Coming Out
I suppose it's safe to write this here since LJ seems to be so thoroughly dead. I've only ever spoken the words to one other living soul, but I recently came to terms with the fact that I'm transgender a handful of years ago, and now that pandora's box has been opened, it gets harder and harder to shove the contents back in, lock it the fuck up, throw away the key, and shove it into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. I pretended it wasn't there, but of course it was.
It was there when I was three and tried to pee standing up, even though I knew it would make a literal and figurative mess. It was there when I was five, called something rude, only to have my friend's mother say that no, I was only a tomboy. It was there when I thought, "no, I'm not". It was there when I was six and got told I couldn't have Ghostbusters or He Man or GI Joe action figures. It was there when I was seven, had to wear a dress, and the light went out of my eyes. And when I saw that queer coded cover of Harriet the Spy and realized, "oh, her too".
It was there when I was ten, and my grandmother, who had literally no fucks to give, bought me a baseball jacket, even though I didn't even like baseball. And two years later, it was picking its way out of the box when I got not only a winter jacket from the boy's clothes section, but also got a t shirt from there too. I was so stupidly happy until that shirt got too tight around my chest, and I balled it up and threw it away.
It was there when I watched The Crying Game, and got my soul ripped out of my body when I realized what I thought was not so much not a big deal as not a deal at all was so viscerally repulsive to other people its like we're less than human. It was there, kicking the everloving shit out of the box when I was fourteen, and wondered, idly, if the sorry scalpel I got with a science kit the previous year would be sufficient to slice away the unwanted tissue; cut it out like a cancerous growth and stitch up the wound with thread.
It was there when I was fifteen and tied a bag around my neck, tight as it would go, and couldn't even put a name to why I was so depressed. It was there when I cut up my arm like a sliced turkey, and was still there when the blood dried and the scars healed. It was there when my eating disorder made me lose the hourglass figure. Salvation by starvation.
It was there when I learned it's name, and that one of the most painful conditions one can be afflicted with, the absolute cruelest joke nature can play on you, makes otherwise good people seethe with hatred and cruelty and wish you were dead. It was there after I came to terms with this, and people started calling me an 'it'. It's here now that I've grown my hair long and put away my motorcycle boots because I can't decide if the torment my own brain or other people inflict on me is the easier one to bear. Whether I'd rather be honest, and lonely and alone or miserable and maybe not so lonely.
Some days I'm fine, while others it hits me from out of the blue like a ton of bricks. Mentally, I'm good. Haven't been depressed lately, or tonight either. It's just one of those days where I've seen something that makes it hit home, makes me face the reality of this condition. I just needed to vent, badly. So thanks for listening.