not a woman?

I was born some number of years ago between thirty five and fifty.  On that day, the doctor picked me up, still wet with blood and amniotic fluid and I know not what else, looked between my legs, and decided the course of my life right there.

He (I say he because in that time and place the likelihood was that the doctor was a he), instead of saying something obvious like "This baby has a penis and testicles", instead said the first thing every deliverer of a baby with a penis and testicles says:  "It's a boy!"

I won't fault that doctor too much.  He's probably no longer still alive.  I'm honestly not sure that my life would have turned out all that different if he had just said what he saw instead of what he thought was.  The effects the brain and endocrine system have on one another as a result of the possession of the testicles probably made a lot more difference than that.

(Digression: other things want to be told -- what state was I born in?  what kind of environment?  did I live in an urban tenement or a trailer park or a nice house in suburbia with a white picket fence?  Some of this will be told later in this post, and some later on in this blog.  Fear not, Gentle Reader.)

Sometime between the ages of seven and ten I came to a realization that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't have been a boy but a girl.  I'm fairly certain I knew that people like this existed; having been a ridiculously precocious reader (digression: something about intelligence and issues related to it) and thanks to having been exposed to great works of literature such as the National Enquirer, I had a pretty good idea of the meaning of the words "sex change".

As a child, I wouldn't say I was particularly masculine.  For instance, it seemed to me that "other" boys wanted to fight each other a lot.  I thought that was clearly stupid, as getting into a fight meant you would get hit, and that would hurt, and who wanted to get hurt?  I was never into sports, neither as a spectator nor as a participant.  I had neighborhood friends who were boys and who were girls, and I think I can recall a slight preference for the girls over the boys, but I don't think it was particularly pronounced.  I thought girls had really excellent toys (I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven!) but wasn't particularly into dolls.  (My mother, if I were to ask her, which I probably won't, would be able to provide more insight, but might generally agree with me.)

(Digression, which will go in here:  when I read stories about people who transitioned, there's always some kind of talk about the kinds of toys or activities or clothes they liked as a child: "he always wanted to play with dolls," "he wanted to wear skirts and play dress-up," and so forth.  I am of the generation exposed in grade school to the film Free To Be... You & Me, which tried to tell everyone that it was okay for boys to want to play with dolls and show emotion and for girls to play football and be rugged.  The sentiment was wonderful, but did it sink in with anyone?  Did the teachers and counselors who chose to show us that film even agree with or believe it?

(Does a person's choice of toys and activities as a child really act as an indicator of their gender?)

I'm fairly certain this bit happened sometime between the ages of seven and nine.  The phrase statement unbidden into my head:  "I'm unsure about my masculinity."  I knew the meaning of the words, and I realized about myself that it was true.  I have no way of knowing where or how I absorbed the existence or meaning of the words -- probably a combination of exposure to daytime TV in the early 1970's as a result of having a stay at home mom who spent most of her adult life depressed while spending most of her time watching TV and a working father whose idea of giving the kids attention was to read the paper and watch the evening news after he got home from work.  (They were both of the generation of kids to whom TV was a fantastic new invention, to revolutionize after-dinner (and sometimes before- and during-) family time.)

Over the next several years, I felt a fervent wish to be a girl.  I used to wish for a magic ring in the air that I could jump through and it would switch me, including change everyone's perception and memories of me.  I don't recall that this wish ever went away, but I do remember that it waxed and waned a lot over time.  It was probably never as fervent again, though, as it would be when I reached my late teens and early twenties (about which more later in the blog).  I could never tell you why I felt this way.  I'm not sure I still can.

I never told anyone.  I couldn't.  I knew what would happen.  While I lived in what passed for suburbia, it was really a white trash sort of suburbia, surrounded by racists and bigots and rednecks of all sorts.  (Digression:  I first heard the words 'nigger', 'faggot', and 'fuck' from the kids to one side of us, who were supposedly such great Christians.  I have no doubt at all that sexual abuse was rampant in that household -- you'll hear about this bunch later, I promise, since the daughter of the family had a hand, and a few other body parts, in the development of my sexuality; one of her brothers would grow up to join the Army, get drummed out for rape, and later be arrested and serve prison time for rape.)

Somehow, I internalized the label of 'boy', perhaps less so 'man', even with these feelings inside of me.  Later in life (digression: expand this, later) when I immersed myself in the online support groups for transgender folk, I don't think I felt comfortable referring to myself as a 'girl' or 'woman'.  (Digression: perhaps this was as a result of the ineffective counseling I was receiving?)