I want myself back, please.

So, I think I must be some kind of genderqueer.

I'm not sure how to say what I mean, as it's been eluding me, but I've come to see that there is no easy answer to who or what I am and what I could become. I feel as if it's not that I simply was born in the wrong place, but that there actually is no place for me.

Sometimes it seems like gender reassignment is supposed to be a complete solution for a transgender person, a cure for gender dysphoria. And yes, it's a tremendously positive change, and surely many things would improve because of it alone. But for years I've had this sinking misgiving within that bothers me. Is that all there is to it? If I could metamorph into a perfectly normal, average heterosexual girl, meld into the crowd around me, would that be enough? Would that "fix" me?

Of course, I do realize that this isn't the real or only option, to embody some archetypical sample of femaleness. That I'm not trying to absorb into an ideal female image that might I have, an abstract anima that I think will save me. But I've come to feel as if I'm supposed to form such an image and push towards it in order to divorce myself from associations with maleness.

I think that's a pressure to "prove" my gender identity, a litmus to being a "real" trans female. That is, if I really identified as female, then I'd want to embrace the typical female role and all that it entailed. If I really identified as female, I wouldn't feel similar discomfort and frustration with the female role and image as I do with the male role and male image.
Admittedly, I'm more strongly averse to masculine norms and behavior, because that's kind of what gender dysphoria is all about. And I have little discomfort with feminine qualities in a basic sense, but moreso with trying to turn completely into a female archetype, bind myself into a role.

I feel as though I'm walking a tightrope. It's a narrow path to where I'm going. Too masculine, and it incriminates your trans identity and proves your not "really" a girl. Too feminine, and you must be acting out a stereotype. And you certainly can't stop moving. To me it appears that, like it or not, I have to prove myself to others, to the world. Prove the genuineness of my self as well as my gender. And the standard looks to be too high. It's so easy to fall off, and so difficult to find a balance that is comfortable and safe.

But is it just a desire to transcend gender roles? I don't think so.

I look at a picture of a person, and see distinguishing features. Broad shoulders here, a defined jawline there, size of hand or stature. I wince faintly as I see them. They look like markings, like brands. I see such marks on myself and feel not just a sense of misplacement, but also of exposure. They contain me, and they reveal what I am supposed to be, like writing on the flesh for any to see.

I've said before that I have conflicted and disquieted feelings about the idea of having visible breasts, especially large ones. I've wondered why that is, because as a part of physical transition I would have thought I'd feel relief at the idea. But there's that same sense of exposure, of being marked. I would feel more comfortable and liberated with having female secondary sex characteristics than male ones, but I can't escape that strange self-consciousness. I imagine what would then be attached to me, what people would think as they saw me, what they would perceive.

And there's a certain sexualization of these visible markings that is always so daunting to me. Perhaps I wish for a way to hide away from that? To keep my body personal? Maybe it's part of a desire to go back to being a child, to being androgynous and safe.

I feel a deep desire to take these markings on me and rub them away, remove them like bonds. As if I lay mummified underneath layers of legacy and imagery, and I wish to reach up and tear these bindings until I find something pure and untamed and untouched.

I'm somewhat surprised that I never went through any self-mutilation growing up. Not that I want to minimize what self-mutilation is, or even imply that I understand the feelings of others who do it. But trying to wash away these marks, cut away the artificial, cover myself up . . . I feel that very strongly.

I hold a picture of a person in my mind, and see these being stripped away, cut off, transformed. Cover the form up, unleash the person inside.

I find I am saying again, "Don't look at me."

I suppose my crisis is that I don't see how I can find a secure medium, a way to freely be myself and avoid this exposure. I struggle to find where I am amidst the faces. It's like I'm unsure of how I can change myself without the risk of changing into someone else.
Maybe this is something I should have expected, a hurdle to cross, a consequence of my quicksilver self-image. Changing the body to find harmony, to suit it to the mind and intuition, is a way of discovering, grasping, and choosing one's identity, after all.
I wonder what I will find if I go far enough, if it really will be myself or if it will be just another image, another way of being misplaced. The fear of there not even being a right place after all, physically or otherwise. No way for me to be free of it all, to form my own independent identity.

It's confusing to consider. I feel lost within it all. I've thought to myself before that my trans identification is something that is "naive," in the sense of being intuitive, tacit. It isn't just seeing myself as feminine - in terms of behavior - but as actually female. That's not easy to express in words. At times, I feel strong identification with feminine males, other times with femaleness specifically, and sometimes not with any gender or sex at all. And I am very aware of the monstrousness and Ugliness that comes with it.
I think part of it is because it's all part of my background, and that in some way it mixes together within me.
But it makes me shaky, uncertain. Uncertain of just what it is I'm trying to find, trying to be. Perhaps because it's not an ideal image to be achieved. Rather, it's something intuitive that's already there within me.

Maybe some of the feeling of exposure comes from the shame, of not feeling able to claim what I am as part of myself. Feeling like I might just be trying on another skin, rather than being who and what I am and always have been. Shame has always been part of my life, including shame of being trans, and of daring to define and express my own identity. But it is my identity, and it's unique.

So I feel discomfort with a model of what I'm supposed to be, whether it's a male one (a male one complicated by gender dysphoria) or even a female one. I'm not just another version of femaleness, or anything, just because I'm female or trans.

I'm not a standard model. And I don't want to be bound down anymore.

I want to be that pure, wild something.
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Mamelon

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