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| Image from Leisy Vidal on UnSplash |
I view gender in light of all the recent attacks on the transgender community from a certain political party here in Ohio not called the Democrats, as a big box of crayons. The whole shameful process just shows how little the Republicans care to know about the trans community,
Rather, if they like it or not, almost all humans fall on some sort of a gender spectrum. It seems, men have fewer crayons to pick from because of their innate insecurities concerning their own gender and or sexuality. Which is a whole separate subject.
I know when I began to color in my own life, I needed the big box of crayons because I did not fit the male mold I was in. Whatever the world thought of me, I needed more out of my life than a restricted male existence. Instead of viewing myself as the round peg being forced into the square hole, I started to see myself as a multi-colored individual with many new gender frontiers to explore. My journey was destined to take me far past the rather quick romance with all the pretty fashion, all the way into a in-depth dive into what a life as a transgender woman would be all about. As I was busy coloring my future, I found I needed different colors to enable me to express myself more completely.
Examples were plentiful. Such as when I looked the part of a woman, how was I ever going to communicate as one. I was so busy coloring, I needed a whole new box of crayons to keep up with my life I was attempting to balance between two genders. To further stereotype the whole process, I quit using all the drab and darker colors and began to use the lighter more vibrant ones as I lived more and more in a femininized world.
The more I went to diverse transgender mixers in nearby Columbus, Ohio, the more I learned about others who were coloring in their gender lives too. I was able observe everyone from those who had almost completed their new lives, all the way to those who were working with broken crayons and severely struggling. All of it was an extreme eye opener for me because I was so naïve when it came to the transgender or LGBTQ world as a whole. Normally what happened was, I took everything in and ended up going back home and thinking about it. A solitary pursuit since I did not have anyone to talk to about it except for the occasional therapist.
Therapy produced mixed results when several I went to did not want to discuss or see my colored design of who I truly was. It wasn't until I sought out one of the rare gender therapists back then who told me the truth. Basically, she said my picture was beautiful and there was nothing I could do about wanting to proceed on my path to transgender womanhood. I wish I would have listened and started to change my life back then but I was stubborn and hung on to my part-time male existence which at the least, paid the bills.
As transgender women and men, we really need the extra courage to keep coloring our pictures. For example, in my case, if my health holds up, I will be on gender affirming hormones the rest of my life. Hopefully, I will need another sixty four box of crayons as my life expands as a transgender woman.
