Meat suit.

This was originally a really long Facebook post. I decided to share it here, and edit/add a little more to it. This is what happens when the constant fight-or-flight shit goes away: I get thoughtful. I get existential. I get melancholy.

I often feel as though my spirit is separate from my body. That I am just piloting this broken-down meat suit through life, a suit I didn't choose, a suit that is cumbersome and doesn't fit who I really am. At least some of my depression and anxiety come from this singular perception. I don't feel whole. I feel like I am missing some vital component that would fix the disconnection between body and spirit, and I've been looking for it my whole life.

I woke up from a nightmare in which I was screaming at my mother that I wanted to transition. I guess the body dysmorphism crap is still an issue in my subconscious. In my dream, my mother was wearing a strange mask painted blue and white, so I couldn't see her face. Her eyes were covered, so she couldn't see me, either. Maybe it symbolizes that she will never see me as I truly am.

For those who don't know me as well, I have struggled with my gender identity for a long time. I don't fit into the gender-presenting stereotypes because I still like to wear pretty girl clothes, but only sometimes. I'm most comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt. I experimented several years ago when I was dating Joyce. I found that presenting as male, to the exclusion of anything feminine, was just as restrictive being trapped in a very feminine body (I have large hips and H-cup breasts.)

Deep down, I feel like a boy who just likes to cross-dress a lot. But, if I want to present as male, it takes a lot more effort than just wearing boy clothes and foregoing makeup. It's just the way my body is shaped. There are times when I enjoy my curves. I just wish I wasn't stuck with them. Just like I wish I wasn't stuck with painful joints, headaches, depression, and anxiety. Somehow, they all seem part of the same thing.

I have made progress since I first started to feel like this. I changed my name to Morgan about a decade ago because it is androgynous. I felt it fit more with who I really am. I still wish I had been born male. I'd still cross-dress. I'd be a fabulous boy who could pull off drag really well, and that would suit me fine. Gender expression and gender identity are different things. Sexual preference is independent of those things, too, and it's too easy to dismiss my gender dysphoria as some kind of manifestation of my bisexuality. It's too easy to try to fit me into some neat little category of "lipstick lesbian" or "butch lesbian". Those categories exist to make other people feel comfortable, but they don't do anything for me.

So let's get down to the potentially TMI nitty-gritty. I only like my breasts when they are giving my lovers pleasure. I don't like how they look. I have always had disproportionately large breasts, and on top of exacerbating my gender dysphoria, they hurt my back. I have often thought about a reduction, if not a total mastectomy. On "girl days" I could wear falsies, and that would be acceptable to me. As for my lower bits, I find it impossible to have an orgasm without imagining I have a penis. Yes, you read that right, and it's not something new. I've felt this way for most of my adult life, and even in my early teens, long before I had any concept of what "Trans" was.

So what has stopped me from transitioning? Back when I was presenting as a boy for a few months. I went to a psychologist. She gave me this ridiculous, antiquated test that was supposed to tell if I was trans. It asked shallow, stereotypical questions, like, "Would you rather be a car mechanic or a nurse?" I kid you not. This particular shrink dismissed my gender dysphoria as part of borderline personality disorder. (I'm bipolar, but she's the only shrink who ever diagnosed me as borderline.) I felt defeated, and not heard. So I gave up. I decided I would be okay with just being a really convincing "secret drag queen" for the rest of my life.

I think I thought that getting married to a straight man would somehow make the gender dysphoria go away. It hasn't. It's just curled up in a little ball, at the back of my mind. Sometimes it comes out in the form of a nightmare, or even a good dream in which my body looks- and works- the way I want it to.

I know I just mentioned this, but it's important to explain that gender identity and gender expression are two entirely different things. There are plenty of drag queens who still identify as men. Cross-dressing does not equal trans. Lack of cross-dressing does not equal not trans. Trans just means that you feel that you are a different gender than the one that was assigned to you at birth, and this definition describes me.

I'm probably going to continue doing exactly nothing about this. Science hasn't yet come up with a cost-effective way to give me truly functional penis and testicles. (Yes, I said testicles.) Nor do I want to flood my body with hormones that will probably turn me into She-Hulk.
I also wouldn't want to put Matt and his family through my transition. I don't want to have "the talk." I don't want to have to feel like I'm hiding when I visit his parents and grandparents. (But isn't that what I'm already doing?) Besides, fully transitioning to male wouldn't give me what I want. I'd just be stuck with another set of stereotypes. It's inescapable. And Matt loves me no matter what, and we've talked about this, but the fact is, he's straight. I don't know how that would work in the longrun, and I'm not willing to risk our relationship.

I've used the terms "genderqueer" and "bi-gender" and "gender-fluid" to describe myself. It feels mostly like my innate gender is masculine, but I enjoy presenting as female sometimes. (I'm sorry, but women get better clothes.) I am planning to buy a wig. That way, I can keep my hair short and androgynous and do fun things with it, like spike it up and color it crazy colors, but I can still have long, feminine locks on days when I feel like it. The wig/hair thing is about the only thing I can do to "transition" right now. Maybe, someday, I'll take other steps. One thing is for certain: this isn't going away. I can only ignore it for so long before it eats me up inside.

So, that's my rant for today