Now, let me preface this by saying that I don’t plan to keep talking about the whole gay and trans thing, and this isn’t going to turn into some Angry Tranny™ or Emo Faggot®* blog, because I don’t really care much for those people, much less being one. I’m not one to fit under a stereotype of either anger or depression, though I often feel both, and I’m not one to fall into a stereotype of being queer either. I’ll get back to the talk of backpacking and posting writing next; I promise not to make it a habit. I think society could use an overhaul when it comes to gender, but I’m not going to get up on a bricked car and say we should smash the patriarchy, and I’m not going to wear black eye liner and paint my nails and listen to shitty music. Well, I might paint my nails. But not black.

But, within the last year or so, I’ve really started to recognize myself as being “queer”. Queer is a very broad term with what seems to be an intentionally vague and ever vaguer definition. As I’ve come to understand it, though, it’s rather synonymous with “sexual and gender minorities”. I’ve never really associated with them, partly because of sipping tea with Tumnus, and partly because of this problem I have where I hate to be part of any group or subculture for fear of being subsumed by them. But… well, I’m a person who was born with a penis that wants to be feminine. I’ve started to tentatively identify as “genderqueer” and transgender. I’m still technically in the closet, being very hush hush for the most part about my desired gender expression, but I still at least want to be out and free to express myself without being harassed, beaten, or even just plain fired, even if I never even want a job where I’m in a position to be fired.

So, I tentatively associate with larger groups, and find myself in the “genderqueer” category, not quite wanting to be all the way female, but not wanting to stay all the way male. And I work towards ‘crossdressing’–although I don’t quite find it cross anything–and contemplate hormones, though I’m nearly terrified that they would get rid of the male bits I like. And I choose to label myself, not because I enjoy labels, or feel I belong to what I’ve seen as primarily a counterculture movement against heteronormativity, often becoming the much brasher “Genderfuck”, not for me but to better explain who I am and how I feel. Except that doesn’t really work.

I want to be somewhere between. I want to be not quite a man, not quite a woman, but either. I love being mistaken for a girl. Whether I get “Ma'am"ed or whether I join an IRC channel and people can’t tell my gender. I want to be both. As far as aesthetics go, I greatly admire androgyny. And as I grow older, I both finally feel the agency to achieve it, and the fear that there isn’t enough that I can do. I don’t want to be part of a counterculture, I don’t to wear a skirt and beard and have breasts. I don’t want to shave my head and paint my lips. I want to be… feminine, but masculine. I want to be able to be man or woman depending on how I feel, how I dress, how I act. I want to be both if I feel like it. I want to wear skirts and stockings, and I want to wear cargo pants. I want to be a tomboy and effeminate.

I don’t have dysphoria–at least, not physical dysphoria–I enjoy my genitals, sometimes upwards of three times a day, and I am incredibly sorry for anyone that can’t enjoy the feeling of masturbation without feeling dead inside. I’ve heard people talk about their dysphoria, and I get pangs of empathy, but it isn’t something that I experience myself. I feel uncomfortable with my body more because of the lack of care I’ve put into it for the last 23 years. It does, however, make me very, very uncomfortable to feel my own body hair. It even makes me uncomfortable seeing other male body hair, because it reminds me that even though I cover up, and shave my arms, I’m still hairy when naked.

I experience social dysphoria, though. The feeling of "men can’t do this”. It’s alright for a woman to wear men’s clothes, but if a man starts dressing effeminately, he’s no longer a man. He’s become The Other, and becomes a target of ridicule. Transgender people suffer so much discrimination because of that. Transmen get it too, but most of society considers them women, and society generally ignores women. Transitioning threatens masculinity, but in this day and age unless a transguy starts taking T and gets top surgery, he won’t end up like Hillary Swank. Not so for men. A man wants to wear a dress and he might get beaten to death. I’ve said before that the manliest thing a guy can do is wear a skirt. It takes balls to go to work dressed like a woman.

