#I sometimes forget I’m trans cuz I *fully* feel like a dude

[blitheringbongus]

Hey holh shit idk if my tumblr is broken but that girl being a boy post you reblogged has been uh. Reblogged like. 50 times. Sjsjsv so sorry if this is just on my end but my dash is nothing but that rn

Hi sorry I had a moment yesterday 🙏

[rexylafemme]

infinite deaths lead to infinite transformations

i recognize lately that there's this lingering sense of failure & loss & sadness living in my body, existing just out of frame in my thoughts (meaning, i guess, i don't give real space, attentive space to), having specifically to do with [said in bratty, tongue-in-cheek, big big air quotes] "my identity," "my body." 

the other night i was on the phone with a dear kindred friend of many years, was responding to something she said and i said, "if i were you, that would make me feel really bad. i mean, if i were a human being, that would..." i stopped and then we both started cracking up. freudian slip. in the moment, i'm not quite sure what i meant, but it felt like i really meant it, really natural to say. not being a human being is a sense i have about myself, i think because humanness is defined by things that are fundamentally exclusive of my experience, how i see myself, how i think, how i move through the world, what my body is. also, trans people just ARE mythical creatures.

anyway, whatever. i don't "exist" technically, but i do exist actually. and also, we have always existed, we-- trans people [which i use as a really broad, inclusive term to include all of the figures who never are/were able to claim that term, all of the figures for whom it does/did not exist, all of the figures it is/was robbed from, all of the figures who it is/was rewritten out of] have always existed. we are not new.

anyway, whatever. this quieted, stifled, devastated feeling of loss/grief/sadness/failure. though i wrote an article about it, i've never actually grieved testosterone. grieved taking it, grieved what i would not have not taking it, the death of the possibility. that my decision to stop was motivated by a number of things we aren't really able to talk about with pride, gusto, ease. [who is we in this sentence, all my non-human, trans self-states (?)  strung together through this thread of my life, the life i didn't ask for but i have anyway and try to appreciate tho it seems widely the Reality i live in, am called Human or not-Human in, doesn't appreciate me often-- tho i have a lot of really amazing loving people in my life far and wide, and, yes, have fought to carve out space to be seen in, acknowledged in, appreciated in [not just for trans-ness] however fully or un-fully, however full of truths or lies.]   i'm fucking crazy-- i identify that way, probably ahead of any other thing i am other than being poor and white, i am crazy before i am trans, i am crazy before i am anything that defines what my body is bc who cares and who knows but me [tho i recognize the political importance of identifying my body as something, i guess, even when it is nothing, feels like it or i am outside of it mostly or effectively it is treated like nothing, by me, others, lovers, the state, etc], i am crazy before i am queer-- if even i am that, having always had an ambivalent relationship with that term given its evolution as this annoying and unfortunate category that recycles exclusion and problems of white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, gatekeeping, rules for how to be, who to fuck/love/be close to and how, how to look, what to wear, what to like, builds institutions whose foundations are based in all of the above, etc. how quickly we forget how poor crazy black, brown, and white people radicalized the word queer, how it became Queer, trademarked by judith butler et al, liberal arts colleges, universities, research journals and then further used to silence, reject, consume, criticize, murder-by-complicity poor crazy black, brown, and white trans and queer people. rageful yawn! [so boring, so anger-producing, so over it]. and all of this so then jill soloway can make "the best tv series of the century"  [so says a white cis old dude w/ money named sparrow to my trans coworker who gets fed up with him after he says something like 'oh your name is different than it was a few months ago, that's so interesting. no one changes their names anymore unless they're transsexuals" and then they were like "yeah that would be me." "OHHHH TRANSPARENT IS THE BEST TV SHOW OF THE CENTURY," sparrow says in response. sparrow, who said to me, as many before him have and many after will: "YOUR name is rex? YOU? it's so WEIRD, YOUUU have that name???! wow, who would've thought!" cuz being a grown-ass white man self-named after a fucking bird isn't weird at all. transparent, yay, the tv show about US, that's not really about US. and i watch it so i guess i'm probably a hypocritical asshole, but i am starving for some representation. anyway, whatever. i'm probably crazy and poor before other things because crazy and poor provides the wash over which everything else i live is experienced. crazy, poor, grieving this synthetic steroid i experienced as poison in my body and brain. this thing i can't have that i want. this toxic thing. toxic because it erodes away my vag, toxic because it could destroy my liver, toxic because continued use over time could pose all these extreme health problems, but who knows really! cuz, why would we study that?! and when we do study it, why would we focus on the multiplicity of bodies and spectrum of people who approach HRT?! toxic because i am a crazy poor person with a lot of health problems to begin with that i don’t talk about and i probably would develop all the like, weird anomalous issues that "most people just won't ever have to worry about"! [most people is... ? ]

