Lucy Grey: Gendernaut

Well, after a week on tenterhooks just waiting for Dad to give Mom my letter, I took matters into my own hands and sent it to her directly. Again with the sick feelings, gnashing of teeth, and wringing of hands—and then I sat, waiting for a response, for that magical, terrifying moment when a message pops through onto my screen, fresh from the Ether, still unread, and full of  Schroedingerian possibilities of acceptance/rejection. In that moment of reception you leap for joy, knowing that communications haven’t been severed, but your heart still drops, counting the possibilities, knowing that bad reactions are probable. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else besides your anxiety when you do something like this. Which, I suppose, isn’t great for immediate productivity, but this is so critically important to me that not doing this would impact my productivity on a much larger scale. 

Just like Dad, Mom sent back a reassuring note.

First of all, you are my son and nothing—not ever, ever—would make me not love you or want you in my family.  Secrets kill relationships and hurt both parties.

I do not classify you as a problem child.  You are the one I probably worry about the most because of who you are, the person you are. But it is never a problem to love someone.

I can’t help you, be there for you, if I don’t know what I am dealing with.

I love you kiddo.
MOM

It’s a little disconcerting because I get the sense she didn’t look into the gender.wikia.com link. Which means she didn’t grasp the enormity of my letter, that I AM androgyne/transgender/genderqueer/weird. I sent both her and Dad a follow up letter, to go a little further in depth about my own particular situation. 

A Follow Up:
Please understand, I’m not suffering any depression right now. I panicked yesterday when I realized I’d actually sent the letter that my fingers typed—and gmail has no way of unsending sent emails. Everything you saw on facebook was panic, and in reference to the fact that I sent a potentially disastrous email home. I realize now, looking back at it, that my posts can easily be misunderstood—and I’m sorry if they caused any further worry. After the first half hour of dread, I breathed a sigh of relief and happily let the day carry me on, knowing that the secret was out. Actually, the past month has been one of the most exciting, happiest times in my life. It’s like I’ve moved out of the shadow—and the light is glorious. 
 

Dad, what you said Friday night in our phone conversation about how I’ve been to so many different places, met so many different people, and see things in such a different way—you have no idea how directly you hit the mark. I have such incredible stories to tell, things I’ve been afraid to share because of what they mean about me. But I know you’d love my stories just because they are some of the funniest, craziest stories I’ve ever heard. It’s one of life’s greatest frustrations, wanting to share because I know you’ll love it, but being unable to, paralyzed by fear.

Like I said yesterday—I know you have questions. I know I dropped this like a bomb on you. Please understand that this isn’t an “I’m different and there’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t talk to me” situation—one of the things I’ve learned about this process is that it is a process—it takes time and effort on both of our parts. I’m discovering some incredible things about myself here, and I want to share them with you. Think of it as taking a hike through the Gender mountain range with me. We can be gendernauts.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, or to explore that link I sent you in the other email (Actually, please do look at that link, read it fully and explore the other articles there; the site does a pretty good job of describing a lot of gender, and will go a long way to setting up a foundation for our discussions.).

I have more things to share about myself, but before I feel okay in doing so, I want to make sure you understand what I mean about androgyny. I’m talking about gender, not sex or sexual orientation. There’s a huge difference between these things, and though the words have some interesting relationships with each other, they are firmly pinned to their own distinct meanings. In short: a person’s sex is their physical plumbing and hardware. In my case: male. Sexual orientation describes who you’re attracted to. I’m attracted to women, specifically, Dulcinea (romantically, emotionally, mentally, physically. She’s a match I don’t think I could find if I looked for a lifetime). A person’s gender describes how they fit into society (among other things), in a very broad sense. For a lot of people, the gender category is split neatly between a Male role and a Female role. While this ideology seems to work for most of the world, it’s a bit problematic for those of us who don’t necessarily feel like they fit into that binary. Another problem with this interpretation of gender is the fact that these gender roles are arbitrarily associated with a person’s sex, and mainstream media is full of messages reinforcing this binary. 

To me, androgyny describes a person who sees their gender as neither wholly male-gendered nor wholly female-gendered, but as something in-between. The technical word is ‘transgendered,’ though that’s an umbrella term, and applies to things all across the spectrum, from transsexuals to androgynes, etc. I actually prefer either ‘gender queer’ or ‘androgyne’. 

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time, since elementary school, and have only recently been able to identify. I learned early on that the world doesn’t easily tolerate differences, especially differences in gender. At the time I learned all this, though, I didn’t really understand that—just that I would get in trouble, or be tormented for doing something—and through trial and  error, I managed to cobble together an outer image that the world seemed to accept, even if some of my quirks still showed through. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, though, because I didn’t know what I was hiding; eventually, it became second nature to bury or hide my nonconforming feelings (well, those that really didn’t fit in—I still managed to make myself the weird one in most of the circles I interacted in). I call this sort of self-censorship “filtering”—I only let those things appropriate for the situation to show to others. It sucks. I don’t like filtering myself, because it feels like a misrepresentation. You, my family and closest friends, have seen me without most of my filters; you’ve seen most of these things that I don’t show others—and I suspect you simply categorize them as some of my whimsies. I love this—it’s as close to the real me as you get, and gender doesn’t factor into your view of me.

These quirks and interests, if you take them out of context as my idiosyncrasies, are not generally appropriate for the stereotypical young man. Combine those with the parts of myself that you haven’t seen, and those parts of me that seem to fit just fine into a stereotypical male’s circle of interests. Now, project all of that onto a totally different, anonymous mannequin completely unassociated with me. What do you see? A very confusing individual with interests and expressions that make it difficult to categorize this person as definitively male or female.

Why is all of this important? Hopefully, it’s not particularly important to you—because when you look at me you see [my name], and that’s all there is to it. I’m still me, and always have been. I express myself freely, for the most part, around you guys, and you see me as I like being seen. There are very few filters. It’s important to me, however, because my realization of my androgyny is allowing me a lot more freedom in my every day world, and I would like to remove those last few filters I use when I’m home. I can express parts of myself that have been repressed for so long that they ache. Understanding my androgynous superpowers lets me allow others to see me without my gender-filters—I can be a more genuine person to everybody, and don’t have to worry about whether someone will misinterpret my reactions or interests as something only girls are interested or do. (This is an oversimplification, but I think I make my point pretty well.)

Some transgendered people experience something called dysphoria—an intense feeling of discomfort in their own body, as if it’s not theirs, that everything is wrong with it. This feeling is usually more frequent and intense in transsexuals. Some of these people pursue a transition to a body they feel more comfortable with, trying to relieve their dysphoria. I’ll admit, occasionally, I have experienced some mild dysphoria, though I’ve been able to handle it pretty well. For the most part, I’m very comfortable in my own body. A permanent transition is not something I’m interested in.

I’ve probably generated even more questions with this letter than the last one, but hopefully I’ve provided a good base on which to begin our discussion.

I love you guys. Your support and understanding is critically important to me. I understand this is a process, and it will take time to come to an understanding equilibrium. In that light, let’s get started.

Love,[My Name]

Let the questions roll. Please. I need a direction to go, if I’m going to keep explaining myself.

Hopefully that will clear up any confusion—or at least give them a direction and a starting point on which to base their questions. Sigh. Have I done everything I can? Is this enough? Is it enough to wait for a response? What else do I need to do?