Saturday 20 March 2010

Doubt

    Earlier today I read a piece form Sophie Jean entitled "When I First Knew", in which she describes coming to terms with her gender issues from a young age. It set me thinking, not about coming to terms with yourself but about coming to terms with that realisation afterwards. In simple terms, occasional doubt. "Can this really be true, might I just be an especially deluded transvestite after all?".
    I'm sure I'm not alone in this, that having reached the point of bringing all my gender problems together in my mind relatively late in life I've occasionally had moments over the last year or so when I still can't quite believe it. After all, so the line of thought goes, "I'm the same as I was before I figured it out, why haven't I er... changed somehow?" Well, the simple answer to that is this: Hell yes I've changed, it has to be something pretty damn fundamental to turn off two decades of clinical depression like a damn light switch!
    But it touches on something a bit more basic to do with gender identity. Just as you don't magically change from boy to girl between your ears by swapping your trousers for a skirt, you don't magically get a girl brain just because you figure out you should have one, it has to be there first to be discovered. And I'm pretty damn certain you don't spend your childhood delving through the girly side of the dressing-up box or spend a lifetime in which your gender-identifialble dreams are female without having something of a girl brain installed. So why on earth should I expect anything to have changed!
    Maybe it's not so much doubt at my conclusion but doubt at my cognitive ability, "If you're supposed to be so damn clever why on earth did it take you so damn long to figure out the bleedin' obvious!". It's easy, I'll just blame it on my male side. Isn't that what women do? :)

8 comments:

  1. I had a moment of doubt not long ago, driving into York for an early expedition en femme. The thought went through my head: Am I really trans?

    Then I thought: 'For God's sake, look at yourself. You're wearing girl clothes. Heels. Makeup. You've got long hair and pierced ears. You've made your body shape as female as you can. It's not sexual, and nobody's making you do it. It's a bit more than a hobby.'

    Then I got the giggles.

    Hugs, Cat XX

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  2. Thanks for the reference.

    It's hard to accept who you when you can't find someone like yourself. Being one in 3000 before the internet became public made it highly unlikely to not think you're not alone.

    Throw in a little intelligence and you try to use it, without people thinking that you're crazy, and so the seeds of anxiety are so gently planted until finally, decades later, we think, "Why wasn't I so adamant about my feelings? Am I sure I'm a girl? There's no possible way I can pass now after trying to be a better male?" It takes a lot of turns around the onion to figure out what we did to ourselves and why.

    Your intelligence is what let you cope for so long, suspend belief and ultimately question yourself. You're becoming a wise woman.

    Hugs,
    Sophie

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  3. "I'll just blame it on my male side. Isn't that what women do? :)"

    LOL, There you go 100% proof!
    x

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  4. I'm glad to find I'm not alone then, allays the terrible fear that everyone would say "Oh no, I knew right away. And there's no way you can have a girl brain with fashion sense like that!".

    @Cat: I've definitely had the giggles considering myself in girl mode in front of the mirror. There's something incongruous about it, however "right" it looks or feels :)

    @Sophie: Any time, one has to credit one's inspiration. That's a very valid way to look at it, "If I've managed to do "Bloke" so well how can this be happening?". I guess it matters less than we think.

    @Lisa: that's not too far from what Mrs. J said.

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  5. I've had cycles of those doubts - and the thought of the analysts at the VU (when I get an appointment) saying that to me is one of the things that terrifies me...

    Stace

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  6. If we've all had these moments then I'm guessing it's nothing they won't be expecting.

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  7. Well said, Jenny. Sophie got my mind turning around the same questions, and I came up with similar answers. I created an elaborate falsehood, sorta fooling myself for decades, at least enough to live away from my true self. My psyche had to kick me when I was down to get me with the program.

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  8. Yet again, glad it isn't just me. You see Sophie, you've got us all questioning ourselves, well done!

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