Connecting

I’ve been feeling a little disconnected in different ways over the past month. Some of it has to do with work, friendships, the trans* community and relationships. At the time that I wrote this however I was going through a ‘I am not trans* enough’/ no one gets me phase. I managed to catch-up with another genderqueer over dinner and some of the anxiety disapated and I felt lighter – thank goodness for genderqueer friends!

Meeting with another Genderqueer makes me feel understood and almost a peace with myself. No one else seems to ‘get me’ and more importantly it is hard for me to talk about some stuff that I think other trans* people won’t get. I end up holding myself back, not talking, not expressing how I feel and possibly isolating myself further. I go to gatherings with other people who are sex and/or gender diverse and I rarely feel heard. I reach out in my own way but am shy and quickly jump back into my shell if I don’t get a response. It is therefore important, in general but also for me, to have someone who ‘gets me’ and who I can talk to about stuff. Stuff like choice of pronouns depending on who I am with and where I am, choosing to bind or not, how those who have top surgery sometimes make me feel and sometimes wonder about ‘going over the edge’, why a low dose of T more frequently equals a lower testosterone count but more physical changes, how in general it is frustrating when someone assumes your male/female because of  facial hair, voice or something else!

That’s wasn’t all that we chatted about over dinner…
– we talked about choice of pronouns depending on what country you are in (do they have a gender neutral pronoun or like Italian or Lebanese where everything is ‘she’ or ‘he’ – even the furniture!)
– how if you loose weight curves and breasts are more obvious than when you gain weight and breasts become part of a round-ish manly physique
– looking at the limits of where genderqueer ends and trans* starts while everyone around increases their amounts of T and has top surgery
– a masculine genderqueer is assumed to be a man because they are tall and built like a warrior or a feminine genderqueer is assumed to be female because of their short and petite stature even though they have a lower voice and facial hair
– trying to explain having sex with someone who is genderqueer when sex, sexuality and genitalia all try to gender either person so why not just stick to masturbation, which if trying to explain how you masturbate is gendered too!