Positive Tales: Coming Out

When I met Alice, she was presenting as male - the gender she was assigned at birth. She was a pretty cool lady, and I quickly found out that she identified as bigender and would sometimes wear women's clothing. I was fascinated because gender is something I'm really interested in and I'm always happy to learn and discuss things on that theme. I'd gotten a few inklings that maybe she was still questioning her gender issues from things she'd said.

Then the other day she came out on facebook, telling everyone she is a trans woman and letting everyone know her preferred name and politely saying "if you could start using my new name and pronouns, that would be nice, no rush, and I won't yell if you screw up because it's a big change".

Her post coming out has been "liked" by 60 people - about half her facebook friends (and given many people have a lot of distant fb friends who don't read posts, etc, I feel that is super cool). The post was full of messages of love and support from everyone.

Then we were at a party last night, and she showed up looking bitchin' in a dress and tights and one of those 3/4 jumper things that I could never pull off. She looked gorgeous - Mr Wrong actually whispered to me in all seirousness that she was the most attractive girl at the party.

The thing that really fucking warmed my heart though was that almost everyone there, a scant few days after the announcement, were using the name "Alice" and using the female pronouns. It was obviously a source of respectful, curious discussion but there were just as many people giving her speeches about how proud they are of her for coming out and all that sort of thing. If you were there you would have felt all the love and support emanating from the group of people for Alice. And that was pretty cool.

Today, Alice is going to come out to her parents. I hope it goes well, and if the last couple of days have been any indication I don't see why it wouldn't.

Triggering dysphoria

Dysphoria is a concept well-known in the trans* community; essentially, it's the feeling that your body is wrong and those primary or secondary sexual characteristics are not part of you. It's very unpleasant to say the least.

I'm a cis girl (meaning, at birth they assigned me the gender of "female" and I am cool with that), so I haven't had occaision to feel it properly or in the constant, background-levels way that trans* people must feel it weighing on them at times.

I think I've managed to cultivate a feeling of dysphoria once or twice for a few seconds at a time which has led me to perhaps have some tiny twinge of understanding of what trans folks must go through every day.

I imagined being a man. Not in the "Awesome I can pee standing up and get all the jobs and not have periods and get paid more for the same jobs!" sort of way; in the way where everyone looks at me and calls me "sir", where my self is inside a big, hairy male body and everyone sees this as 'me' and just... accepts it. Where you go shopping and you buy pants and a button up shirt or t-shirt. Where you have a flat, masculine chest and a penis. Imagine actually HAVING a penis. Something growing out of your crotch, all... soft and bulbous. Imagine having to touch it and use it each time you go to the bathroom. Really imagine it and bring these feelings to the forefront of your mind. Focus on them.

The other way I did it was by buying a chest binder (something many men wear to hide their breasts). The first time I wore it and dressed in men's clothing and looked in the mirror it felt so... wrong on a fundamental level.

If you really concentrate on it, the feeling is HORRIBLE. I won't pretend to know or guess whether it emulates the trans experience, but it can definitely affect you.