… my feminine drift is settling into womanly-man spot… the more i figure out my presentation, the more i think i am not looking to pass as a woman… i have thought about hormone therapy and hair removal by electrolysis, but don’t feel compelled to go there… shaving my face, chest and legs all the time is a little tedious, but i can live with that… i find i like my look the best when it is walking the line between masculine and feminine, but on the feminine side… i love wearing my hair long and down… i love wearing makeup and jewelry… i have built a solid wardrobe of women’s clothing that allows me to play with the yin-yang of masculine feminine in a satisfying way…
… i have some plaid flannel shirts i am trying to figure out what to do with… my wife gave them to me for birthdays and Christmases… i am reluctant to get rid of them because of that… i liked wearing them when she gave them to me… i can’t wear them now… they are like fingernails on a chalkboard to my feminine self… i can’t wear them as a “boyfriend” shirt either… i am not a lithe young woman they can wrap in cozy male comfort… i will put them away… there may come a time when my self-sense will shift back towards masculine space and i will want them… or maybe i will figure out a way to wear them femininely…
… i have been reading the biographies of two trans-women… Lucy Santé and Candy Darling… i haven’t been into biographies much before, but i inhaled Lucy’s and am avidly working my way through Candy’s… it’s not surprising… it’s part of putting myself in context… both stories unfold, at least in part, during the 60s and were directly (Candy’s) or tangentially (Lucy’s) related to the Warhol scene… both very much wanted (Candy) or want (Lucy) to be women… Candy didn’t have the resources for more than hormone therapy… she was fortunate to have very feminine characteristics already… she only had to deal with hair removal… Lucy does have resources and has done everything available other than bottom surgery… both are cases of gender dysphoria… i am envious of women’s breasts, which hormone therapy might give me, along with a more womanly frame, but not so much that i want to mess with my hormones at this late stage in life… i think there is room for an AMAB (assigned male at birth) to pursue feminine presentation without needing to be a woman… i intend to engage the world through feminine sensibilities… i want the world to engage me through those same feminine sensibilities… so i am presenting femininely…
… i have been reading bell hooks… she has become my favorite feminist writer…
… both Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center and All About Love have been a revelation to me… she posits feminism as a way of engaging the world that is not entirely located in the sex of the body… as such, both men and women can embrace and personify feminist values…
… when my mom first learned out about my trans-feminine exploration, i think she was picturing me as a drag queen, an over-the-top caricature of Marilyn Monroe… i assured her that wasn’t the case…
… most of the dresses i have can be read as “tunics” when worn over jeans… tunics are not common male attire, but they are not unheard of male attire… when i wear a dress/tunic over jeans, or leggings for that matter, it allows men and women to read me still as masculine… and that is their general preference as it fits with the western patriarchal world view we are all steeped in… of course, when my nails are colorfully polished, my eyes are shadowed, my lips are painted, and my body is bejeweled, that “out” gets harder to maintain… still, i view myself as a man who wears lipstick, jewelry, eye makeup and dresses… i have a divine she that wants and gets expression…
… the fifth edition of _The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language_ defines effeminate as:
- Having or showing qualities or characteristics more often associated with females than males; unmanly.
- Having some characteristics of a woman, as delicacy, luxuriousness, etc.; soft or delicate in an unmanly degree; womanish; weak.
- Womanlike; womanly; tender; - in a good sense
… i am fine being unmanly or un-Marlboro Man… this perniciously destructive vision of manhood is all too prevalent in the world today, especially in the United States… i am not weak… try being unmistakably a man dressed in women’s clothing walking down the street… there is courage in that… i seek to be womanlike in a good sense… with bell hooks as my feminist sensei, i set out to help all that is feminine subdue the patriarchy… it needs to be subdued… now… in this moment… it needs to be subdued…