Hello all, my name is Gwen, which is short for Fangwen; which, as some fellow Tolkien geeks may know, is elvish/entish for "beard maiden"
I live in a little place in Tennessee called Dismal, which is actually quite lovely most of the time.
It would seem an unlikely place for a queer community, but there is actually a very cool one here, which evolved around Short Mountain Sanctuary, a long standing Radical Faerie commune. Until fairly recently, it had been a predominantly gay male scene, but more and more trans folks have been settling in here, and it is quite diverse now.
I came here about 16 years ago when my ex-wife moved to one of the smaller communes in the area with our child, who is now 20 (yikes).
I was pretty much straight/cis/male at the time (or so I thought,) so it was a bit weird for me at first, but I came to feel a resonance with the broad spectrum of gender identity and expression I encountered here. I eventually started exploring my own gender identity, and came to some understanding of why I always had such a hard time fitting into the roles I had assumed I was supposed to play.
It took me a long time to really confront that fully though, and I have only recently done so, after coming to a point where I could no longer not do so and remain functional.
I had resisted dressing fem for a long time, for various reasons; mostly fear, of course, but I also worried that it would just accentuate the fact that I was not ever going to be as female as I might like to be. I realised how unfounded that worry was as soon as I finally painted my nails for the first time, and suddenly noticed how feminine my hands actually look, despite their size. I started wearing skirts and absolutely loving it. Best of all, I actually started liking myself.
So yeah, that was this past spring, and I have not looked back since.
I wear pants when I go places I am not fully comfortable, but that is about the limit of my self-editing. The rest of my appearance leaves me little to hide behind, so I can't fall back on the guy mannerisms I used to rely on to fit in, which never really worked too well anyway
I still keep a full beard though. I like the gender->-bleeped-<- aspect of this, simultaneously skewing both male and female gender norms.
I don't really see myself as one or the other, but mostly on the female end of the spectrum, and prefer fem pronouns and such.
Not sure where this journey will lead at this point.. thinking a lot about hormone therapy, partly because the ones I was born with seem to be in a state of decline, which may account for a lot of mood/anxiety issues; and also, even though I am able to be OK with various aspects of this body, the lack of breasts is not one of those. I definitely feel their absence, much like a phantom limb, a very odd sensation.
I fantasize about surgery sometimes, other times not. Don't know if I would necessarily want new genitalia in the nether regions, but I often feel I would at least like to get shed of the junk I have. It has always seemed rather bizarre to me, and I have never related to it that well.
Anyway, it is getting late now, and I am going to go to bed. I may add more later, but for now, much love and goodnight
~Gwen
