Explaining this - part two
Part Two: Your Bodily Identity Interacts with your Developmental Experience
Here I take a less general approach. I will try to use my own more transsexual/body-related experiences to walk you through this.
People have told me "I can't really imagine being in that situation of wanting to change my sex."
I think that most people can. It's just that most people overlook that they have an internal identity that is harmonious with their body.
So don't imagine wanting to change from how you are to how you're not. Don't try to imagine going away from your sex. Instead, imagine going the other way, towards yourself. Imagine being who you are now, but with the body of the wrong sex. Imagine being far away from your current sex, and thinking about going home.
In the following, I am not speaking for everybody. I am tryning to give you one example.
Right? Let's go.
Black text for everyone.
Women, girls; the rust text is for you read this.
Men, boys: read the teal text
I recommend going with only one colour the first time through.
Just Before Puberty:
I need you to imagine yourself when being a teenager was a few years off, when you have been sitting through family life classes and have maybe been handed a book about puberty. You are probably somewhere between grade three and grade six. Your authority figures have unanimously told you to expect the following:
Lasses:
- Your voice is going to crack now and then. And then it will drop. You will be taken for a man on the phone. It will not rise again. Ever. That will be your voice for the rest of your life.
- You are going to be getting a lot taller. Your shoulders are going to broaden out. Your waist wil lthecken. Probably a lot. You will have a nice manly build. You will have this for the rest of your life.
- You will be (probably) grow a beard. You will learn how to shave it, and you will do so every day if you want to look presentable.
- That thing between your legs is going to grow. A lot. There will be little bumps and hairs on it. From time to time, you will be walking in public, in school or outside and your penis wil publicly annouce its presence, and prove that you are male, by getting hard and sticking out, and you will have to figure out how to hide it. Good luck.
- If you use that thing in your pants to have sex (by which we of course mean only with someone with the changes outlined below in blue!), you may impregnate them.
- Sticky stuff. On your sheets, your stomach, or your bedclothes. People will not be able to tell if it came out of you accidentally when you were sleeping or if you made it.
- You will be developing body fat in a pattern akin to your male relatives. And body hair, like on your chest and back.
- In a few years, you may start to lose the hair on your head.
- You are going to look more or less like your genetic uncles and father. You will be like your male relatives.
Your body is going to prove to everyone that you are a man.
Lads:
- You are going to grow a pair of tits. A painfully tender bud will herald their arrival. Then they will expand. You nippels will expand too. They will be two bags of flesh on your chest that annouce that you are becoming a woman; they will prove that you are a woman. They will be on your chest at all times. You will feel their weight when you walk. They will probably hurt when you run. You can use them to breastfeed a child if you like.
- You will not be growing a beard.
- Your voice might drop a bit, but not much.
- You are going to get taller, but not much. Your hips though, those are going to expand out. Stretch marks maybe.
- Mestrual blood. In your pants. Every month. For several days. Possibly preceded by cramps.
- If you have sex (by which we mean "with someone with the body-changes in rust above"), or are raped, you might get pregnant.
- You'll probably resemble your (genetic) mother and aunts. You will be another example of the female side of your family.
Your body will tell everyone that you are a woman.
This sounds like a shit deal. Like having a rash all over your body. But everyone seems to be looking forward to it. You don't see why. Your body is fine as is. But it's inevitable. There is no alternative. It will happen, and you will live with it.
Don't like it? I'm sorry, do you think you have a choice in this? All the experts tell you to expect it. And it's not like there's an alternative. If you don't develop soon enough, you will go to the doctor to fix the problem. The other route might seem nice, but if you develop the other way then god (who apparantly has not been listening) help you. Do you know what the other kids would do to you if you developed wrong? Perhaps this is for the best really. You're already sticking out enough. You don't need more.
Social Environment Before, Around and After Puberty:
You are a boy. Everyone agrees on this. Remember the class where you learned about your private parts? Penis. Scrotum. They didn't say what they were for (presumably the scrotum holds urine), but you got 'em. Thus, you're a boy. You have a boy's name. When children are divided up by sex, you go with the boys. It's a stupid system, but you know what the kids will do if you challenge it.
