The art of being normal…

What is gender identity and the art of being normal…

 

 

Growing up I had one goal - to be invisible or close to invisible as possible.

My gender identity didn’t match my physical body when I was growing up, this of course caused me to have discomfort and distress with my body to a very high level a lot of the time.

I know a lot of teenagers hate the way they look, but having gender identity issues is totally different and is not experienced by 99% of teenagers for the ones who do it's normally hell.

To survive I found hiding behind psychological masks and building a psychological wall helped me to survive. All the time I studied the males around me and copied how they behaved in order to just survive; I had discovered the art of being classed as normal… Everyday was like being an actor in a stage play and the costume made the part real, I never let my cover slip despite being in an all boys school some girls might think it would be a dream surrounded by boys every single day in school, but never being able to be me and having to hide away destroys the person for sure.

I’m not a male homosexual in anyway, I have never wished or wanted to be with a man in that way… that's sexual orientation not gender identity.

So you just learn to fit in and blend away in plain sight of the rest of the world, I learned to play the part of a young male and divulged in male activities and hobbies that was accepted by fellow teenagers. I soon became a master of being male,

I hoped that I could make the most of my life with the brain of a woman trapped in a male body and for a very long time I did, but like most thing in life, maintenance is required and I had become slack at maintaining my male appearance and attitude to all things. Something that starts as a trickle can soon become a river of emotions. Once you allow Pandora’s box to open its impossible to put the contents back and carry on, this is when my gender dysphoria came to the forefront of my life, I decided to spend some time researching gender identity and spent time looking for information the felt true to me and how I felt.

I basically discovered it’s a sense of a persons self as being male or female or somewhere along the male/female spectrum, gender identities are diversifying and its quite uncommon to change your gender identity, a lot of people never go any further than dressing in private male or female.

I made the decision not to live any longer as people expect and finally be female, some think it’s a choice a person has, but to put it bluntly they are really ignorant to gender issues. I have discovered religion can be the cause of narrow mindless in accepting gender identity disorders which is sad as I’m not a threat to them or their religion. I guess you could take the stance that God doesn’t make mistakes there for its his will that I transition from male to female?

The truth is I don’t know why some people don’t understand it and so do, if someone expresses misunderstanding about transgender I just walk away as you can’t change people and their narrow minds only they can seek the information on transgender and educate themselves.

I now know I can’t change the world and some people views or ideas on transgender however I can offer them information and try to explain to them about transgender and transitioning but some still don’t understand or should I say don’t want to understand.

So the art of being normal is finally in my grasp for the first time, not having to hide who I am from people is a breath of sweet fresh air.

I know its sad to say but I do hope the people I have come across who fail to accept me experience similar somewhere in their own lives.

In this world some people may identify as transgendered it’s a fact of life. In other cases these experiences are transient, fluid and part of a persons own development, but occasionally, if the gender dysphoria persists, the person may wish to seek further support and medical help, I know this from my own experience of being transgender. I just hope some one reading this is helped by my words and seeks help and is accepted by their family and friends for being themselves.