Multiplicity - Being two people at once

One of those things that makes all of this so confusing is the prospect of being two entities at once. Now that sounds like I am on a path to talk about being Sybil or something. And I suppose that is how it looks to somebody from the outside. How can you have a male and female person in the same body. And for those of you who might be reading this, who do not have my, our, issue, this can be quite confusing.

Certainly it is much more appealing to be of one single mind. Be it male or female. My wife, or at least she is on paper these days, has accused me of being over the top in either role. She learned to hate my male self. Mr. Macho, loud obnoxious, gregarious, forceful, opinionated. She would say he is an asshole, a narcissist. I am not sure she is right, but she certainly is not wrong. My male self hid his girlyness, as he was afraid of being busted as a girl. As I have come along in this process I am realizing that this is probably unlikely. However when you are hiding something, you will tend to overreact because your life as you know it is on the line. I will admit, "he" could be that way.

Let me be more clear about this. If you know your essence is female, and you are not physically female, you only have a few choices in our culture. Most of them are not accepted even today.

First you could totally embrace that aspect of yourself, come out to the world, and transition to female. This is of course is not generally acceptable as there are entire classes of people who would view this being mentally ill and effectively shun you because it brings into question fundamental things that they feel are well established and should not be questioned.

Or you could allow yourself to become a feminine male, what I suspect is this is currently the one that most non-understanding people would be most comfortable with. This would probably be mistaken for being a gay male, which it is not (ooh orientation, yet a whole other post). You would simply be a woman who has chosen to act fem, but not be fem (no clothes, makeup and what have you). I think this is what my wife hopes I become. In her mind this would be integration of my male and female self, with more more female characteristics being more dominant.

Or third, you can hide all of it, and fake being a guy. And too bad for me, my fake guy is probably a sketch of what a real guy should be. He has interests that he learned to have, in order to fit in, football for example. He really will follow football, not because he likes it, he treats it as research for a role, like an actor. That way he can play his part as an interested guy in the conversation on Monday morning, hey how bout them Packers, or Giants or whatever.

When I embraced my transness. I realized that I had been walking around in the real world wearing the skin of a fake male avatar. A costume I would put on, and the act a role. What was astounding to me was, when I took that off, the resultant personality was female. And not just female, but very female. One of the first places was my therapists office. I basically came out to the therapist, I had to, time was up. And after a good cry (something that happens a lot more these days) I stowed him away and let her out. To my amazement, she uses her hands when she talks, I had no idea before that moment. Since then I take him off regularly. And with increasing frequency and duration. Each time I am always refreshed and amazed at how feminine the remaining person is. It is actually effortless. And feels completely natural to me.

Now what confounds me is that in order for me to keep moving in life there are things he is really good at. And I need to figure out which of those are part of the kernel essence (do they belong to me, him or both of us). And so I am now on a quest to integrate these things. I asked my shrink about this integration effort and if it is possible. She said oh yes, most certainly, in fact in the profession we have a name for it. I said really? What is that? She responded, "Why it is called transition dear".

But none of this is the hard part really. The hard part is keeping up the facade. Once you know what you are, or more over have accepted it, you want to be that person more and more often. You cannot help it. And people begin to notice. A change in your demeanor, the way you speak, they way you hold your head or your hands, they way you may cross your legs. Your word choice, or inflection, or even your tone, pitch and manner of speaking might change. I know mine has. I don't know if people notice it. I also know that I am probably going to slip up soon. I am going to swish a little when I walk, or have a limp wrist, or a hand on a hip. I am going to tell a coworker she has a cute top, or ask her where she got her shoes, or if that is a new shade of lipstick. All things I could innocently do as a woman, and as a guy would totally bust me.

Perhaps I, we, make more out of this than we need to, it could be nobody cares that I have fem qualities or habits, that my legs are shaven, the my beard is mostly gone. That I am wearing panties 24/7 right in front of them. It would be nice to know that, but I suspect that acceptance of being somewhat fem is an issue.

And so, as I stress about the time it takes to go from male to female and back, and the mental anguish of having to change my brain on the fly to conform I am beginning to understand why I hear so many of my sisters telling me how they went FT well before their planned date. And in most cases, the answer was, it is just easier to make the leap. Even if you are not really ready, or were waiting for that FFS, or job, or money, or hormones or whatever. That it is better to jump now, and be yourself, for yourself and take the lumps as they come along. I certainly feel that need. I can see how it is easier. Alas for now, I have to be both.