Hey everyone
So I'm not looking for a formal diagnosis or anything, just for folks to give my story a quick read and then shoot off an opinion. I'm really looking for honesty, so go all out guys.
I've been seeing a therapist as of late, and we've been talking about how gender confused I feel. I've come out to a few people and gotten some mix replies (all supportive though – yay for good friends).
To give you some back ground on who I am, I'm a nineteen year old drag king in Canada, and I *live* quite litterally, in the heart of the queer community. I havn't lived with my biological parents for over a year, and was completely adopted by my performing troupe. All the people I call my friends and family are all incredibly supportive of any all gender identity and gender expression.
I've been performing reguarly for over a year and a half now, and I feel like I have different.... Souls? Identities? Persona's? inside of me. Like there's "Sid" who is strictly my stage name. Sid walks on stage, struts around and dissolves once the show is over. I have no confusion being able to pin down the part of me that identifies with Sid.
But then there's another side me that's always been with me since I was a kid. He's been christened "the boy inside of me." He's a part of me that I've only ever really shown in really deep relationships before, and is the part of me that I'm trying to figure out. Then there's just the side of me that goes out to work, brings home the pay cheque, eats dinner and goes to sleep that's completely fine with identifying as a woman. Not femmineme, but a woman.
I don't have really bad dysphoria which is the part that I'm struggling with. If I live to be ninety years old and people are she-ing me on my death bed, I'm going to be disapointed and bummed out and feel like I really missed out on something about myself, but I don't have the same kind of urgency to change my body as trans people I've talked to. I'd genuinely be okay with the fact that people see me as woman-identified for the rest of my life. Not thrilled, but I'm okay with it.
Except... when I have sex. In those cases, I don't feel good about myself if I'm "she'd" or have expectations placed on me that I'll like something automatically because I have a woman's body. Whether I do like it or not is irrelevant to the fact that my partner is doing it because at that moment, they see me woman identified and that makes all the difference.
I had a partner who would "he" me in bed and then randomly while we were walking around or with some very cool friends. I realized then that while I'm okay with being known as a woman-identified person, I *love* being seen a male-identified person and being referred to in the name that that side of me identifies with.
I'm not seeing that partner anymore, and I'm with another one that's not as big into the whole gender-queer/questioning thing as the last one. It was after a long conversation we had that I realized that I really wanted to wear a dress for her and take her out to dinner. The odd part was the thought didn't disturb me, it made me feel completely normal, the same way a binder makes me feel more connected to my body. What's more is that if by sudden psychosis, my therapist were to grant me everything under the sun to transition, I'd kind of feel like I was missing out if I didn't wear a dress at least once for my girl. It's the same kind of disapointed loss that I thought if I lived to be ninety and all anyone saw was a woman-identified person.
I don't have one of those horror stories about puberty hitting me, just a quiet dissettled feeling inside of me, like my body was making choices about my gender for me. It wasn't terrible though, and I moved on from it though. There are times in my early childhood life though, that I remember asking some pretty odd questions, like "Dad, what's it like having a penis? Why don't I have one?" and mulling over the answer he gave me for weeks and weeks. When I was thirteen, I attempted to come out to my religion teacher (at a Catholic school, smart move Sid) and while she believed me about my attraction to girls, she urged me into thinking that I wasn't a boy, I just thought I was because I didn't make a very good girl. So I took the lesbian label and ran with it until I met the family I have today, in which I've happily settled on the term queer and let people work out what that means for them.
The kicker for me though, is that I hear so many stories of trans-folk simply knowing who they are when they look deep down, and feeling distinctly male or female. When I look deep down and ignore the "Nathan" and "Justine" sides of me, I don't feel male or female. I don't feel anything at all but just a disconnection from my body.
So. Opinions. Am I just a nineteen year old, going through a phase since so many people around me are gender fluid? Am I a boy? Girl? Bi gendered? A boy who's sound enough in his gender that he's okay with putting on a dress? A drag king off stage?
I have no idea. Help me out guys? Or you can all turn it into a drinking game, and every time the word "identifies" comes up, you take a shot.
Oh and Merry Christmas to you all. I toast to you all who over indulged in food this year
