(well, currently I’m somebody trying really really hard to not finish that with “24601”)
Now that I’ve got 2 readers and 3 posts, I suppose I ought to give some sort of introduction.
I’d actually been putting it off until I’d thought of something for you guys to call me, but I’m at a loss. I use my given name initial in other places, but it doesn’t quite seem right. Not that I’m hiding who I am, but I’d rather this be a bit more private, at least for a while, and as likely or unlikely as it may be, I’d rather not connect this with my other online presences for the moment. Then I thought about the nickname for my given name that I prefer. Conveniently, it’s one that could be used for either gender, and it’s a good name. But that felt weird too. Because it’s part of a nickname my aunt gave me as a child? Because it feels weird to masculinize* my given name? I’m not sure.
And now it’s been a few months, and I haven’t been posting, so fuck it, I’ll let you guys know if I think of a name.
So. I’m, well. me. Ambigendrous for a name, for now. After trying to come up with a word for my brainspace, I stumbled upon that somewhere or else on the internet, and it stuck.
Going back to the video that was my first post over here, let’s see if we can’t make it simple. I abhor labels, but I love information and simplicity, so here goes nothing. I am a biological female, born that way. I identify as bisexual, only because I like boys and I like girls, and I hate all the words used to describe people who like other people (both romantically and sexually) without giving a shit what’s between their legs. I have a wife, to whom I’ve been married nearly 8 years, and she still puts up with me, so that’s something.
Gender’s the tricky part here, though. Going by that video, I’d say I’d place myself somewhere about…. here:
that orange mark is me. today, anyway.
Like with so much else in my life, I find myself sitting nearly exactly on the edge, occasionally veering to one side or the other.
In the case of my gender identity, I tend to consider myself more masculine than feminine (see this weekend’s post for more on that). But there are days that I consider myself more female; there are times I enjoy wearing dresses or painting my nails. These times tend to come about 3 times a year and pass pretty quickly, but they’re there. As for intensity, I feel it, but (again, like with most things in my life), I don’t feel it that strongly. Certainly I don’t feel painful enough in my masculine feelings that I, as many people do, suffer and hate my body. For that, I am thankful. Honestly, though, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt connected enough to my body to have those feelings. I walk around in it and carry it with me, but it’s never felt like it’s been mine.
When I was younger, I fought really hard against being a girl, or at the very least a typical girl. (That’s how I remember it, anyway. I’ve been too nervous to ask my mother how it read from the outside.) I hated the color pink with a passion, and the only times I played with dolls were when a friend and I would pretend they were having sex. As a pre-teen and teen, I got in big fights with my grandmother (who, thankfully, I didn’t see often) over my refusal to wear skirts or dresses, and my complete disinterest in make-up. She was horrified that I didn’t “dress like a girl.” Thankfully, my own mother never pushed her views, whatever they may have been, on me, and was happy to wear make-up or not, grow my hair out or chop it off, and to wear whatever I wanted, provided it was within budget and within the realm of decency.
(Granted, this meant a lot of truly unfortunate outfits in the early-mid 90’s, but what’re you going to do?)
Eventually, I did start dressing more feminine. Why? Not because I felt more feminine. But because I was sick of looking like a schlub. I wanted to look nice, and I knew that, even being overweight, I could look nice. Unfortunately, given the fact that my chest is rather well endowed, dressing in a way that looks nice (as opposed to looking like a stylized mumu) means wearing things that fit my body well. Which means, often (okay, pretty much always), more form-fitting and feminine clothes. I could – and probably will – write whole tomes on this, so I’ll leave it for now, and just go with: I realized that, perhaps, I was reaching a breaking point when I, well, broke, and nearly bit my co-worker’s head off when she complimented me on a girly outfit I was wearing. I suppose I’ll go into that more later, as well.
In the meantime, I’ve spent the last few months exploring what it is I can do to make myself more comfortable within that male side of me, while still recognizing what I want (to look decent) and need (to be true to myself, and figure out what the fuck really IS going on up there in my head), while working around my biggest obstacle (it’s difficult to truly express oneself outwardly as male or even ambigendrous, when one is carrying around a metric shit ton of breast tissue).
So, that’s me, now, in a (really really small) nutshell. More later on me, before, and how watching Being John Malkovich changed my life.
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*that’s totally a word
Ambigendrous 