I am on a plane now. A day has changed but the darkness stayed. Listening to that podcast and typing this to clear my head. Cannot start thinking about work. Therapy session yesterday. To stop being invisible, you need to see yourself - she said. So we spent an hour looking at my reflection in a mirror, together. What do you see? I really don’t know. An old, tired man. Imagine you are someone who likes you. What do you see now?
She said, once you see yourself, the social rejection won’t matter any more. It would lose its power, its significance. See yourself.
Maybe I should tell you more about myself. You already know I am a boy. I was definitely born as a boy, and identified as such for a very long time. A straight, white, somewhat privileged boy. There’s a twist here. For a few years now I have been cross-dressing in public. I guess that makes me a transvestite. A queer. It started with the first skirt on a sunny summer day. Awkward, scary and completely irreversible. Gradually my wardrobe changed entirely. Now I don’t think I even own anything marketed as “mens”.
I tuck. Google it. I have been hiding my biological sex this way for over two years now, day after day, every day. It takes time to get used to, but when you do it every day you stop noticing it. Except the dry skin. Why are you doing this? Are you trying to stretch it out? - a stranger in a changing room. Sure, I am just dreaming of making it bigger. Seeing a bulge in my pants feels so revealing, so naked, so embarrassing, so exposing, so imposing. Obnoxious. Manly. Manly. This word feels abrasive on my skin. It stinks of testosterone and sweat. It is rude, aggressive, invasive, irrational, insensitive. It is a bully. A chubby, bearded bully wearing puma trainers, sitting at street gambling parlor patio, calling you a whore as you pass by. Manly is humiliation. Dominance. Manly is abuse.
Last few years I turned myself into an “anti-man”. A complete opposite of a picture above, yet, not quite a woman. Not a woman at all. My face will never leave you in doubt, it is so masculine. Everything else tells a different story. Gender disphoria says the internet. I learnt about estrogen therapy and how to start transitioning. I talked to my therapist about this for countless hours. I imagined myself as a woman and got terrified: it won’t be me. I am not a woman, and I will never be one no matter how I try. But neither am I a man. It’s a spectrum, my friend said. It’s non-binary, the internet said. I think you may be queer - my friend.
When the clear boundaries blur, the clear pathways vanish too. Are you sure? You will never have a normal family. Thank you for being so fucking considerate. I wish I knew how to be now. How to find myself again. How to gain enough confidence that I don’t take frowns personally, and notice the smiles.
We see you. Two women in a bar a few weeks ago. Wearing a leotard for the first time, a ballet kind, with low-waist baggy dance pants. So empowering. I like the way you dance. A man in a club just a few days ago. I love your nails. Thank you. Notice that they all walked up to you, not me - my friend the other day. Notice. Reflect, not deflect. For every frown there is a smile. Most days, at least.
And then comes a date. An anticipated, exciting date with a beatiful, attractive person. With a hope that they will see you, and reflect you. Does being seen by an attractive person make you attractive too? How about not being seen? Does it make you ugly? I felt ugly. Ugly, unattractive, a piece of nothing, a shell of a human being. It shattered me, and I am still picking pieces. Scattered. One date, that’s all it took.
The plane started to descend. Do I wish that it would crash with me on board? Probably not, I still want to post this. And then there are people around me who have their loved ones. Or are they lonely too? Do they think similar thoughts? Do they feel tormented the way I feel? Do they feel invisible? What do they see in the mirror? Why do they frown today? Smile? Do they feel thrilled about the trip? Daunted? What do they see when they look at me? Do they like me? I really think they do. Looks like I need it right now.