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Nov. 26th, 2014 03:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSo, while out at a friend's birthday party at a restaurant, one of the servers asked me for a refill of tea. I said sure and let it go.
Emma looked at me and said "Did he just call you 'Sir?'"
"He probably did. I try not to argue with food servers...they do things to your food. And really...I hate to say it...I've kind of stopped caring."
Emma gave me this quizzical look, then said, "Well...what can ya do."
It made me think - have I really stopped caring? And the answer is, yes. But not about what I'm called. I stopped caring about how I present myself. And have for some time. This is not a pity party. It's just a very tired person who is tired of the fight.
I speak at the highest register my voice will allow without going into falsetto, and it's still deep. Even with testosterone blockers, I'm hairy as hell. My beard never lightened, and laser electrolysis was not effective. I'm on the highest medication I can take for testerone blocking, and I still have the hormone levels of a young boy.
Being a woman is hard, really hard. And, at the risk of alientating a few friends, being trans is harder. Women wake up, au naturel, and then have to make themselves look like what society demands of you as presentable, which is a lot of work. But me, I wake up, and I have a lot of work to get to that "au naturel" state. That's before doing everything else to look like what society demands of you as presentable.
And presentable doesn't mean passing as a woman. It just means I'm presenting as a woman as best I can. While friends and family accept me, I still get laughed at and pointed out, and made fun of constantly. So much so, that I purposely don't' dress nice anymore while still wearing women's clothing, and if someone misgenders me, I live with it. It's easier to just accept the ignorance and accept the unintended insult, than put all the work in, and deal with the intended insults.
My body and I wage a war every single day. It's not just male, it's very male. And I've gotten very tired of fighting that war.
Emma looked at me and said "Did he just call you 'Sir?'"
"He probably did. I try not to argue with food servers...they do things to your food. And really...I hate to say it...I've kind of stopped caring."
Emma gave me this quizzical look, then said, "Well...what can ya do."
It made me think - have I really stopped caring? And the answer is, yes. But not about what I'm called. I stopped caring about how I present myself. And have for some time. This is not a pity party. It's just a very tired person who is tired of the fight.
I speak at the highest register my voice will allow without going into falsetto, and it's still deep. Even with testosterone blockers, I'm hairy as hell. My beard never lightened, and laser electrolysis was not effective. I'm on the highest medication I can take for testerone blocking, and I still have the hormone levels of a young boy.
Being a woman is hard, really hard. And, at the risk of alientating a few friends, being trans is harder. Women wake up, au naturel, and then have to make themselves look like what society demands of you as presentable, which is a lot of work. But me, I wake up, and I have a lot of work to get to that "au naturel" state. That's before doing everything else to look like what society demands of you as presentable.
And presentable doesn't mean passing as a woman. It just means I'm presenting as a woman as best I can. While friends and family accept me, I still get laughed at and pointed out, and made fun of constantly. So much so, that I purposely don't' dress nice anymore while still wearing women's clothing, and if someone misgenders me, I live with it. It's easier to just accept the ignorance and accept the unintended insult, than put all the work in, and deal with the intended insults.
My body and I wage a war every single day. It's not just male, it's very male. And I've gotten very tired of fighting that war.
