A Transgender Journey - In Transition Part 10

By Leela Ginelle

I’m attracted to women. I always have been. Well, when I was a teenager I was attracted to teenage girls and women, but my attractions were always toward females.

I knew that was true, but something told me it wasn’t. The something was my gender. If a male was effeminate, he was supposed to like males. That was the idea I picked up.

That left me in a cunundrum. I could be effeminate and like males, which I didn’t, or I could hide my gender and like females, which I did. How did it work?

Not so well. I had girlfriends. Lots of women like sensitive men, and the women I dated seemed to like not having to adhere to gender stereotypes too rigidly, but I spent the relationships cut off from myself. When we made love, I retreated into a place of fantasy. When we talked I was always hiding secrets.

Now that’s not the case. I’m out and I’m in a loving relationship. In my life, though, people often assume I’m gay, and it bugs me. When I transition, and I’m with my partner, I assume they’ll think I’m lesbian, which bugs me, too.

Actually, sexual categories bug me, in general. I don’t believe I fit in any of them. I’m androgynous. I don’t see myself fitting into the gay/straight continuum. I also don’t feel like explaining the last five paragraphs to people every time I talk to them.

In truth, though, I’ve never had to. Whether I educate people about gender, or define the particulars of my sexuality is my business. Why does it bother me, though?

Maybe because it was always a mystery to me. When I was closeted, I wouldn’t have called myself “androgynous.” I didn’t know what my gender was. People sometimes assumed I was gay, and I wondered if they were right. I tried to date men a few times, with disastrous results.     

Now, for the first time, I know who I am, and I assume no one will understand. Maybe I’m wrong, though. If I tell friends, I assume they’ll believe me, because they care about and respect me. I can’t imagine anyone at work, or a stranger ever asking.

The people at work and the strangers are just the people I’m annoyed about, though. “Don’t try to put me in your categories,” I think, “because your categories are all wrong!”

Am I mad at them, though, or at me? I’m not sure. I don’t like being misunderstood, like I am when people think I’m gay, but I’m also embarrassed for having misidentified myself.

What about later? Then, I fear, I’ll be perpetually misunderstood. Who will look at me and think, “There’s an androgynous person who is attracted to females. I can tell just by looking at zim?” Probably no one.

Will that exhaust me? I hope not. A part of me likes the idea of being unique. I’ve hidden myself for so long, it’s fun to have my identity show. Another part dislikes it, though, and thinks my clothes and hair send messages that are inaccurate.

Sometimes it seems important, and other times it doesn’t. When I wrestle with the question, though, it seems really important. That’s when I need the answer, and when anyone who might misperceive me seems villainous.

Most of the time the world seems benign to me now. Unlike when I started my transition, I now think of people as tolerant and accepting. Questions about the future, though, bring back my old fears, and with them, my old hostility.

I want clear boundaries and definitions, “My gender is . . .” Gender doesn’t seem to work that way, though, which is scary. I’m not a drag queen, except when I want to wear drag and be flamboyant. I’m not male, except when I want to dress male and watch basketball.

Damn, maybe I’m a male drag queen. Or, maybe, none of those words mean anything. That’s a comforting thought, except that I’m planning to have an orchiectomy next month and start estrogen, and it would be nice to know “what” I am.

I guess I’m someone who wants an orchiectomy and estrogen. I’d like some electrolysis, too. I always have, really. I just didn’t know how to listen when I told myself. It’s hard to hear what you want when you’re telling yourself you don’t want it.

So now I hear myself, and I want to hold myself to every word. “Okay – I’m androgynous. I like women. I want breasts, but not a vagina. Right? Right?!” Yes, but . . .

That’s the tricky part. Jude Law’s attractive, right? Admitting so doesn’t make me not an-androgynous-woman-loving-breast-wanting-penis-keeper, does it?

Policing myself this way is exhausting, and I’m ready to stop. I’m surrendering my gender house arrest ankle bracelet . . . but I’m keeping the tiara.



Leela Ginelle is a journalist and writer. Please visit zir blog at www.leelaginelle.com.