You are a girl. You have girl's private parts, right? Apparantly your private parts includes your nipples and the area around them, but for boys it doesn't. Can't say why really. You use the girls washroom. The girls changeroom. Adults give you girl gifts on special occasions. You might like them, or you might not, but for some reason the are different from what boys receive. Especially the colours. Not that all the colours are necessarily ugly, but this really is a stupid system. But if you disagree with it, the girls will ignore you, the boys won't take you seriously, and the adults will pay a little to much attention, and will make it clear, if only indirectly, how you're supposed to be.
You will play with the boys, and preferably only the boys. You will emulate male figures. People around you will make sure of this.
Your friends should be girls, you should know that. Your heros too. What will it take to get you to be normal?
You are not sure exactly why it is that the girls make fun of the boys and the boys think the girls are gross. You do not really know why they play apart. You tried to cross this line at some point, to play with the other group of children. You were corrected swiftly.
You have learned not to mention that it comes to superheros, you really prefer wonder woman, or catwoman. You do not mention that you really like girl characters in books. There was the choose-your-own-adventure book where the picture of the protagonist was clearly female. You really like that one. Maybe you know why. Maybe you don't. But you have learned to shut up about it.
You have seen that adults are don't really like it when they find out your make-believe character is the dad, the son, the boy, the man, the hero. They were amused. But now that they see that it was not an isolated incident, they're trying to fix you.
At times when you have been honest about what you like, thinking that maybe the person you are talking to would be okay with it (because really, what's the problem?), you have received one of three responses:
- Approval with worry
- Discomfort
- Hostility
Bodily Changes:
Oh shit. Here it comes. You were warned. Weird things keep happening to your body, just as predicted. You really wish that they'd stop. It's driving you nuts. Hasn't it gone far enough? You delight when your body "falls behind" what's expected, though you know not to say it.
Your body is gross. You try to hide it. Baggy clothes. But you can't hide it. Disgusting. Wrong. Why can't everyone else see that?
You try not to feel in your body. You try not to feel it move. To feel its senses. To be held within its specific shape. This is not easy. If you want to ignore it, there is an online world that only needs hands and eyes. If you want to hurt it back, there are many sharp objects available. There are drugs if you want to leave it behind. There is alcohol if you just don't want to feel anything.
Sex:
Thinking about yourself having sex as a male is about as arousing as thinking of yourself as Donald Trump. No. If you want to have sex, you should be a girl. You must be some kind of a pervert. How the hell are you supposed to have a sex life? When you think about sex and it's enjoyable, your dick gets hard. How are you supposed to manage this? You can't think of yourself as a guy if you want to think about sex, or maybe if you want to even have sex, but if you get aroused, your body immediately reminds you that you are a guy. Suggestions? Anyone?
Some men get off on women's clothes. Maybe that's you. No. That's not it. Wearing women's clothes makes it really obvious that you're a guy. It makes it's crystal clear that your body is misshapen. Maybe it would be nice if you looked like a woman, but that ain't gonna happen.
You tried having sex. You are supposed to like using your penis, or having someone else use it. Aren't you? You tried not using it; not letting someone else touch it. That went over like a lead balloon.
You think about how nice it would be to fuck, to use your penis to please your lover and yourself. And then you remember that you don't have one. Nor are you supposed to have one. How are you supposed to have sex when you not only don't have a cock, but have a lubricating vagina in its place? You'd really like to have sex, but how? Who can you even tell about this?
How can your lover touch you? Your body is all wrong. If they try to touch your chest, their hands will hit your breasts.
You can wear men's clothes, and you do. But they don' t fit. They hang off you all wrong. They stretch over your breasts, outlining them awkwardly. They stretch over your hips and your bunch up at your waist because you have to draw your belt so very tight to get them to stay on. It feels like being a little girl wearing your father's clothes, except that the clothes make it obvious that your body has matured farc past being "a girl."
Sex is only fun when it's something that you do to other people. Otherwise it's just awkward and makes you feel like you are watching your lover touch someone else's body.
What's wrong with you? People are supposed to like getting touched. But it feels like your lover is running their hand over a patch of dead matter. You can sense the pressure of their hand. You can see that it is in the right place. But, you can't feel it. Your lover reacts so well to being touched. Why don't you? What is wrong here? Clearly it's you, but how do you fix it?
So what can you do? You take a look at What's Expected, and, after sifting through the sexist bullshit, try and find some role, or at least some principles, that you can work with. It's a poor fit. You still feel inadequate, but you cope. You try to cope. There must be something wrong with you. Other people are able to be normal. Why not you?