I wrote another churn for Medium and thought I would victimize you all with it🙂 :
Thinking female and speaking male
Think of it like born in one language and raised in another.
What language do you think in? I think in female but I talk male. I needed to in order to survive and be accepted.
Whenever I spoke female I got odd looks. With women I was thought to be a sensitive male but I had to watch my limits. Don’t want them thinking I am gay or be labeled that “weird guy”.
Among guys there was absolutely no chance. Speak 100% male all the time or get verbally mauled, permanently labeled and become eternally an outcast.
I spent my life speaking male all the time, with passion and conviction.
I hated it.
I felt I have been always holding back a big part of me. There was no words in male speak. There was no chance to female speak. No one would understand, so even why try?
I got so good at male speak that those around me thought male was my native language. At times I thought so too. I kept my female thoughts to myself. I realized sharing my female thoughts couldn’t be translated effectively so I just kept them to myself.
No one else wanted hear them anyway.
So I kept my silence and I kept the peace. I was happy until, suddenly, I wasn’t. Out of the blue I wanted to speak my own language. I wanted to hear my voice out loud. I wanted others to hear it and understand it was my voice, finally, from my lips.
The first time in my life that I spoke 100% female was in therapy at 61 years of age. It just spilled out and I never even knew it was happening. Even my therapist finally heard the difference and the change even snuck up on her.
I am getting too tired holding back and, like a breaching dam, I need to say what was in my heart and in my soul, unfiltered by the needs of others.
So here I am writing my native language. Hearing the joy of each word, the flow of my thoughts held silent for so long, waiting for others to read.
I am a female in a male wrapper who needs to be heard…finally.
And, someday, finally, they will hear……
me.