Vulnerability

I have a new friend.  

It feels like...

It feels like that childhood friendship...

You know the one...

That friend you meet on the playground...

The kid you've known forever...

But all of a sudden they look like a whole new person to you...

And you feel like you just met the bestest person in the 

Whole. 

Wide. 

World!

You want to tell all your secrets... 

Tell them about the boys, or girls, you like.

Tell them what you had for dinner last night.

You smile SO big when you see them.

And when you are a part...

It feels like something is missing.

As Anne Shirley would say, "We are kindred spirits."

This person is not new in my life.

I have known them for years.

The edge of knowing.

When we met, I was smitten.

I wanted to know them.

But...

Insecurity won.

Why would someone SO cool..

So amazing..

So talented...

So...

So...

So...

Someone so awesome...

Want to be my friend.

But an email...

A point of connection...

Changed.

It.

All.

She was in the mass of people that we invited to our wedding.

The RSVP...

The email...

It made my heart leap...

I read the words...

My heart...

She wanted to come to the wedding...

And she wanted to hang out with us...

If this all sounds very junior high crush,

Well...

That's kinda how I felt at the time.

I kinda had a crush on her.

Always had. 

Always will.

The wounds of childhood die hard.

I always felt different.

Out of place.

I had friends.

Still have many of my childhood friends.

Connection and disconnection.

Friended 

And Friendless.

Insecurity.

As I have emerged,

Grown, 

Sought connection, 

I have felt like one of the 'cool kids'

A person that people look up to,

Admire,

Emulate,

But at the heart of it all,

Insecurity.

I felt like a fake and a fraud.

Felt like... 

If people really knew me.

They would run. 

Hide.

The truth...

Oh Truth...

Truth would never set me free.

Never.

I even held back with my partner.

My lover.

My best friend.

My everything.

How do you live with someone for 11 years 

11 years...

And not share your whole life with them?

Insecurity.

Back to my new friend. 

A key in all of this.

A key to my current emergence.

I have processed my past.

I have talked until blue in the face.

Sometimes heard.

Sometimes unheard.

Voice and voiceless.

Silenced. 

A second email.

An invitation to unburden myself.

To write without judgement.

To be heard.

To be seen.

To be known.

The beginning of my voice.

Wait, wait, wait you say...

What about your blog, 

Your story, 

You found your voice long ago, 

How do you feel so silenced when you share so freely?

Yes. I share.

I control what I share.

I share what I have processed.

What I have talked about until blue in the face.

Until it was polished

And the words flowed easy.

This invitation.

This invitation said, unburden myself.

A flood of words on a page.

Flooding

Flowing out of me like a torrent.

Everything...

EVERYTHING...

Connections.

Powerful connections to past events

Threads of continuity

A processing of connection.

Of commonality.

A forging of a fast friendship.

So much.

So fast.

So, so fast.

So fast that I grew nervous.

What if said too much, 

What if she doesn't like what she reads,

What if 

What if

What if

Insecurity

Vulnerability

Myself laid bare

As I wrote my story

As I shared my life

I opened to my partner

Emergence.

Connection.

Embrace.

Acceptance.

Vulnerability.

Deeper love.

My partner.

My love.

We have shared more...

Emotional

Spiritual

Physical

In the last 3 months

Then in 11 years...

3 months of change

3 months of growth...

3 months...

My birthday became my 

Birth

Day.

A new life

New emergence

A new way of seeing myself 

Was born

I found my voice.

Out of a place of vulnerability

From a place of deep insecurity

I found my voice

I found my truth

I found connection to all that is around me

A life once fraught with anxiety

A life lived in fear.

Holding back

Afraid of true connection.

I fear no longer.

I spoke my truth.

It was heard.

I was seen.

And I am loved.

I have a new friend.

And it feels...

It feels...

It feels like home. 

Nothing Neutral

Click here for the spoken word version

There is nothing neutral about my gender.

Choosing to live into the YES!
Of gender.
The FULLNESS of gender.
Of life.

There is nothing neutral about that experience.

The boxes we check are labeled:
Gender:
___ Male.
___ Female.
__________

Fill in the blank.  Like the blank is neutral.
The blank is other.

There is nothing neutral about my gender.

My expression does not fit a box.
My body does not fit a box.

That does not make me neutral.

Neutral:
adjective:
           1. not helping or supporting either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.;impartial
           2. having no strongly marked or positive characteristics or features.
               synonyms: inoffensive, bland, unobjectionable, unremarkable, ordinary, commonplace

I am transgender.

Some view my very existence as offensive.
They object to my self-expression.

Object. Ob...ject...
I become an object.
Something to fear.
People fear the other.
They fear what cannot be contained.
What they cannot control.
It is easy to fear what is not seen as human.
Object.

So they remark.
Re...Mark.
Re...Brand.
Remake me into what they want me to be
Remind me that I am not ordinary.

There is nothing neutral about my gender.

I identify across gender.
Through gender.
Male.
Female.
Other.

Female. Other. Male.

Other.... Male.... Female....

Other....

I despise the word 'other'.
But English lacks the language for me adequately express my gender.

I am not other.

When someone asks about my gender...
I say...
I say...
I hesitate...what is my gender?
I am Mo, but I am also more than Mo.
I am male.
I am female.
I am masculine.
I am feminine.
I am.

I have struggled with the integration of the various parts of myself.

I see fractured pieces of myself, of my expressions of gender.
My body is female, but very masculine.
I have a 'big build.'
Whatever that means.
I take up space.  I grow facial hair.

Lots of facial hair.

So much of my spirit is feminine.
I have a strong attachment to an identity of woman.

Attachment but not always connection.

Sometimes I feel like a whoaman.  Whoa Man. Woe man.

That's the reaction I often receive in female only spaces.
Whoa.  Man!
Man?
are you a man? they ask with their eyes.
rarely do they speak the words.
I read body language.
The stares. The anger. The pity. The confusion. The longing.

Yes.  Occasionally I see longing in their eyes.
In me they glimpse a freedom.
A freedom to be something other than what they see around them.

I have those points longing in my life.
As I emerge from one way of knowing into another.
When I acknowledge my difference.
I seek those moments of connection with others.
Others like me.

My difference.
A strong masculine presence, mixed with the subtle feminine.
The female body, with patches of hair that don't belong.
Side burns. Soul patch.  Back hair.

Well intentioned people ask...

Have you ever tried electrolysis...
Laser Hair removal is amazing...

I hear... in those words...

Remove...
Conform...
Be something different...

Conform. Con. Form. Con.
Con. Fake.

Conformity leaves me feeling empty.
Less than.
Never quite right.

I hate conformity.

But what option does that leave me?

Self expression. Yes.
Uniqueness.  Yes.
Struggle. Yes
Dissonance. Yes.

So much dissonance, as I emerge out of conformity.

There is something so right about it all and something so wrong.
Right in the feeling of wholeness.
Right in the feeling of connectedness.
Right in the integration of self.

WRONG!

Wrong because I live in a world does not understand me.
Wrong because I live in a world based in fear and not love.
Fear that lashes out at people who do not conform.
To PEOPLE like me.

Me.

This is about me.
This is about my emergence.
This is about my seeking freedom and wholeness.

This. Is. Me.

There is nothing neutral about my gender.