I’ve never lived as my prescribed gender. Nobody could absolutely convince me. They could scare, beat, or pathologize me, but my senses are too sharp. I can hear something different in myself than the beating of a man’s heart. But I never felt that the masculine clothes restrained me, my senses did too good of a job. They interpreted the hate, the disgust, and confusion with startling accuracy.
When my eldest and thought-to-be smartest brother said there must be something mentally wrong with trans people, I heard. When in school, the discomfort I felt about my body was scrutinized till I felt numb. And now neither my safety nor my transness are recognized at my doctor’s office, more a hybrid that wants to recognize, but in effect demolishing both to the benefit of my insurance.
“Samantha/Michael”, that’s what they wrote on the letter to go to my employer as proof of my doctor’s visit. What is this unnatural combination? What is this cruel mold? It burns that this is also drawn along with gender identity disorder. How dare you. You seek to control me at every step. You make me run a loop, wait and wait and wait some more only to be questioned and told that trans issues are on the cusp of being “no big deal”.
My name is “no big deal”, my hormones are “no big deal”, and my job security is “no big deal.” You have no idea what a relief it is to hear that, tell me next month when finally you’ll decide to prescribe me the chemical that should be in my body and tell me the surgery I would love to have yesterday might take some time before it’s recommended. I already had some surgery, bub. I don’t need a dress to express my transness, I have it tattooed into my skin.
I own it, I decide what is on and in my body. I don’t want testosterone and I can just stop it in my body when I want. I’m tired of white cis people telling me what I need to do before I am who I have always been. Do you know what it’s like to be cis gender woman? I don’t, but I don’t know what it’s like to be cis gender man either. I am ready to be the person I have always been, but without the fear and confusion of others to stop me. I am transgender, I am apart and the same as much as any other person.