The process of coming out is never the same for any person. There are general steps and claims that can be made, but it really is a different experience on an individualistic level. There are some big choices made by some people identifying as trans; the choice to pursue body modifications through surgeries or hormones, the choice of which pronouns to have used, and the choice of gender identity. For me, not feeling male or female or androgynous, makes genderqueer work. My professor for the trans class described a model of gender in terms of boxes. There is a male/masculine box and a female/feminine box. Some people blur the boundaries of the boxes, some people jump back and forth between the boxes, some people are resolutely outside of the boxes-I think that is where my gender lies. I have many masculine and feminine traits, but don’t really feel either box represents my gender. As mentioned earlier, pronouns are hugely important for lots of trans people. They are used to reinforce their gender choices and stand as others’ recognition of their choices. I was raised with female pronouns and attempts were made to socialize me as female. Thankfully, my parents never really cared much about gender appropriate behavior, so most of the sanctions I encountered when it was thought that I was transgressing gender were from peers or through school. That being said, while growing up strangers frequently thought I was a boy and referred to me with pronouns they thought to be appropriate in those situations. I enjoyed being thought of as a boy though the strangers’ “mistakes” were often corrected by my family. This created a sense of confusion for me. Though I liked being referred to as a boy (I hated all things having to do with girls, I thought/think we place too many gendered restrictions on children), because it was something that had to be corrected, I began to feel a sense of shame. This, along with general peer/society pressure to conform, led me into junior high and high school. This was the only time in my life where I chose to have long hair; the few times I attempted to dress in an overtly female sense were during this period too. I felt very awkward and self-conscious during this time. I realize that is the feeling most teenagers have and that it is a rite-of-passage of sorts, but I truly felt as though I was ugly. The few times since then, when I’ve put on a skirt (always as a joke) I’ve felt as though I’ve been in drag. Getting back to pronouns, I do not mind being referred to with female pronouns. That is with the exception of absolutely hating being referred to as “ma’am” or “miss” or anything in that general family of words. Female pronouns are what I’m used to, and they work for me. The same is true of male pronouns-I do not mind them and am getting rather used to them. Regarding testosterone (T), it seems as though many people who undergo chest surgery are also interested in using T. After deciding to have the surgery, I felt as though it was almost expected of me that I start taking T. This pressure stemmed from the hegemony of the female-to-male (FTM) community…taking T and having chest surgery go hand-in-hand. The trans enough concept comes into play again, here, because I wasn’t sure if I could have surgery if I didn’t identify as FTM, and if I did identify as FTM, shouldn’t that make it so that I would have to take T… In coming to an understanding about that, I thought about what my motivation would be in taking T. I concluded that taking T should be something that I want to do, not something I feel that I have to do. For me, because I don’t want to be a man, I don’t see the point of T. Again, there are no rules to coming out and it changes from person to person. It gets complicated because most discussions surrounding trans identities focus on transsexuals and/or FTM/MTFs; it’s hard to negotiate an identity when you don’t have a language to talk about it.
I have been beyond busy with school stuff the last week or so, which has been nice because it hasn’t given me time to stress about surgery. That’s beginning to change, though…