I was away for a week at a music and dance camp where most people come back year after year, so I know a lot of them and they know me. It's a very supportive group and a place where I feel comfortable just being me, or at least more comfortable than in most places. I've been pretty much accepted as a woman, as far as I can tell.
But every now and then, I'd be talking with people at dinner, or in a dance, and I'd have this sudden feeling that I'm a guy. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that, it's just this flash in my head. And whenever it happened, I felt really dismayed. I guess I've still got it in my head somewhere that "success" means being effectively a woman, in some sense, and I fear that I'm "really" just a man in a dress, that when I think I'm being me I'm really just pretending. Somehow my only two choices are to "really" be a woman or "really" be a man, and I'm just too worthless to be a woman.
It's also distressing that, despite everything I can say about how "woman" and "man" aren't clear-cut categories, to the point that "real man" and "real woman" don't have anything to do with reality (aside from social constructs), in my heart of hearts I'm stuck in the binary. And stuck in feeling like I'm not worthy to be either.
I think I'm making this all sound more coherent than it is. Really, I'm just roiling around like a water drop on a hot griddle. And when I'm sounding coherent and rational, it's only because I've managed to more or less repress the tumbling chaos underneath.