trans soul rebel (vii): the pronouns conundrum

Pronouns are important. I get it. I just have a massive issue with them. When I think of myself, I think of myself in first person. I do not assign gender. That actually only ever comes into play when I am deliberately posing or trying to imagine myself. Otherwise, it is just “I”. Am I bothered by feminine pronouns? Not really… or rather, not by the words themselves, more by the reality they define. Even if I plucked up all my courage and came out to the world tomorrow, it’d feel silly asking everyone to change to male pronouns, when […]

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trans soul rebel (vi): the lion’s den

So… I guess that even though I still have some doubts and even if not mandatory for transitioning, a visit to a therapist would still be in order, I have more or less found my identity. The question is, “now what?”. I can try to ignore the new-found name for the way I have been feeling all my life – for thirty seven years. I can go on as I have until now, I am not doing bad after all. No one ever needs to find out the truth behind my little quirks, I can pass as “normal” and cope […]

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trans soul rebel (v): nothing wrong with me

As I said, the closest I had come to describing how I was feeling, was to my desk mate Anna in highschool: like there is a gay guy living inside of me. I still lacked the vocabulary to put a name to it and the knowledge to recognize that I am not really broken in any way. In all the (very often very complexed and serialized) fantasies I had, I found myself slipping into the role of the guy as often as not. Eventually, with high speed internet and a laptop that I could take in bed with me, and […]

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trans soul rebel (iv): dysphoria

I can’t remeber ever liking my breasts. Or wanting them. When I was twelve or so, a girl from the neighborhood and me hid in the stairwell when no one would see me and she showed me her breasts and asked to see mine. She was anxious for hers to grow and showed me how she pulls on her nipples to make them grow faster. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was and shrugged it away. In highschool, I had a good friend who was almost flatchested. She kept buying padded bras and suffered terribly and kept telling me […]

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trans soul rebel (iii): just an oddity

In the end, I don’t think anyone can say it comes as a surprise. In retrospect, a lot of things make sense, a lot of jarred images fall into place and make me go “a-ha! well, duh!”. As a kid, there were definitely instances when I said I wanted to be a boy. But the memories are too blurry to tell if I craved that on its own, or as a way to resist all the chains I felt being progressively looped around me on account of being a girl. Girls don’t run around. Girls don’t make a mess. Girls […]

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trans soul rebel (ii): the clothes

In the time since I have figured what “might be wrong with me” (story for another chapter), I have occasionally dared to look for more information. Sometimes in passing, skimming through links, not really wanting to read the answers to my half formulated questions, sometimes with more determination. Since I have decided to allow myself to think that I am most likely trans (I have yet to speak it out loud), I have looked at various Q&As, checked if there are any local support groups, probed the sea with a finger for reactions and finally ordered some books. One of […]

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trans soul rebel (I): the toys

I do not really know where to start. I know the old saying, “start at the beginning”, but that is easier said than done. What is the beginning? I cannot ever remember me as being anything else or feeling any different. Maybe I should start with the toys. My favorite toys were lego bricks, some plushies I loved dearly (a little horse called Johnny, a dog called Blondie whom I lost at a picnic once and a little lion whose mane I cut to make it grow back thicker – that is what they were telling me when taking me […]

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when i look in my father’s eyes

father

I am absolutely terrified. A deep, primal terror that claws at my stomach at night, and puts a lump in my throat until I fall asleep on a pillow drenched in tears I cannot shed in daylight. I try to picture the moment when I find out you are gone (painfully aware that it might come before I get to see you again) and how it would feel to know that there will forever be a you shaped hole in my world and I cannot. I do not need your help or your advice anymore, I do not even need you […]

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burn

published in 2014 on my tumblr I like a lot of things. I love some things. And among all my likes and loves, I feel like butter scraped over too much bread (thank you, Bilbo). Like I am dilluting instead of devoting myself to something that makes me genuinely happy. I love traveling, but I have neither the means, nor the temperament to devote myself to it. It is one of the things I do to get away; because as cliché as it might sound, a change of scenery helps calm and clear my mind better than just about anything else. However, unless […]

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