What Does It Mean To Be A Woman?

Running down a dream that never would come to me, working on a mystery – going wherever it leads…

So, a recurring theme that has come up in my few therapy sessions is “what does it mean to be a woman?” Which, really breaks down to “what does it mean for me to be a woman?” because that answer is almost unanswerable unless it’s on a personal level. But I totally understand why you see a lot of trans women jumping in to the deep end of the femme pool, it’s how they answered that question. Not quite so easy for me (not trying to diminish their experience, mind you, only saying that if I was in to that stuff it’d be easy to just dive right in), because my journey is going to be much more finding my own style, a style that’s not really femme at all. I joke that I’ll probably look like a 40 year old goth that refused to grow up, but at the same time, that’s not far from the truth anyway.

Actually, I guess I could make it work…(not actually me!)

But its such a hard question. I feel almost resentful that I have to even answer it. I *know* I’m a woman, that should be enough. However, society is still stuck on the binary, and probably will be for awhile. And as much as it pains me to admit it: I do care what others think about me. Though that’s on a sliding scale (the better I know you, the more I care). I guess I’m just shooting for the occasional “ma’am” instead of sir in public. Maybe my personal idea of style will help there, as I might end up looking like a mannish woman. I could live with that, the woman part comes primary there. For instance, I was told a person I never met saw the picture I posted the other day, and thought I was a woman transitioning to a man. That’s a win to me.

I’m still faced with such a daunting task, at least to me.  I might be a woman, but my personality and wants and interests (in our current societal structure) skew male.  How the hell do I reconcile those two?  My current plan, which as soon as I can afford to test I plan to test, is to not really dress any differently at all (though I am flirting with adding skirts to my rotation eventually), wear light make up, and start wearing a bra to simulate the chesticle area (at least until I don’t have to simulate anymore, if that’s in the cards).  This is in addition to the little stuff I’ve started doing, of course…more feminine necklace, the earrings, longer hair, nails, etc.

The idea there is to see if my “mannish woman” theory has any weight, if you didn’t pick up on that.  It’s either that or “what the hell?” or “freak” which I pretty much assume is how people view me on a daily basis anyway.

But that’s just the exterior…there’s also personality.  And again, what’s really the answer?  I would hope nobody expects me to be all “bubbly” girly because ew, come on.  No offense, bubbly ones, you’ve every right to be that way, but if I started acting like that my closest friends would have me committed.  I’m simply not a shiny happy person (holding hands or not).  But how will that skew how people perceive me?  This one is a lot harder to gauge, its not something I can answer without actually finding out for myself.

And don’t get me started on my voice…