Coming Out...Again

The past month has been heavy with exploration of my sexuality, my gender, and my gender expression.

For the past 10 years, I have stifled my sexuality. I have also maintained a fairly rigid gender expression: I have been expressing as femme or female. After the break-up, I went into femme overdrive. I can't explain why. It might have been an attempt to draw in hard butches, to sooth my shattered ego.

A few weeks ago, just before my birthday, I felt a shift. I just couldn't put on another lacy bra. I just couldn't put on another pair of girly underwear. As a birthday present to myself, I went to Bishop's Barber Shop on Alberta.  Becky gave me a fade with shaved part. As my already short hair went shorter, I felt a weight coming off my shoulders.

A week or so earlier than that, I had been sending TBT photographs to Kyle so he could get an condensed version of my history. As I went through these photographs, I realized that there were photographs capturing moments when I felt strong and able. There were other photographs when I felt awkward or invisible. The common thread for the strong and able photographs was an androgynous styling, a specific absence of make-up or other traditionally feminine or female markers.

As I thought on this, I realized that previous discussions of pretty vs. handsome had a clear bearing on this topic.

Being friends with SisterFriend was a joy, though I couldn't quite shake the insecure feeling that I was the "ugly friend" there to highlight how pretty I find her. I knew then, like I know now, I am not a pretty woman. I thought that meant I was an ugly woman, because I thought there were only the two options.

I'm not sure how I came to the understanding that attractiveness is a spectrum, much like so many other things. I could be something other than ugly. I recalled the idea of a handsome woman. Not to be confused with a butch woman,  a handsome woman was a feminine woman, who was handsome rather than pretty. As I looked in the mirror each morning, I recognized that I am a handsome woman, much like my great-grandmother, Mary Long.

Finding myself handsome, rather than ugly, lead to a further rediscovery. There were days, when I was in grade school, that I would ask to be called "Matt" after my initials MAT. I sought to understand how my childhood chosen name and my recognition of myself as handsome were linked...something tugged at the corner of my brain. I recognized that I don't always fit in the female body I wear, though sometimes I do fit in it. There was a word on the tip of my tongue...


GENDER FLUID...I had heard it, but not thought about it...

From the Urban Dictionary:

Gender Fluid:

Gender Fluid is a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is Gender Fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more boy some days, and more girl other days. Being Gender Fluid has nothing to do with which set of genitalia one has, nor their sexual orientation.

No, I'm not a boy, and I'm not a girl either. I am gender fluid.

by SonicJMC January 21, 2007

PRONOUNS

I prefer gendered pronouns:

she her hers herself

he him his himself

I want to embrace the dynamic and shifting nature that I feel inside. It changes and I want my pronouns to be dynamic and shifting, too. So, please ASK. My pronouns might have changed since we last met.

However, right now, in the claiming of my gender identity, I do not want to be viewed as a woman.  I have spent the past 41 years being viewed as a woman. I enjoy my female body. And I want to push the boundaries a bit further, because I don’t want there to be any doubt that I am not a woman. My pendulum is swinging toward the masculine end of the spectrum. I am attempting to minimize and hide the secondary sexual characteristics of my female body. I don’t know how else to stop being seen as a woman without taking on some of the male characteristics.

It’s frustrating…because right now I am very sensitized to it. Later, I don’t think that it will be such a big deal, but right now it is.