Seeing It

Last night I took a good long look at myself. I ran a bath with lavender, locked the bathroom door, kept the stark white overhead light on, and tried to sit with my own nakedness. This body of mine has been a source of unease since childhood. This body has been through a lot; the red indentation still outlining the binder I took off an hour ago. Compacting my chest until my ribs hurt, cramming childbearing hips into slim-fit, straight-leg men's jeans. This body and I have both hurt each other, let each other down.

The hormones are coming soon. I lean back into the lavender bubbles and imagine my body bathing in testosterone. "That's the best way I can explain it to you," the health worker said, "imagine your brain soaking in testosterone. T (testosterone) bathes your brain with new levels of hormones and your body reacts accordingly."

Underneath my masculine clothes, my body is still feminine. But not for long. I look at my foot, average-sized for a woman but small for a man. That won't change. My legs, try as I might, just look like I haven't shaved for awhile. That will change. My internal thoughts turn into a hum. Soon I'll be humming in a different octave.

I'm sitting with the silence of my own doubts and confidence, battling each other quietly. I am ready for this. I am scared for this. I am realizing it's okay to be both.

There's no way to test positive for transgender, no one way to be trans. I am peaceful and happier now that I am embracing my gender, this much I know. Still, I examine my body and try to "see it" in myself. I exist as a transgender person in a society of transphobia, and even the heaviest of armor won't protect me from a few hurts, won't shield off all the external transphobia from seeping in at times. But I don't "see it." I see myself. I have spent years scrutinizing my body and blaming my brain. What was I supposed to be? Is there a boy just below the surface of these curves? If my curves curve into a masculine shape, will that make me anymore the boy I was "supposed" to be?

No.

Hormones and surgeries don't make a person a gender. Society doesn't make someone a gender. Hell, I'm not even convinced gender exists at this point. There's no "seeing it" because there's nothing to see. Gender is self-determined. Gender is what we want it to be. I am a guy because that is my internal sense of truth. I am transitioning so that my internal compass may point north in my life.

-Asher

My dog Scully also did some self-reflection during this time.