I thought I saw a...jigsaw?

This morning I came across a blog by another author describing the search for clues as to whether men were transgender or not, like finding a field guide to natural and unnatural male behavior and thumbing through looking for the characteristics to identify a species of men by their behavior and outward signs. It's like this: If your 'man' likes to talk about hair and reads Cosmopolitan, he may be exhibiting signs of female desire. But then he marches off to Home Depot and starts building a shed in the backyard and you decry the observations noted. It's just another confusing pitch in the game of life. Likewise you can have a burly muscle-bound man who rides Harleys and can open beer bottles with his teeth and plays hockey without pads. *Leaf* *leaf* *leaf* - sure enough guide says "manly man". But when he's alone he dresses in dainty feminine clothes and puts on a pair of heels, maybe even going out with friends dressed like the woman they feel inside is true. So pull the recycle bin over and toss the guide away. Clearly you aren't getting on very well with it.

So people would try to figure out the clues and signs, especially after a partner comes out as transgender. Some partners (the best ones, IMO) are supportive. Yes they need guidance and understanding but they accept the part of the personality that brings about the changes that manifest themselves as exterior markings. Talking about or fantasizing about getting the ears pierced, growing hair long, perhaps going shopping and feeling good to be out and about as one's true self, these are signs. But there are men who are not transgender who have pierced ears and long hair. Heck they may enjoy shopping too. Likewise there are women who do not have pierced ears, short hair and hate shopping. They may (or may not) be transgender either.

So, the blog author (it was a wickedly funny post) wrote about having these feeling and burying deep down an abandoned mine shaft, covering it with cement and barbed wire and prowling tanks, topping off by posting sentries miles away in the form of "rabid baboons". You see this setup and you think "well, wouldn't it just be better to get going on these other things I need to do?" Sure seems like it, doesn't it. But after you claw through, escaping mortars, barbed wire, cement contractors and worst of all, banana target practice, the old ways re-emerge into the daylight, blinking and stumbling as they once again see the light of day. It takes a while for the legs to get accustomed to walking and the eyes are unused to the light. But at least the baboons have quieted down for the time being...

I liken it to opening that closet and jammed in between the corset collection and some naughty nighties is a box. The box has a jigsaw puzzle but no indication what it's a picture of. It's just there. As you examine pieces, some will look like they fit together and some will be at odds. It's a frustrating jumble, you just wish someone would know what to do and just do it. You know what you want the end results to be but you can't figure the jumble out. Friends can certainly drop by and help out a bit, but in this case the building of the puzzle is your own call, your own task. My friends can support me, guide me, help me and encourage me, but they can't transition for me. One friend said "I always dreamed one day I would wake up and be a girl," which I nodded silently in agreement with. "Sadly," she continued, "it never happened." But then she took steps to break that incongruity and find new shapes and dimensions to her existence and now is living happily as a woman. The psychological ramifications of being transgender are hidden from view and only going to the peace found in the corners of one's mind, in the depths of privacy, can we begin to explore those feelings and give them substance. We touch our dreams and they seem real. The sunlight from sensing the sensuous nature of our interior happy place is comforting after all the stormy rain clouds of life. We don't know, we don't care, we just long to remain and be happy. It's a place that when I go there, I feel complete and happy. and almost free.

So when the dawn breaks on the new day, the FIRST day of the REST of your life, the change is almost palpable. You can taste the air anew and you can feel the fresh breeze on your face. As Dylan sang, "the times they are a-changin'" and so they will. But until the box gets found, opened and one starts in on it, in earnest, you may never get a complete sense of the finished piece of art. Some people are fine with it and I had felt for a while *I* was fine with it. But I am starting to feel less fine with it and more like I want to start working on that puzzle and building something new that my friends and my fellow transgender human beings can see as progress forward. It's perhaps time to set aside some time to start working on getting that box out of storage and setting it up to show a new piece of art for the future to admire and enjoy.

And before I go one word of caution: Look Out for Flung Bananas!!!

It's a Blend

So of late I had been thinking more and more about gender, sexuality and my role in both. Yes, you can let the room clear of smoke before continuing to read... I apologize if your eyes are watering.

So treading this ground of gender and feelings is a tough one but I have a few things on my side (at least I hope they are!):

-- FEELINGS: I know what I enjoy, what I dream about, what fires my desires and ambitions and they are valid because they are mine. No one can take that away from me.

-- EMOTIONS: Yes, they are like feelings but deeper down. The chord of truth is struck when you do something that makes you feel good, even if it's perhaps in conflict with your other emotional responses or those responses others would have to project upon you.

-- PHYSICAL: One cannot deny the existence of the physical self. It's there. When you shed all the worries, the baubles, the concealments and the clothes there you are. You are in plain sight of yourself and some will know it's not congruent with who they know they are. That is totally fine with me since I am often torn about it myself. I'm happy for those who can conform the one to be the shape of the true inner self.

My body shape isn't always conducive to projecting a true female persona, but she's leggy and smart and well she's got a little chunk of the world in her cup.

But like mixing your morning cup (coffee, tea, cocoa, whatever suits you) you mix the ingredients (milk, sugar, honey, etc.) together and you come up with a blend. And of late, that is what I have found is that I, like the coffee, am a blend.

I'm not the binary that many people I know are. I am bits of several different beings condensed into one form. It's not traditional male or female, but I am not traditional male/female inside either. It's tough to explain but it's like this: My body has emotional senses which are mostly female, but some deep emotional needs respond male and are enjoyable. I figure if you read that a few times you might get what I am saying without me having to spell it out.

Now what's a girl to do with these feelings?? I just wanted to know if I was alone, something I have felt before. I feared exclusion from people I knew and loved but I was sure would not understand the split. I have had dreams upon dreams torn between the two realms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of ... pleasure, shall we say?

Now my body is no temple to be adorned and venerated, but it's mine and I generally know how to use it. I have that sense, deep down of being two entities that seems to ying and yang, mix and coalesce. It's not like oil and water. It's more like smoke and fog, from a distance you can't tell one from the other. And I can't tell you my one from my other.

I was often told it was "wrong" to think one way or the other. It was flat out wrong to feel that although I enjoy being female the other side of the tracks was off limits. I was told you are one or the other, not both or neither! It's not allowed!! Play by the rules, dammit, or go to bed without any supper!!

Crossing gender boundaries is nothing new and, even though I suspected it would never work out, I learned something new in the journey. I was not ashamed to admit that certain senses of mine I enjoy and they give me great happiness. It's one of the few ways to express the inner self that is there, waiting, just below the surface of the skin ready to well up and burst through to the surface. For the first time I was not ashamed of being one versus the other. My life was not a vat of hatred over who I was and what I looked like.

I was becoming whole.

I am not saying this journey is done, nope. It's just beginning but life has changed in a different way of late. I have felt more like who I am is not a mistake and is not wrong. I realized that my feelings are valid, whole and part of the fabric of the person within. I am not binary and I am not nothing. I guess I am the solvent in which thoughts and ideas become interspersed with each other and they form this completeness. I don't know what this journey means to me, but it's sure changed a lot since I first started experimenting with clothes all those years ago. And I am still experimenting, although on a more adult level. I am finding out who I am and who I am I am finally beginning to see joy and enjoyment. I am beginning to feel there is a unique me waiting there, ready and willing to be more and more open about who she is and what she feels.

She is me and I am her. Together we are a blend. It's as complicated and yet simple as that.