Feeling like a queer fraud
This is one of those topics you think up late at night and really shouldn't post. But here it is -
I don't know where anyone else reading this is in their transition, or whether or not they choose to transition, or it may even apply to those of you identifying with a queer label/group/identity but not actively living that (such as someone who identifies as bisexual but has only ever been with women/men may relate) but at times I feel like a queer/transgender fraud. For background purposes, yes I am post-transition in every way to a degree - hormonally, surgically, socially, legally. But as anyone who is trans knows, there is not just one "job." And owing mainly to money, many of us are somewhere along the path of transition for a long time, as we struggle to afford to get what needs to be done. Thus, I am not completely done along this trajectory. I have work that still needs to be done in my mind to make me "finished." And until I am finished, I do feel incomplete to a degree sometimes that I feel like a fraud, because I'm not "there" yet. Not done. There is a strong culture of not-trans-enough (or gay, or bi, or queer or even autistic) that sometimes gets in my head, and makes me ashamed of being still not across the proverbial finish line that makes me a "real" transsexual. I still feel like the parts of me that are unfinished are a dirty little secret I have to hide, thus getting close to people is even harder, as I'm paranoid I'm going to be found out in some way.
For people not transitioning physically, this could relate to people treating you as not really trans because your bodies remain as they were born, and having to hide yourself and what's really under your clothes in order to "pass."
Maybe it's just me but sometimes it seems never far enough, to slide right into a solid trans-queer identity no one could question or invalidate (or in my case pin down which binary I "really" am).
Opinions?
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Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.
You have to learn to be happy with yourself (or at the very least happier and more accepting of where you are). I'm sure there are trans women and trans men who in your eyes might be in a better place, but still harbor many of the same fears and worries about themselves. I know I'm nowhere near far along with my voice at this stage in my transition (tried, given up, tried, given up many times), and my genital dysphoria makes sex difficult, but I have to base my wellbeing on letting things be. I'll get where I need to go eventually.
That's the thing. If you set your acceptance of yourself to someone else's timeline, or play the comparison game too much, all it does is serve to hurt you. And what purpose does that serve?
This is a tough one, because we have this primal fear of standing out in the crowd, that goes back about as far as the evolution of social creatures.
I've never been able to fit in to any group, both for lack of ability, and, later, for lack of inclination to do so.
So I just avoid, as much as possible, looking like I'm trying to fit in to any group or categorization. Both as a genuine form of self-expression(I don't feel like I belong to any recognizable subculture), and to avoid the feeling that I'm not "doing it right."
For some reason, it's more comfortable to be outside of any norm, than to try (and certainly fail) to fit into any group.
I don't know where anyone else reading this is in their transition, or whether or not they choose to transition, or it may even apply to those of you identifying with a queer label/group/identity but not actively living that (such as someone who identifies as bisexual but has only ever been with women/men may relate) but at times I feel like a queer/transgender fraud. For background purposes, yes I am post-transition in every way to a degree - hormonally, surgically, socially, legally. But as anyone who is trans knows, there is not just one "job." And owing mainly to money, many of us are somewhere along the path of transition for a long time, as we struggle to afford to get what needs to be done. Thus, I am not completely done along this trajectory. I have work that still needs to be done in my mind to make me "finished." And until I am finished, I do feel incomplete to a degree sometimes that I feel like a fraud, because I'm not "there" yet. Not done. There is a strong culture of not-trans-enough (or gay, or bi, or queer or even autistic) that sometimes gets in my head, and makes me ashamed of being still not across the proverbial finish line that makes me a "real" transsexual. I still feel like the parts of me that are unfinished are a dirty little secret I have to hide, thus getting close to people is even harder, as I'm paranoid I'm going to be found out in some way.
For people not transitioning physically, this could relate to people treating you as not really trans because your bodies remain as they were born, and having to hide yourself and what's really under your clothes in order to "pass."
Maybe it's just me but sometimes it seems never far enough, to slide right into a solid trans-queer identity no one could question or invalidate (or in my case pin down which binary I "really" am).
Opinions?
I have days where I feel like I am done, even though I'm not. That is, if the world would accept me and gender me correctly, I could just stop where I am and maybe be content. And then I have others where I feel like I'll never be done, nothing will ever be good enough and I will always have a sense - however slight - that my body still isn't right, doesn't fit my image of how it should be, or my voice is still off, or I've missed too much socialization in my identified gender to ever feel like I think I should.
And that's when I'm not vacillating between identifying as trans vs simply identifying as a woman. The latter is my natural inclination, but the former seems a better fit for social, legal and support reasons. As you said, there's pressure to be "trans enough" (& gay enough, & queer enough, etc).
And then there are the days where I have to sit back and tease apart what is AS/ASD and what is a 'normal' part of transition / being transgender or transsexual.
But then I remember that as a variation of human mixed sex-dimorphic development, being trans isn't really tied to anything else. Trans people are all over the chart when it comes to their identities, their political views, their sexuality - just like everyone else. That helps, a little. I just have to find where I actually fit, what I need to do to be comfortable and then learn to celebrate it for my own reasons, and not someone else's.
Something else, I don't know if this fits or applies to you. Before current forms of social media took off, forums & blogs were the mainstay of people who transitioned. There was this phenomenon that would happen somewhere around five years out after surgery (assuming an NT person, a two-year lead from first therapist appointment to surgery, approx 6 years on hrt, etc. - the old classic timeline for transition). It was the set of blog posts in the final few months, where the person no longer was as driven to complete themselves because most of the struggle was done. Yet, they weren't quite ready to assume a (mostly) non-trans identity and get on with their life. And they felt guilty for wanting to do so. And then there would be that final blog post, the one that was maybe four months, maybe six or more months since their prior one, and all those before. It was the one where they announced that they just didn't need to post any more, that they had essentially, "moved on".
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“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
―Carl Sagan
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