Been a little while...

Thing can get hairy, become overgrown gorillas and need a really long, long shave to cleanse them. Step in the shower and wash it all away.

I had such a time, not as a gorilla literally but as a fractured soul looking for answers. I think I found some.

The thing about an issue is it can seem so clear cut, so black and white and you discover it's far from it. I suspect gender was put on this earth to raise the intellectual bar of those who don't feel like they are one or the other. Perhaps this explains why so many friends are so intellectually gifted. Tough company to be a member of this kind of clan.

Some of what a journey discovered has done is woken me up to the idea of a fluidity of gender. Gender is not a this-side-or-the-other but a rainbow of colors streaming from a seemingly colorless source. We can try as we like to find holes, like Swiss cheese, to defeat these arguments, but mostly they end up self-defeating us. We feel bad, we decry the harsh inhumanity of it all and we try to shift gears and change lanes to give some different perspective to things.

Fluid like a river; it weaves and courses, past rocks, limbs, crags and pools. Insects sometimes dance lazily across its surface, sometimes fish swim beneath its depths. Parts are dark and a mystery where pressure can be overwhelming. Sometimes the fluid is warm, sunny and inviting. Other times it is merciless in its cruelty.

So for a while, I have been struggling to come to grips with the term fluidity. Not in the sense of the mathematics and physics of fluid dynamics, but in the aspect of gender and sexuality. Those steps opened my eyes more. I started to question if I was self-defeating my own discourse by 'owning' the term transgender but not really being trans at all. Well, partially trans. In some aspects. Darn, that fluid is getting muddy.

Not to stir up the waters but this hasn't exactly been a new development. Early memories (when I was conscious I was 'different', which happened a lot later than most of y'all) of the 'birth' of Samantha were that she was a lesbian, wore her hair short many times and was not the most 'feminine' of girls. In other words, at the outset Samantha was someone else, a fantasy projection onto a surreal world I was not to be part of. But: Samantha was fluid.

Had I known then what I am beginning to realize now, the gender rainbow was greatly different. I thought I could live through a fantasy universe the part of a girl who is:
a) popular
b) could connect with the ladies, and
c) is attractive and exciting.
The aspects of my life that were missing and vacant. I sought the feminine to make myself look and feel better. It gave me acceptance and assurance of my place in a universe fraught with uncertainty.

As Samantha 'grew' she began to change her appearance. Outwardly and inwardly. She became less of a rationale of immediate pleasure-needs and more of a blend of a different personality with what I thought was 'mine'. *I* wasn't the fantasy, *she* was. Wait, maybe she wasn't. Of course she was! But she thinks like *I* think (head shaking...head shaking...). Again we cross the term fluid in our thoughts.

Charlie Brown used to be "wishy-washy" and perhaps this was me. I was so geared up to separate two halves of dissimilar 'fruits' that should never...EVER...be placed together. The two should never be married, nay not even in the same hemisphere. It was always to be a long-distance relationship.

After all, Samantha had a girl's biology and looks while looking the part of a hormonal youth looking to self-pleasure to eradicate moments of heightened imagination coupled with utter loneliness. Perhaps Samantha became a 'lesbian' because she wanted nothing to do with me. She was too smart, too classy and too avant-garde to be seen having anything to do with me except as a casual acquaintance - you know, like a regular customer at a store. That sort of casual nod, greet, casual talk about current events and then best wishes and that aspects sails on. The mention of a relationship causes a "Soup Nazi" reaction. NO RELATIONSHIP FOR YOU!! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU THOUGHTLESS CRETIN!

So, Samantha rejected me on a deeper personal level but she was OK with me as a top level 'friend'. I felt less and less like she was my improper behavior partner and more like a friend. And as such I became more comfortable with being Samantha. We discussed personal connection on a deeper level and everything else was me OR her, not us.

So go back to the future and here we are, in the 21st century, still on that avenue. Then things change when I start to learn who Samantha probably is. She's not the outsider looking in, nor the controller looking out, denying access to non-believers. We have things we like, and dislike, about each other, but we are finding unity.

In some ways Samantha remains a lesbian, but with different colors on. She transformed from a person who developed a personality (not like Sybil, understand) that totally rejected the creator to being a merged partner and one who pushes in new directions, one I can attest to makes Samantha more unique. It's like a gay man marrying a woman, having children, denying his secret desire to crush that intolerable act of sexual activity with an opposite sex partner and instead focusing on finding a way to be with another man (or woman if we discuss lesbians instead) secretly, fulfilling a life's passionate needs.

Samantha has passionate needs as well, and has spent a long time going against the grain, like someone cutting hair very short. I fear we sometimes spend too much time in that imaginary "barber's chair", cutting off the reality and hoping for something new to grow into place. After a while the same situation repeats itself and perhaps you opt to go shorter, hoping to hide for longer and longer the outcome. Perhaps you decide to shave everything off - the stark and harsh reality will offset the natural perplexity of the situation. But after the cape comes off and time settles on its remorseless course once again, it is a question of when does the re-growth start to work its way out of your brain and into your mind. The escape seems implausible and you usually must find a way to deal with your identity. Just the same as you must learn to come to grips with your perceived 'style'.

So, my "style" is developing...evolving for lack of a better word into the truth I see in myself. Yes, Samantha wants to hold and love that special someone, it's just that her needs and presentations have changed since the first days of 'coming out' - where the thought of being with another was alien and I was deranged, to today where others are like me and sometimes struggle, sometimes accept and all the time share the same dreams and aspirations.

I realize I can go on and on... so...

--- TO BE CONTINUED ---