I am proud of these feelings. I am a little in awe of them. They were so utterly internal; not derived from my social environment and not compatible with it I didn't nurture or encourage them, I didn't appreciate their significance, I rather marginalised them.
Only looking back now, linking then all together, do I see their full force. It is a force that still directs, impels me, makes me do certain things while I am unclear of my conscious motivation.
My trans feelings are very deep, very instinctive.
I feel motherly towards my child self who experienced them. I want to hold her, affirm her, love her.
I want to honour her feelings by seeing them through into maturity.
And my trans feelings are beautiful.
I think femininity is lovely, I am so thrilled to be feminine.
erotic identity
My trans erotic identity comes from deep within me. It indicates something fundamental about my inner self.
I am not a man with a fetish.
'Fetish' belittles crossdreaming sexuality.
The erotic identity does challenge an essential masculine identification.
I have a male body and I have experienced life as a male, which has greatly influenced my character. But this does not mean that my inner self is essentially masculine, as society would have me believe. My erotic identity suggests otherwise, and I do not feel a deep sense of essential masculinity.
inner in her
In comprehending your inner realm you are largely on your own. You don't see other people's inner realms. But the inner realm is vast, it is not just an introjection, a shadow of the outer realm. You have to have confidence in your own introspective investigations.
And ultimately your inner realm is autonomous. You declare its truths, because you reign there. Or even if you are not quite monarch of your inner realm, you are at least its chief interpreter, and you are the kingdom it reigns over.
So, what is the gender of my inner self:
'Female! female! female!' she shouts exunberantly. Oh what a deep instinct reaches the controls to answer that question.
(Qualifications for intellectual nitpickers will follow in another post. But I am sick of qualifications - defensive spoilsports that evade the deep and beautiful truth.)
To be sure, it's an inner self that has been influenced by masculine conditioning. Not necessarily always for the worst. But it's time to minimalise the internalising of the conditioning, to expand the inner space in which the femaleness indicated by my erotic identity, by my trans feelings past and present, can grow and flourish.
One means of expansion is giving my inner self written expression in this blog. This blog is written by my inner self, Deborah. I am Deborah and I am a girl. Wheeee!
I am Deborah and I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl,. I am a girl.I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl, I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl.I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl,. i am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl,. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl, I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. I am a girl. Yesss!
“‘Fetish’ belittles crossdreaming sexuality”. Hear, hear! I don’t understand what, other than the wish to stigmatize us, people mean with this charge. ‘Fetishism’, surely, in psychology, is ‘sexual attraction to an inanimate object’. Or, in anthropology, a ‘fetish’ is ‘an object believed to procure for its owner the services of a spirit lodged within it.’ I accept this holds, up to a point, for crossdressing. The crossdresser uses clothing – stockings, shoes, whatever – to substitute for the absent female; when he puts them on, he ‘becomes’ female, however superficially. But the crossdreamer goes much further and deeper: as you say, she is articulating something fundamental about her inner self.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dabrela. Glad you agree!
ReplyDeleteI should say that I respect, even admire, thoughtful, committed crossdreamers who identify as fetishists. In such cases the word is not being used to trivialise or disdain. To adopt it within a trans community that is largely hostile to fetishism is bold. xx