Forums » Smalltalk » Happy Pride Month!

The event that spawned Pride celebrations was a riot in Stonewall, and we would not have it without trans women of color standing up for their right to exist and be treated as human. Though many have referred to it as "Gay Pride" for years, homosexuality is only a piece of the whole!

So...I am definitely a person who is attracted to women. That makes me a lesbian. Or at least that's how I explain it. However. Let's talk about gender identity.

I'm 39 years old. I was born in 1980. So that factors into the possibilities that were available and the decisions I made.

Gender identity seems like a complicated issue to me. The funny thing is, no one thinks I'm masculine. Except me.

And except, maybe, my best Cheri. And to a lesser degree, my best friend Amber. Those are the two people who know me best, because we grew up together.

When I was a kid, it was easy to tell that I was masculine.

Everyone called me a tomboy. When my hair was cut short, a few months into the school year someone ended up talking to me and heard people calling me "Gail," and she came up to me and said,

"Wait...are you a boy or a girl? You're a girl?! No way! This whole year I thought you were a boy. I thought your name was Miguel!" (Because "Gail" kinda rhymes with "Miguel.")

Just to be clear, she was serious. It wasn't a joke. She had really thought I was a boy. Why?

Because I liked to wear boy clothes. I hated pink, I hated lace, I loved blue jeans, I loved tennis shoes.

Also because of my behavior. I loved playing cops and robbers, playing "war," climbing trees, running around the woods, making "bases," climbing anything I could. I couldn't remember to "sit like a lady" even on the rare occasion that I was trying to, and I hated wearing dresses and skirts. I basically refused to wear dresses and skirts.

Not to say that cisgender girls can't do any or all of these things -- they can. My best friend did many of these things right alongside me. But yet...i would not enjoy the girl stuff. Playing house always bored me, my friends putting make-up on me always just made me feel uncomfortable.

Even though some cisgender girls do all of these things, I still feel like my doing these things was an indicator of masculinity in me, because they're not as typical for girls as for boys.

As I grew up, though, I learned to blend. I started wearing make-up sometimes. And like some of you -- I too felt and always feel like I'm "in drag" when I'm wearing make-up. But it got me more attention. It got me more pleasant reactions. It's a means of gaining power, of seeming "dressed up."

So, especially when I started working, I wore make-up sometimes. I don't much now. Except to interviews. I do still wear makeup to interviews.

And I've quite mastered feminine mannerisms. I'm already a chatty person and I already smile when I'm nervous, so it wasn't hard. I'm a rather socially submissive person -- I avoid conflict, defer to the other person, apologize too much, that kind of stuff. Also I don't like bugs, and I can't handle gore and horror movies. I know that's a lot of stereotypes about masculinity, but the point is, for these reasons, as an adult, people almost always perceive me as a feminine person. By default, I present myself to people I don't know as a feminine person.

But...inside...no. Inside, mentally, I feel like a guy. I've always felt like a guy. I never thought I was a guy, physically. I also never wanted to change my body. When I hit puberty, getting boobs didn't bother me (except for the affect they had of getting random men at bus stops to hit on me, and things like that, which was annoying). I never had any body dysphoria, thank goodness. For me, the mind and body can be separate, and it's ok. For some people, I know that's not the case at all.

But yeah. I've always felt like, inside, I was masculine. I still feel that way. I can't explain what exactly the feeling consists of. I just think like a man. In certain ways, I think like a man.

It's hard to be clear cut about it, though, because there are some aspects of masculinity (or steotypical masculinity) that I don't seem to possess. I know this only because I tried it. I went through a phase in my life where I tried to a more "butch," in order to attract a girl who was "femme." I'm only attracted to girls that have some degree of the feminine vibe. I'm attracted to femme girls but also sometimes tomboys...but ONLY if they have a certain feminine vibe.

So...I tried to be "butch." And well, it's just not me. Maybe it's because I was socialized a certain way. Maybe it's because I'm naturally just feminine enough that I don't have certain stereotypical aspects of masculinity that others have, even though I'm mostly mentally masculine. I don't know.

The two aspects I seem to don't have as much of is: territorialism and lust. I don't have jealousy induced anger, I don't like getting into fights, and I don't look at people's bodies with that sort of hunger and lust that is normal for a lot of people (but I understand not necessarily aces). So that makes me wonder if I'm a little bit of a demisexual. Forming a bond with someone definitely increases the chance I will feel sexual attraction to them, and I'm almost never attracted to strangers in that sense (although sometimes).

Bottom line -- if I had been born say 20 years from now when it will be, perhaps, no big deal to transition, maybe I would have been a trans-male. As it is, however, I am biologically female and mentally 80-90% male, who is attracted only to feminine women. So...I'm either a heterosexual trans-male (right? I don't even know if that's how you would say it), OR I'm a homosexual female. Just typing the word cisgender out, though -- just even for the sake of argument -- seems wrong. But that's how I identify myself publically. Publically I identify myself as a homosexual cisgender (*cringe* - because I'm really not cisgender) female. However, people that know me best, know that I think I'm really a guy -- and most of them think that's funny because they think I am way too feminine for that. And that's fine. I've lived my life too long having feminine mannerisms to go changing now, I can't even completely pull off masculine mannerisms, so...I am who I am!

Interestingly, even though I "felt like a boy" from when I was young, I didn't know I was attracted to females until 8th grade. Until then, I thought I had a crush on Commander William Riker of Star Trek. Then in 8th grade, I learned what a crush really was when I got one on a beautiful girl I was in band with.

I did the secret admirer thing. Put letters in her locker. Drew pictures for her and put them in her locker. Thought I loved her. I never got caught, though. And I didn't tell her. Because she was straight. But that's how I knew, "holy crap, I'm gay? Okay."

The first person I told was my best friend, and not until I was 16 years old. So years later. I was nervous about how people would react. It was ok, though.

My mom didn't find out until after I met my future wife, although she knew from when I got my first girlfriend in my 20s, but it was all silent...she hinted that she knew but we didn't talk about it. I can't remember the first time it came out and we actually talked about it. But over the years I tried to explain it to her multiple times from every angle. Scientific, emotional, spiritual, legal. She doesn't understand it and refuses to accept that it's a natural and healthy variation of the human species.

One reason she doesn't understand it is that I think she herself is, in today's parlance...ACE. I don't think she has sexual feelings for the opposite gender or the same gender. I think she does, however, occasionally have semi-romantic feelings towards men. However, I don't think she's ever fallen in love and she generally doesn't like romantic physical contact as far as I've ever been able to tell. She talks about feelings of attraction as if they're something distant and scientific. Like she's never felt them. She made a decision about who to marry (my dad) mainly based on his intelligence and status. She feels love for friends and family, but I don't think she has ever experienced romantic love. So trying to explain my romantic love for a girl is just completely confusing to her. It's like we don't speak the same language.

She actually suggested once that maybe someone puts some drugs in my drink to make me "feel something," for women, as if there's a global conspiracy. And that's because she said the feelings I describe sound like the effects of a drug.

Because yeah, love does feel like a drug, to some extent. But if you've never felt it, you wouldn't know that that feeling can come naturally from a touch, a text message, that kind of stuff.

Anyway, she went into denial about it. Then, one day, she saw Sandra and I kiss, through a window. She could no longer deny it to herself that it wasnt just an idea I was having but was an action I was taking.

The story goes on from there, but that's the part where I was officially "out" to everyone that matters to me.