but oh well it’s the only word people know).

  So how do I deal with it?

  Most times I don’t actively think about it unless I’m shopping for clothes. I still feel out of place in the women’s aisles. I’d rather shop in the men’s section. I even lamented such to Reid the other day who said he would be happy to buy me “boy clothes” if that would make me feel better. I’m more or less okay with my gender at this point but I still struggle with feeling like I’m in the wrong body sometimes. Reid teased me a few years ago that the only reason I am not transitioning to male is because I have like the perfect female body (105lbs, 32D boobs, hourglass figure, flat stomach, etc) and that the man inside of me knows this and is content (that would explain why I am constantly groping myself so I think he has a good point). I’ve never been attracted to females (well not until recently. I consider myself “heteroflexible”; I’m straight with exceptions) and I don’t think I would be even if I did transition, I would still want to be with another male. I’m learning not to be ashamed of my body like I was raised to be. Reid is supportive either way. He loves it when I dress to the nines in heels makeup and all (which usually only happens once or twice a year). And he loves me when I’m in my men’s cargo shorts, flip flops and baggy shirt. He said he would support me if I decided I did want to transition (which I don’t really want to anymore, I did when I was a teen I just didn’t know it was possible). He loves me for me, and not because of my gender. Sometimes I enjoy being a female because that means I can get away with murder (like telling my managers to suck my balls. Not funny coming from a dude, hilarious when coming from a petite female). I’ll never be a girly girl. I do have some “girly” interests (knitting, baking, reading Wincest fan fiction… just google it) but I don’t think that I like them because I am biologically female, I just like them because I do and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  This is something I’ve been wanting to write about for years but only found the courage to do so today (started with just a pulse and that just wasn’t enough; I wanted to get this out, all of it). I’ve always wondered how it might change how people perceive me, if they would think any less of me. But at this point, I really don’t care what or how people think of me or if this shatters all their pre-conceived notions of me. That’s really their problem and not mine.

  I realize that this could make some people who really, REALLY struggle with gender dysmorphia mad or tell me that I don’t really have it. Just because I don’t want to transition doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with my gender identity. I am just content at this point with what I was born with instead of pursuing changing my body on the outside to how I feel on the inside. Doesn’t mean that some days I’m not tempted to throw down the money for chest binders and packers and an entirely new wardrobe and haircut/glasses/top surgery/ bottom surgery/thewholeshebang.

  I’m just learning to be content. In all things. At all times. Even in this.

  • 12:23 pm
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