Wednesday, June 11, 2008

whats with all the memes I'm doing?

Ryan's starting a gender pride meme, and who am I not to play? ^.^
"You know how the feminists run that “Whats your most attractive feature, and you aren’t allowed to say ‘my X, but OMG this other body part is really ugly?’” Meme?
Well, I want to start a Gender Pride Meme along similar lines. I want to know what people’s favourite thing about being gender diverse is. You aren’t allowed to worry about sounding arrogant, and you aren’t allowed to talk about any negative aspects of gender diversity (after all, we talk those things to death, imo). You don’t have to be trans… this is open to people that are queer, or in any way transgress gender norms.
"
Obviously, everything here is my experiences and, since no one else has the same experiences, I don't expect all trans*/gender diverse folks to feel, learn, and respond to the same things as me

I like how being and accepting myself as trans* has made me so very aware of my body. How I am learning first hand that my body is both incredibly important to who I am and incredibly unimportant. I am learning to truly live and appreciate my body while knowing that it isn't all of me.
I'm walking the line between many extremes and/or switching between; and I like that.
Despite the hassle, I love falling between the lines and being a walking contradiction. It's who and what I am; coming out to myself about being trans* has helped me come out to myself about this too.
(To clarify, I don't fall between the lines of male/female or man/woman; I'm not "best of both worlds". I'm talking about other things than these sorts of ungendering cliches.)

I know myself better than most people my age; better than many people ever know themselves I'd even say. I credit my experiences surrounding being transsexual for this.

I love how I've responded to being trans*.
Working, though slowly sometimes, towards understanding and accepting others. Who knows, if I wasn't trans* I could have ended up very overtly racist like my grandmother and uncle (grandma said I shouldn't spend so much time with my "colored friends" because that was probably scaring white kids away. Uncle says how n*****s are dirtying his neighborhood).
Being trans* and queer and a fem/andro guy has opened my eyes to oppression and activism that I never would have thought had I grown up a white cis*guy.

Growing up assigned-female allowed me to explore gender expressions I would never have been allowed near if I'd been assigned male. I was able to play with legos and dolls, hammers and princess dresses, science kits and EZ bake ovens.
I was given and loved all of them in childhood, and this wouldn't have happened if I wasn't a trans* guy.

I can't explain all of it, but I know I've learned so much in this life from being transsexual. I don't know yet if I'd do it again, but I know I don't regret it.

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