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 my emergence.
This is about my seeking freedom and wholeness.
This. Is. Me.
There is nothing neutral about my gender.
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