Man, woman, just pick one already!
Living in a world where gender is binary, those of us stuck in the middle tend to be pushed to one side or the other. Some people want to see me as a man, and want to dismiss my female identity as a fetish or plea for attention. Others want to see me as a woman, and wonder why the hell I haven’t started hormone therapy and changed my driver’s license yet. To be between genders, or switch back and forth between genders, means I’m confused, or scared, or insane, or immoral, or a million other awful things. It tears at you, and these perceptions get to you.
My first “serious” girlfriend after coming out as transgender found it interesting at first, but soon came to strongly prefer seeing me as a man. I liked her, so I went with it, but as you might have guessed, being the male partner wasn’t particularly fulfilling. It didn’t matter that I was dating a beautiful woman who was very attracted to me as a man - I wasn’t happy with my appearance and wasn’t fulfilled sexually either. It’s probably quite obvious that I’m pushed towards male in my career and with my family. Every time a stranger notices that I’m not a “real” woman, it tells me that they think I’m supposed to be one or the other. To be both is to be a fraud. Internal factors, namely a fear of losing sexual function, push me towards male as well.
Other factors push me towards female. My sense of self wants to see a girl in the mirror. I’m happier with my body and personality as a female. I can only see myself as a female partner in a relationship, and some partners I’ve had only want to date a female. It’s not that I have a male body that bothers them, but that I have a male persona that can not be avoided. A partner who broke it off with me recently even mentioned that she wanted a lesbian relationship with Erin, not a heterosexual relationship with [redacted].
So, I’m at a crossroads where I have to start figuring out which gender(s) I should be. Maybe I can keep being both forever, and maybe I’ll go back to just being a male who occasionally goes for some gender bending. The terrifying part for me is that part that thinks transitioning into a woman may be the only way I’ll truly be happy with myself.
-Erin Houdini
