I'm weird.
I say that proudly, as I always have.
Since I was a young child I was the “weird kid” and that was my identity up throughout high school. I never knew why I was the weird kid , and my life up to this point had been a struggle to be taken seriously while still expressing my true self.
I made art. I did improve shows before my friends who would circle around me and wait for me to make them laugh. Who would make me laugh though?
I’ve always felt ostracized from society, yet I didn’t know why. I knew I was different and that something was “wrong” with me, so I had to act how people expected me to act so that I could function in our gender binary society.
<<Sit like a man, talk monotone, take up space, don't think about the fact that when you close your eyes that you see yourself as a woman. You're attracted to woman so that means you're normal right? As long as you don't act on your desires you're not gay. Don't stand like that! Legs shoulder length apart, don't put your weight on one leg. I want to be taken. Someone fuck me. Shoulders hunched forward. As long as you only fantasize about being with a man your not gay. Why can't I stop? I still like women so I'm OK? Squint your eyes. You can do this. Laugh at their stupid misogynistic jokes, at the stories they tell about your female friends. That's what men do and you need to be a man lest you be rejected. As long as you don't cross dress you're still safe.>>
Back then I played along but I hated myself for it. Now I feel like I'm finally growing in body and spirit while another part of me dies, or more accurately, I shed the false masculine armor that I've been entombed within over the years. It still serves me when needed, but I finally realize that it's not who I am, nor who I've ever been. Like a 17 year cicada I leave my shell behind and scream my song desperately into the night as my death rapidly approaches.
I'm not a human any longer. (I'm an Alligattoooooor! I'm a space man. . . Uh, Bowie reference. Yeah.)
I'm an heterosexual. I'm a gay man. I'm aggressive and submissive, a top and a bottom. A coward and a sadomasochist. I'm a woman. I'm a lesbian. I'm a strait female. I'm androgynous. I'm polly and monogamous. Gender is a failed concept to me; I'm a gender-queer outlaw and I don't care anymore.
Who are you? I want you for your compassion, your kindness, your tolerance, your art, your warm body pressed against mine regardless of it's configuration, your intelligence and your wit. I'm finally free from gender and it's limitations. It can be sexual. It can be friendship. It can be both. Love transcends everything. Above all, I want your companionship. I want to be your ally.
Up to this point I've been afraid to express myself because of how I thought others would perceive me. That shit stops today. As soon as I can I'm getting piercings, I'm going on hormones and by the time I'm done I have no intention of being recognizable in either gender binary unless I choose to present that way.
I am who I am, and I'm not a man or a woman. I'm fluid, I'm a contradiction, an alien, a nonconformist, a trans-person and above all an individual. I will sculpt and modify my body to reflect who I am inside and I don't give a damn anymore about blending into the crowd. I'm a gender binary smashing battering-ram and you can't stop me, or the thousands of others out there like me.
I've always been afraid to be myself because of the other people around me. I was terrified of being ostracized from the mainstream cisgender community, but in retrospect I've never belonged to them anyway and I've never felt comfortable in that world. (Nor did they accept me.) This is the end of that and the beginning of the rest of my life.
So now I am naked and unidentifiable. What am I? I'm a human being that lusts for life, love and community. That's something that we all have in common. If only we would focus on what we need from life as opposed to what divides us.
Until that time comes, I will not summit, not anymore. Today I march off to war with a flannel shirt, pink panties, combat boots, a frilly skirt and unflinching cold blue eyes. (The eyeshadow makes all the difference.) My center of gravity shifts at random from my shoulders to my hips and I no longer try to hide it.
I'm an impossible conundrum and yet I live on, for better or worse. I may thrive in this brave new world or I may be killed without reason. I reflect upon those who have gone before me; They like to burn and dismember our bodies. I hear it's to erase our identities and to warn others - “This is what happens!” http://www.transgenderdor.org/?page_id=1663 It's the same with racial and religious hate crimes. Honor our sisters and brothers.
This is what happens when you are brave enough to be yourself. This is what happens when you try to live your life defiantly.
Yet I remain defiant, as I have no other choice if I am to live and love as I must.
I will fight to the bitter end.
By my hand upon this date,
A mammal.
A gender freak
A human
Someone who likes to wear mittens.
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