Back in my "princess" days , expressing my gender "separation" was simply how good I was looking in the mirror. My cross dressing was new exciting and extremely frustrating.
As I gender
evolved and I began to truly understand who I was, the path I needed to take became clearer. Looking back over the lessons learned and not learned, I sometimes feel I only have enough knowledge to make myself dangerous. For that reason, I'm always on the outlook for more. An example would have been the small all female friend birthday party I was invited to. Why do women do this so much different than men?
One of the biggest problems I have is knowing which of my feminine gender expectations are real or misconceptions. When one of my genetic female friends says "Welcome to my world", I take for granted the lesson is real.
Then I make it my passion to have a better understanding of what "their" world is. Normally the "obvious" isn't the true picture. I know I'm not covering earth shattering ground here. Any of you trans guys reading this are thinking
DUH Cyrsti what is ever
obvious about a woman? From both sides of the gender fence guys, I can tell you there
are reasons all of us feel that way...all three genders.
Here's where I am going with this. I'm fond of reading and passing along snippets of information from Ginger's
Total Image Consultants site. I found the "
Lose Your Self-Consciousness" post to be especially relevant. As transgender women or trans men we certainly have every reason in the world to be extra self conscious about our selves.
If women as a gender are more likely to be self conscious, aren't we more likely to be less obvious? As trans women this is a double edged sword because our self image is so important to how we present to the world.
To help, here's a bit of advice from Ginger's blog which is linked above:
"The funny thing about being yourself is that you have to lose your self-consciousness — the habit of judging yourself — in order to do it. You need to become so immersed in the moment and within yourself, that you begin to channel your pure creative spirit. It’s in this empowered state that we’re able to not only do our best work, but also experience the blissful joy of creative expression. As we link up with the Divinity in the present moment, we naturally connect with each other — the greater Oneness of all. That’s when the fun begins.
Learning to be fully ourselves without concern for the reactions, judgments, or expectations of others is a life-long journey. Regardless of how confident and self-possessed you are there will always be times in life when you feel vulnerable and afraid to be yourself. That’s called living as a human being on planet earth.
The important thing to remember is that self-consciousness is about you – not other people."
At some point of time, I can't wait to say "No! Welcome to
my world"!
This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a short interview with Jennifer Finney Boylan. Jennifer is an author and professor plus one of the best known transgender people in America. She appeared on the NBC Today show with wife Deedie and son Zach and talked about her new book Stuck in The Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders.
