Customizable Self Representation
Someone wrote…
Sometimes I feel like an androgynous person. Not knowing which side to choose. I don’t want there to be any border between the sides.
Where I live, the people are not so open-minded. They do not understand things like this. They are old-fashioned.
I feel like I cannot be myself without drawing major attention.
I don’t really know what to do. I hope that, sometime, people don’t have to use a body to live. They should have an avatar. Customizable: their own body, their own representive image.
I hope, by posting this message, I would find people with the same problem that I have.
What’s your experience?
Posted by Chris on January 7th, 2012 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 5 comments »
January 7th, 2012 at 8:52 am |
I have the exact same problem. I get really frustrated sometimes thinking about why we have to have such gendered bodies, and I sometimes wish we could just be consciousnesses (there’s no way that’s a word) floating around with either no physical form or a customizable shape of some sort.
And I also feel like I’m drawing uninvited attention just by trying to express who I am.
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January 8th, 2012 at 12:00 am |
Yes, I understand…
I’ve been working in my self expression for about four years total.
First was when I was 37, and it became *safe* for me to work through my gender stuff. At that time, for a year, I became more and more feminine in appearance, though my deportment, movement and outlook have always been feminine (I have always been a female soul clothed in male form). This place where I lived, was a very conservative place, but I chose to do this both because it felt so good, so freeing, but also to see if I was emotionally strong enough to go *that much* against gender norms. I was heading to a sex change, in fact, but I chose to give up my right to one for the sake of my wife, who needs me at least nominally male. I agony, I asked God for an ‘appointment’ after I died, to discuss my gender and desire/need to be fully female in eternity. Then, for the next decade, in dispair that I could never really be me in my life here, I purposefully repressed my gender again. Then three years ago, having prayed that I might be used of God to help others through their difficult gender journey, He answered me. What God did was to connect me with some people that needed to understand people like us, and in sharing my experience and myself, I started to grow, understanding myself better. I stopped trying to destroy my genitalia as I had been doing since childhood; I stopped repressing who I am and began experimenting with feminine appearance, and I stopped censoring my feminine manorisms and allowed myself to move gracefully again, and lost 50 pounds I gained over the prior decade in my dispair. I realized that God gave me the appointment I so deperately wanted, needed, and was now ready to have! Though I still want to be female, now and in eternity (or whatever female becomes), God gives me strength to endure this body, and strength and grace to live as an openly transgendered person, expressing myself well on the feminine side of androgynous. Soon, I will take hormones without self medicating as I have done one two brief occassions…
I say all that to say that there are times and places where it has been hard to live transgendered, for just the reasons you cite. I live ina place where it’s realatively easy, but often go to places where it is not (and I have twinges of fear that God alays!). But, I’ve learned two very freeing things: I am who I am, and with God’s help I am a lovely and legitimate person, worthy of life and love. And also, that the world needs people like us to gently rock the boat, encouraging people to learn to love and be loved by those who are different than themselves. We are granted special power by God to do this, and who better than we who are considered ‘queer?’ It may be part of our calling! These realizations strengthened me when the leaders of my church family rejected transgendered-me in their willful ignorance over a year ago. But it was ONLY those leaders: I have met many other Godly people who live-up to the quality of Jesus and love unconditionally, even if they cannot really ‘get’ me – they accept my love in return. AND even among those conservative folks, I have found favor among most, as I have treated everyone with a smile, with kindness, and respect, even those who rejected me.
Please do not let what others might think stiffle who you are! EVERYONE expresses their gender, so it is fully legitimate for us to express ours, whatever it may be! Thank You Jesus for giving me grace and the ability to so this! :-)
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January 8th, 2012 at 12:46 am |
Evolution, revolution, constitution, & one day.. resolution
Here’s to the dream!! Not just Americas, but humanities!! *Cheers!!* rNa
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January 8th, 2012 at 1:42 am |
Its not about having to choose a side, i find – that would be to declare war on one part of yourself. The trick is to understand that, over a lifetime, and in terms of the roles all of us play, we are ALL more than one person.
It is just that when we acknowledge that we can express a multiple- gender identity, we need to learn to balance, and find wholeness.
I expect that you have to find a community which may be physical or virtual.
Of course there are people and environments that wont accept you – at the moment – that may never change – BUT it may as you come to accept the fulness of who you are, and to stand tall with those who love you and are like you.
Ultimately the problem belongs to those who are so trapped, lacking in imagination or education – YOU do not have THIS problem. Be who and whatever you want to be!
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January 8th, 2012 at 2:58 am |
You aren’t alone. I find it near impossible to explain how I feel, the closest is that I’m a man and a woman at the same time, but that doesn’t make sense to people who view man and woman as opposites.
I use to feel so lost with my body. I did not want to change it but it didn’t feel like it accurately expressed me.
I have a rather feminine looking body and face and I look young for my age as well. People often treat me based on these looks and it is quite frustrating. But I do love my body now. I like being female. I just wish that people could understand that being a female does not make you a girl or rather not just a girl because I am both a woman and a man in a female body.
It wasn’t easy in high school. I grew up in a very conservative place but now in college I am nearly free to be who I want to be. There will always be people that don’t understand but there will also always be some that do. They may be hard to find but once you find them, the people that love you for you, you will always have friends.
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