toxic because i lost all track of how i related to myself, how i felt, or what i even wanted while i was on it. i know what i want and what i like [about what it gave me]: more hair everywhere [yay!], androgynizing body shape [awesome!], growth in my underwear [i don't really know what to call what in-betweenness is going on there, cockette i say to myself but that feels maybe too campy for general use and not sexy however fitting and hilarious. anyway, it's cool and fun!], androgynizing voice [sometimes sultry, sometimes pubescent, sometimes girly, fran fine as a man laugh, excellent]. and the goal was always androgynizing, was always becoming something else, not one thing. tiresias, venus as a boy, dionysus, whatever.

but so i am sad because i can't move forward with those things that i like. the embodiment. and embodiment for me, as a crazy poor person, is constantly difficult. am i ever even in my body, do i have one, what is it good for, why. i moved further away from a sense of even desiring "masculinity" when i started t. that was a gift, to realize my desire wasn’t about acquisition of “maleness.” i just wanted all the things i described above: the physical changes that for whatever reason signify "maleness" or "trans-maleness" and therefore told people that's what i wanted because i wanted those physical attributes. i don't wanna be a man or a trans man. man, not something that i ever felt like. boy, dude, male, maybe, some hybrid masc/femme thing, cross-human.  i definitely didn't want the head-hair loss/thinning, which happened and put me into a neurotic, severely gender-NONCONFIRMING frenzy. i can't lose my hair i can't lose my hair. call it femme vanity, i dunno or really care, a bitch isn't gonna be bald, that's it, not ok not possible not happening so that also informed my decision to stop t, tho i didn't really admit it. i won't say i didn't/don't want the "he" pronoun, sometimes. i want them all. i'm greedy and excessive and i don’t like being limited. i want to be what i am: a mix, a shapeshifter. one angle i look like one thing, one angle another. the reason people stare at me all the time: bewildered, upset, confused, looking for clear markers. staring at my crotch or into my eyes, my face, working out their assessments. judging what i'm wearing against my facial hair against my makeup against my voice against an absence of breasts against my name against my...

anyway, whatever. i am sad because i can kinda have all of those things: more hair, more androgynized body. if i try hard enough. if i have enough time and money. because i could see a nutritionist and an herbalist specializing in trans health [they exist if you can pay to see them!]. or alternately, i could DIY it, buy all the herbs in the androgynizing herb regimen i came up with through research, and i could take them every day for... forever if i wanted, or for however long i wanted to, based solely on my desire to do it. not if i wanted, if i could. but i don't have the money. and i can't. and i could do all the exercises that would androgynize my shape. if i had the time and the energy. if i could get my shit together enough. if i weren't cycling in and out of housing insecurity since i returned to nyc and even before and through my whole life. if i weren't, some days, just able to do the bare minimum for myself, if i weren't racked with body pains somedays from a combination of: the things i do to my body that are bad for it [binding], not being able to sleep, work, running around, having a sick, sensitive body, the ways i carry stress in my body and where. if i didn't have problems prioritizing myself. if i weren't afraid of the structure of my exercise and nutrition regimen evolving into eating disorder and unhealthy obsession like they have before. if i weren't crazy.

it becomes about all the things i am always failing at that i can't do much about other than be patient and accept the material/systemic/emotional limitations that frame my life. back to poor, back to crazy: why i can't move forward at the speed that i would like to with my "transition." crazy means i can't be on t without being crazier and more sleepless and more in trauma self-states. crazy means i sometimes can't live up to my own structures and routines for my own health: body, mind, spirit. poor means i can't go to the trans nutritionist, the trans herbalist, buy the herbs and have them all the time. and i'm trying so hard to get that money, to do that. or, i'm trying so hard to be okay with not having what i want, what i need. remembering it's not my fault. there's nothing i can do about it. but that's not really a consolation so much as it is another reminder of my powerlessness to shift certain realities that affect not only me, but so many other people i care about, or people i do not know, everyone who should have everything that they want and need, regardless of who they are and what they can afford materially/socially/politically.

and i am grieving for all the knowledge we have lost and is not widely accessible. because tho i may not have the evidence or may not have done all the research, i fucking know people have been "transitioning" naturally and through magic for as long as people have existed and throughout all cultural contexts, whether trans-ness has been exalted (and it has, throughout time) or demonized/criminalized/driven underground. our mythological selves.