Some gender thoughts

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my gender.

I’ve been labeled as female my entire life. I was ridiculed when I was younger for being masculine, for having body hair, for not acting the way girls ‘should act’. My school life was hell when I was young and I withdrew. For a few years I hyper feminized, wore tight clothes to show off my body, wore stereotypically feminine colors, dated boys… still, I was treated like one of the boys with my closest friends (who were at the time almost all boys).

I was envious of my best friend, who was leggy and pale and looked like a model. At the same time, I was envious of the boys, because no one really seemed to give a shit if they were pretty and I really didn’t want people to care if I was pretty. Unfortunately society wants women to care and I’m still trying to shake loose the ideas that seem to be planted in my brain about beauty as well as gender.

Anyway, I’ve been realizing lately that I am not a woman. I’ve tried to label myself that, I’ve tried lots of different labels. I finally came out, but calling myself a lesbian didn’t work either. And I was still attracted to men, but they didn’t find me attractive because I was a man, or because I was the one in charge or for being intelligent and interesting or for any of the reasons I wanted to be found attractive. They found me attractive because I was girl-shaped.

The women that I started to date when I came out found me attractive because of who I was and what I had to offer (besides and including my body). With the exception of one of them, who was experimenting and didn’t care who she slept with. The person I’m married to wasn’t attracted to me because I was girl-shaped, she fell in love with me because of who I was and how compatible we were.

The best part about me starting to understand my gender is that my wife and I have both started realizing that we’re attracted to each other as men. 

I don’t know if I want to take hormones yet, I don’t know if that decision can be made for a few years. I’m pretty sure I don’t want or need surgery. I still like my body. Sometimes my breasts drive me crazy and I wish they would disappear, but chest binding helps with that and so does a bra. Though other times the bra or chest binder makes it worse and then I feel like some horrible freak of nature. Is that what gender dysphoria feels like?

Sometimes I wish I could have a penis besides my strap-on, but I have a phantom cock and I can feel that fine.

I’m not sure what I should call myself, or even if that’s important. Both my wife and I identify as male, or at least mostly male.  Yes, I’ll call him/her my wife even if he/she does end up transitioning fully and wants me to start using male pronouns. I wouldn’t find it hard to switch over, I already call her my man, my boy. Whenever we’re together privately we’re both male.

I think we just can’t come out yet. This is much more nerve-wracking than when I came out as gay.  I don’t even feel I can tell our closest friends. They’re pro-trans, pro-gay, pro-everything, but I don’t know if they’d get non-op gender reversal. They mean well, but they still have some transphobia engrained in their minds. They still consider passing to be very important. I get that it’s important to some transfolk, but honestly, I still feel comfortable being called ‘her’ and ‘she’. 

Though I do love it when people in stores or restaurants mistake me for male and call me ‘sir’.

I just needed to get this off my chest. I don’t know what to do or say, even what to think. Sometimes I wish gender was as simple as people love to believe it is.