Wrestling the bear

NB these are my own musings on my own experience being trans. I cannot speak for anyone else and many will feel totally different to me. Alright, on with the ritual humiliation and naval gazing...

I had a dream the other night where I was in a sex club for anyone masculine identified and there was speed dating. The thing with this speed dating was you had to have sex with the person you ended up with. In a circle. In front of everyone. I ended up with this bio bear (that's as in none-trans hairy gay dude, not a form of 'healthy' confectionery, which is what it sounds like) and we got naked and were preparing to have sex. I think we were gonna begin by wrestling or something, I had my cock at the ready nearby but hadn't put it on yet. Neither of us were mega hot for the other one but we were both game, just as we were about to begin he referred to me as a lesbian, obviously thinking it was funny that we were going to have sex. I was good-humored but a little irritated he wasn't more in-the-know. Some friends stood by and looked awkward whilst I explained to him that I was trans, even though I hadn't had any surgery and I didn't take hormones. He turned to me and said, 'that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life'. Course I got mega angry and did what any tough guy would do when he gets angry and sulked. He was confused about what was wrong but I didn't tell him. Did we fuck in the end? I couldn't possibly say. It didn't turn out to be a very sexy dream.

I often get asked by people if I'm going to take T. It's a fair question and one I ask other people a lot too. Some older trans guys tell me and some of my friends that we all end up on T in the end. I can't say for definite whether or not I will one day take T, but the way I feel right now is like I would never take it. I'm lucky in that I feel quite comfortable in my body. I don't really want people to see that I have tits when I'm fully clothed but all the same I can't be bothered to bind, I hate feeling my chest constricted worse than anything. On the other hand when I'm naked I don't feel like having tits needs to signify not being 'he'. I used to play in a band and my 'outfit' involved being topless and even with my tits I still just always felt like a boy when I was topless, even at the start of being in the band, when I still defined as 'she'. I don't think tits have to mean the body is female-gendered.
I say 'being 'he'' when I talk about myself rather than being male because I don't fully see myself as male. I guess that's where the no-desire-for-T comes in (and I am not saying that everyone who takes T identifies completely as male, but for me taking T would I think be another step towards maleness). I definitely don't identify as female or a woman but at the same time the way I feel right now is that I'll never be a man and I don't have any desire to be. Yet I feel pretty at home identifying as a boy. I grew up female and identified as female for most of my life. I think I have identified as trans/genderqueer for around four years so perhaps this would make me a four year old boy. Except not because that would be weird.

I'm still seen as female by a lot of the world especially when I speak. Sometimes I feel offended or pissed off when people refer to me as a lesbian, but I also question myself as to why I care. It's not what I am but I wonder if I should really feel offended by it. It's a mistake but it's not like I'm being mistaken for something bad. A lot of cis people outside the queer bubble don't have a frame of reference for trans aside from FTM or MTF transsexual. I find it hard to get very angry about this because the fact is many people just don't know genderqueers or whatever exist, no one has ever told them. I sometimes use 'transsexual' when talking to none-queer people just because it's simpler e.g. for cruising purposes. Who wants to debate fucking gender for seven hours? The point of cruising is it's efficient. Besides which, for the purposes of cruising, the difference in identifying as FTM or as a genderqueer trans boy is pretty negligible. I think it is anyway. A lot of people wouldn't see a difference and of course one can identify as an FTM genderqueer trans boy too and many do.

The other complication is whilst defining as 'he' I'm not really very into being masculine. Yet I go to the gym and try to get muscles. I even tried this Natural Transitioning lark for a while. A program whereby you work out pretty much everyday and take about a million supplements in order to gain a more masculine appearance without taking any T. The guy who pioneered it solely transitioned by doing this. I know it sounds unbelievable but the thing is, among the supplements he took and recommends taking were fat burner pills and lots of pretty powerful body building supplements so it's not like it was really totally au natural. My logic was I wanted to become more masculine in shape and appearance without fully transitioning. Hence I didn't bother with the supplements I found scary (like the fat burner pills, though a friend tried it and apparently it was like being on speed). In the end I didn't have the willpower, time or energy to go to the gym everyday, and I don't go that regularly these days.

I guess I am more attracted to 'female-bodied' people but I still like having sex with men on occasion and I really want gay boys to want to fuck me. Quite often they don't, and they think I'm a confused lesbian. Or they fancy me at first then they take an extra long look or get talking to me and they're all confused or embarrassed because they 'mistook' me for a guy. But really, I find it hard to be mad at someone for not being attracted to me if they're into big hairy guys with deep voices. However, if people had it ingrained in them from an early age that there was more than one way to be a guy then it might result in me getting some more action. I freaked out a gay boy recently because I reminded him so much of his first ever gay crush when he was 14 (the boy he was crushed out on was 14 too) and I enjoyed that. I find the wrongness of guys fancying me when they think I'm a 14 year old kind of hot. It's happened a few times.

My surname is female-gendered and I've thought about changing the letter at the end so it becomes male-gendered like my dad's or my brother's. But then I think why should I change it? A lot of second-generation-and-beyond-anglo-poles just default to the male name ending but my dad wanted his wife and daughter both get the female ending. That's possibly a bit annoying but I'm used to it now and I figure if women can have the male ending then guys can surely have the female ending. Also if I change my name then I feel like I'm aligning myself with the men in my family which I don't want to do, not that I align myself with the women in my family either, but I don't want to actively switch.

At the end of the day I'm lucky in that I don't care that much how much of the world perceives my gender. I've got my queer bubble of close friends all of whom understand and are respectful without much question, if acquaintances and family get it too then great, if not well, fuck it. I don't even fully understand what I am, so how can I expect straight people to? Or maybe I could if I needed them to, but I'm not sure I do.

POST SCRIPT

I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days, and, contrary to what I said before, sometimes I think I do feel like a 'man'. But I suppose not the same kind of man as someone who grew up as a bio male and not necessarily feeling much affinity with cis guys or wanting to be part of the world of cis non-queer dudes. And not the type of man who can let go of having a 'female body' or being shaped by my experiences of growing up female and still often being percieved as female (though when I was a girl I was often took to be a boy). Or maybe 'boy' has always suited me more cos I don't want to grow up. Especially these days when I feel stalked by grey hairs. But sometimes feeling like an adult creeps up on me when I least expect it to. And hence sometimes feeling like some warped version of a man.