C J Silverio writes:

> Today's topic is gender dysphoria. Kinda. Not the official thing, which I don't really know enough about to spout off on. That's the territory of another poster to t.b,

Hi, CJ. Perhaps it's time that we chat. I'm not territorial about gender issues, BTW, and company is always welcome.

> When I was in the first grade, my friend Amy told me that I could turn into a boy by kissing my elbow. This was a known thing. All I had to do was kiss my elbow. She told me because she knew I wanted to be a boy. So I spent a lot of time trying to reach my elbow to kiss it. I wanted to be a boy. A lot.

I'm not a pshrink, so I won't attempt a diagnosis. I've talked to a lot of transsexuals, though, and first recognition of gender-body mismatch typically does occur at around age 5 or 6. So from my perspective, this sounds normal. (Hope that doesn't offend you.)

For those who are reading along, gender is between the ears. Sex is between the legs. There's a difference, and there is no natural law that says they have to match. Remember that.

> Girl's clothing was always a misery for me. It didn't belong on me. It was dressing up as something I wasn't.

Yes. Gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder/whatever you call it is very much tied to personal identity. Who am I? How do I want to relate to other people? What image fits my identity? None of these questions can be answered without reference to gender. If "girl" doesn't fit, then it doesn't fit. You have the right to your own identity, and to define how that identity relates to your body. You don't need my approval, or anyone else's.

> This is not a plumbing issue for me. I don't particularly mind not having a penis. I like penises just fine. Lance has one I'm rather fond of. I don't want one myself.

One thing that is fairly well understood is that gender identity has nothing to do with sexual identity or sexual orientation.

Another thing that is well understood is that there isn't much else that's well understood.

You and I are mirror-images, in a way. I now live as a woman, though for the first two years of my transition, I continued to live as a man. I've decided to keep my penis. I live with a woman. It works for us, much as your relationship with Lance seems to work. If other people find it a bit strange, that's not my concern. This isn't a typical pattern, even among the gender-enhanced, but it's as valid as anything else.

> (Actually, a rather violent twitch just happened and I think there's disagreement on this topic deep inside somewhere. Oh, fuck it, let's stop being mealy-mouthed about it. Somebody inside wants to be a boy and just reminded me about it. I reserve the right to declare at any time that the term "somebody" is metaphorical and doesn't really mean much of anything in reality. But this somebody is the same somebody who grins in delight when Lance posts about his "boyfriend".)

Yes, in all respects. I'd rather have been born female. It didn't happen. Darn it. Oh, well. Sigh. And other expressions of catastrophic regret.

At other times in my life, I've felt a lot stronger on this topic. But I've adjusted to who I am, and some of that adjustment included changing who I am.

> It's just kinda that when I look at myself, what I see isn't me. Ceej doesn't have a female body. CJ isn't a woman. CJ sure isn't an overweight woman with huge tits. That's for damn sure. Whose body is this, anyway? And how did I end up in it?

It's tempting to say that there's something wrong with anyone who DOES like his or her body. OK, so you and I have some unusual regrets. Our genes lied to us. Our pre-natal hormones failed to rage properly. The people in the delivery room had the unmitigated gall to believe what they saw between our legs. The image in the mirror can be so disconcerting!

I had intended the mirror issue to be my next post on the topic, until you and Babs offered me other opportunities to reveal myself. But that post is still coming; it's called, "The Woman Who Used to Live in the Mirror." You may not find it bizarre at all.

> This situation leads to confusion. In me. I'll bet you're confused about it, too. Well, I'm fucking bewildered. When I was small, I wasn't a little girl. I was a little kid. I can't describe myself as a little girl. And I can't say I was a little boy because I wasn't. So what the fuck was I? And what am I now?

You're CJ. I'm Diane. We are, both of us, neither male nor female; or perhaps we are each both at once. We are our histories, for all the good, bad, male, female, and bizarre that this entails.

I was once a little boy. That was the external reality; internally, I spent a lot of time in denial, but certainly not all that time. I've done some reparenting work in therapy; in one of those sessions, that little boy turned into a little girl, and she has stayed female ever since. That experience actually clarified a lot of things for me. It also left me a shuddering, joyful, crying wreck for a few hours.

Who are we? Who were we? All of it. No, it won't make sense to anyone who isn't one of us. Never, ever, ever. Even my partner, Carol, and my gender therapist, Louise, can not identify with the fundamental feeling of having a body whose gender doesn't fit.

(For Maggie-May: No, this is not like "everyone else." It is not the individual items that make up the aggregate. It is the cornerstone. If you can answer the question, "Are you male or female?" without hesitating, if your body and your self-image both give the same answer, then you aren't talking about the same thing we are.)

> Look. I've been trying to tell you guys this all along. I keep saying it, and you really gotta believe it this time. CJ is a gay male.

OK, I've adjusted my perception. From now on, you're a "he."