Delusion or reality

I dip into Radfem blogs and find naught for my comfort. My lot are called M-T: Not “Male to female,” as we put it, but “Male to transsexual”. I read that we are men who fail at masculinity as defined by the Patriarchy, so we identify ourselves as something other, lacking, less: as female. So we oppress women simply by being as we are. Rape them, even, in that we appropriate female body shape as men who claim the right to define and use female bodies.

Well, I did try desperately hard to make a man of myself, and failed. I suppose my reality and identity do not really matter, what matters is the choice: I am happier expressing myself as female- in the way accepted in my culture- and using a female name. It does not matter whether I am merely delusional: if it is a delusion, it has proved unshakeable for the last twelve years, and though I could revert any time I wanted, I have not so wanted and do not see why that might change.

In the face of hostility, I simply know I am happier. Radfems and Evangelical Christians alike deny that I am female, and I am happier. Even when I passed less well and people insulted me in the street, and I was deeply unhappy, I knew I was happier in a skirt and being insulted than presenting male and trying to fit in. I saw an Indian trans woman on the telly: as female, a Hijra, she has the career choices of beggar or prostitute, but she had a middle class family and as a man had professional career possibilities: and she would still rather express herself female.

Another paradox: I have a passionate desire to fit in, just be Normal, and I can only escape total misery by becoming Different, by sticking out: however unhappy I am, presenting male would be worse.

I am a narcissist. My own feelings are more important to me than anything else, and I analyse them all the time. This is less than ideal. And so, I surrender.

I surrender the need for the World to be other than it is. I surrender the need for others to be other than they are. I do not need you to see the World, or me, as I see it or me. I am happier wearing skirts and using a female name. Why that might be does not matter- sexual perversion, delusion, complete acceptance of Patriarchy and its lies, whatever. If people do not want to employ me or associate with me because I am transsexual I am still happier wearing skirts (or tight jeans- women often compliment my legs).

I do not need to mop up the last extremists, the Evangelicals who say I am not a woman: what they think of me is none of my business, and I am sure enough that I am not going to Hell. I rub along with most people I meet well enough.

All I need to know is that, like this, I am happier.

Tags: feminism, hijra, Hogarth, narcissism, paradox

• 8th June, 2012
• trans
• 17 comments