The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I want to write about this article. Feel free to read it first, if you want.

It basically confuses the shit out of me.

There are many things I just actively don’t understand about this article. I think part of it is how it’s put together: the title is not what it’s about, really, and the format and flow changes pace a few times in odd ways. That could have probably been fixed with more editing and revision, though. No, what I don’t get is… well, a lot of the premises. I don’t get it.

That idea of “I must dress ultra-feminine to come across as simply feminine” is something I don’t understand. I’ve been told that. Like, I’ve been told that by people like my therapist. People have told me that. I’ll fully admit that, in general, I can tell people have an easier time around me when I do. When I’m wearing a skirt and such, or something very tight that makes it very clear I have breasts, there’s less… vagueness when people address me. That’s kind of nice in a way. Even though I’ve been me for awhile now, and most of the time stuff like that doesn’t make me stop and go “holy shit” anymore, when I’m having a bad day, that kind of thing can give me a smile.

However, here’s the thing. My goal is not to be recognized as female. My goal is to not be recognized as male. There is a difference.

When I’m dressed how I dressed before all this happened, just hanging around the house or grabbing a quick bite to eat or whatever, there is vagueness there. I am androgynous. I can tell a difference when people address me. People avoid pronouns and things in order to not have to make a decision, because they don’t know. This is a win for me. I’m okay with coming off that way, and most of the time as soon as I talk to them, they understand I’m a woman, as I make sure to make sure my voice isn’t sounding questionable in such situations. I’m not a very girly girl, I never will be, and besides for the occasional thrill, I don’t want to be. I don’t want to wear a lot of makeup, or even any makeup, most of the time. I don’t want to wear all this women’s clothing that just strikes me as absurd, such as the huge amounts of obscenely small pairs of shorts that exist in the world. If you like that stuff, rock on! I hope you have fun. I am not really interested in it. Haven’t been. Doubt I somehow will become as such.
If I know I’m going to have a bad or rough day, and I know that a rare mistake from a stranger would make me feel like garbage, sure, I dress a little more feminine to stop that from happening. But every day? I don’t know.

It just makes me worry about the author, I guess. Is her voice really deep? Guess that could be. I could see how that would make someone paranoid, but the situation she described at the beginning of the article wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, so I don’t see that being the main issue here. I guess, it just, to me, signals a real lack of confidence in yourself. Again, of course a mistake from someone is going to make you feel a little shitty. It does suck. But in the end, you’re you. You bounce back, and keep going, and be your goddamn self, and let nobody take that away from you. I feel like she does not have any confidence not just in her passing but in herself in general if she does not dress up the way she is talking about. Maybe that’s the lesson that the end of the essay is trying to transmit? It feels like there’s an undertone of that, but I don’t feel like that’s what she’s saying at all. She’s saying she could feel confident if there was someone who had already done it. That’s kind of bullshit. She’s letting herself eat herself from the inside.

I get insecurity. I have motherfucking been there, and I often go there when I’m having a shitty day. I used to sing songs about how useless I was and how much it would be better if I was not here. I get insecurity. But in transitioning, I mastered it, to a great extent. I’m not perfect with it. I doubt anyone feels 100% in control all the time. But I have fucking DEFEATED the biggest problem in my life, and you know what? People still love me. I’ve still got the best friends I could ask for, I am the girlfriend of two wonderful men who I love very much, and most everyone at my places of work are fantastic. Even my parents, who were insanely against it and kept saying they didn’t understand, are calling me by the right name and right pronouns now. The one thing that has always hung over my head is gone. How can I not be confident? I’m doing the right thing. I have skills. I’m intelligent. I can handle anything life throws at me.
So I guess I just wonder how she can have mastered what I would assume would be the biggest problem in HER life, and not feel that way. I wonder what’s going on. My psychologist has said I have things together a lot more than a lot of her transgendered patients. Is that really true? Am I in some way special? I don’t feel that way. But I’m just left wondering how someone can accept moving from being trapped in the wrong body to being trapped in a bunch of mannerisms they don’t agree with. How can they free themselves from one set of bonds and then be okay with fucking themselves up with another? I really don’t get it. I really don’t.

If you treat something like a problem, it is a problem. If you don’t, it’s not a problem. This is just how things go. Confidence cuts through barriers like what she’s describing. I highly doubt there’s a single ACTUAL professional who actively thinks that a woman, or a transsexual, can’t write about video games. Clearly, if there is someone like that, fuck them. However, I think that, if they have that ridiculous bias, which is not impossible, I fully admit, then it’s subconscious, and that sort of “thing I didn’t know I was doing” can be defeated by confidence. If your body language, and everything you do, reflects the lack of an issue, it’s not that hard to break that stuff down. But you have to believe in yourself, as a whatever you are, and know that you can do the job. If you waver, that’s an opening, one that people will take, no matter what the circumstances. That’s just a general life thing, right?

If you can’t succeed by being yourself, why would you want to succeed? Luckily, you can. You can succeed and be yourself. I read this article, which was described to me on twitter as “very smart,” and I just wanted to throw up my hands in frustration. This is sending the wrong message. It’s set up to show that the situations it’s describing, while clearly shitty and unpleasant, are just life. That’s just what you deal with, and the only way to push through them is to play a game you don’t want to play. That’s such bullshit.
Feel free to tell me I’m way the fuck too optimistic and don’t have a grip on reality. But seriously. That is such fucking bullshit.