So where do I fit in, though? That’s the question I don’t think I’ve answered. I tried to explain it to someone, and they patronized me saying that that’s how all transgirls feel before they transition. I hate that dismissal. That I’m just like everyone else, and these feelings are just jitters. And more than that it makes me all the more terrified that if I do go on estrogen I will want to go all the way. Being reminded that the brain is soup that can have it’s opinions changed with just a dash of chemicals is fucking frightening. But here it is, the overly long, complicated metaphor that I gave her, explaining my feelings as they relate to gender:

To me, being a girl is like wanting to be an American living in Paris. It’s a commonly romanticized idea. The Bohemian hipster fantasy of longing for gay Paree, toiling away in a life that puts you further and further from it. You love the idea, and dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triumph, and the catacombs, and having an apartment that overlooks the Seine. You might collect pictures of Paris, and enjoy reading about Paris, but you’ve always been too afraid to go there yourself, even if you ask all the American Parisians you know what Paris is like. So you never go to Paris, and for a long time you can forget about going to Paris, and you’ll think of it again, and you’ll sigh, and feel a little tiny tiny thing missing, a bit of “if only…" I never have felt like killing myself because I’ll never get to go to Paris, but sometimes when I’m alone, I’ll pretend that I’m in Paris, and I have half-remembered dreams of open air cafes. When I’m alone and, if you’ll allow me to stretch this metaphor far too much, masturbating, I often look for pictures of Americans in Paris. Always preferring the ones like me. The ones who live in Paris, but still love being American, the ones who keep their stars and stripes, but wrap them in liberté, égalité, fraternité. But being an American in Paris is a new thing. It’s far more socially acceptable to be a Parisian living in America than the other way around. When a Parisian wears the stars and stripes, she might get some teasing, but she wouldn’t lose her job. She wouldn’t be beaten for acting unAmerican. If she renounces her Parisian citizenship, yes, but until that point she can most often wear the stars and stripes without much fear of reprisal. I want to go to Paris. I long for it, and clip snapshots hidden away of Parisian-Americans. I talk to and hang out with people who’ve renounced or will renounce their American citizenship. But I’m far too afraid to go to Paris myself and get that apartment on the River Seine. Or at least, I have been for most of my life, and the desire to go to Paris has slowly grown from "oh, seven years in Paris like Tiresias would be nice” or “I wish I could wake up Parisian” to “I wish I could be a Parisian-American”. And at this point, the metaphor has grown like a cancerous tumor.

Anyway, that’s the metaphor. maybe a little inaccurate, but I felt like saying it. I just felt like writing some feelings. It’s one of those girly things. When I was little, I never played with… let’s continue this metaphor and say baguettes, but I wished I could. Not strongly, no, but casually. I wished I was born in Paris, although sometimes I wonder if I’m one of those rare people who are actually Parisian even though they were born in America (to break the metaphor a bit, I mean sometimes I wish/wonder if I’m XX male). But I’ve always had Parisian feelings. When people say “Americans are all…” I feel like speaking up and saying “that’s not true, I’m not like that”, but the thing is… I’m really not a guy. About 56% of the time–using the Asspull Statistic Method–I end up being more like a girl than a guy when it comes to common personality types. And I know that it’s possible to be a guy and act like a girl or vice versa, but Goddamn, it really makes it hard for me to figure my shit out.

In closing: Parisian is feminine, America is masculine, Parisian Americans are the androgynous genderqueer types with the desired gender expression I want, and people who’ve renounced their citizenship are transexuals. Baguettes are Barbie dolls. I assume all French children play with baguettes.

Oh, and that term I keep using, “desired gender expression”. It’s my own little way of saying “pre-transition”. I’m working on it, and doing a good job, but I’m still a fat, ugly, in the closet Metapod with a beautiful androgynous non-binary genderqueer author/backpacker Butterfree waiting to break free, as I not only add in a new metaphor, but also Pokemon for no reason at all.

* Also, I shouldn’t have to point out that “tranny” and “faggot” are bad words; I’m sure everyone here is an adult and understands that, although this isTumblr, so everyone might also be a 14 year old girl.