Ramblings of a Transgirl

Forgive the rambling start. I haven't had my coffee yet today, and for some reason my brain won't quite switch on.

I've been trying to write this journal for the better part of six months. I *originally* wrote it, or at least most of it, in early January, but for some reason it's never quite come together. I guess that's okay, though, because it'd been a long six months, and I've made a lot of progress in that time. Hopefully, I'll be able to make more sense this time.

Brains are mean, and gender... is hard. It's a hard concept to grasp, a harder one yet to explore, and so intrinsically tied to identity that even talking about it sometimes raises arguments to fever level. To be honest? I just want to be myself. >.<

Today I'm going to use a challenging word. I'm going to use a word that has, in many hearts, an ugly history, one filled with misunderstanding and pain. And before I begin, I want you to know that I will never, ever disrespect that. I know pain's face far too well to ever wish more upon another.

I guess I should just say it then.

Zeta (my 'sona) is a hermaphrodite.

She always has been, ever since I first created her. Or ever since she kind of... existed. I'm not really sure if the broken parts of me that had rejected her had much say in that. I think she (a crucial part of me, remember) kind of forced herself into meaningful existence, even while the rest of me was running as far as possible in the opposite direction.

Sidenote: I'm honestly not sure how you talk about shards of identity coalescing, and I sure as hell don't know how to do it without sounding kinda nuts. I'm going to do it anyways.

I don't know why I find myself where I am today. I don't know who the damaged child I was even is anymore, that broken shell pretending to be whole. I can't even separate external sources from internal ones entirely, but I surely suspect that not all of my problems come from the outside. Being trans sure as hell doesn't, and I guess we'll see what else comes up as I continue to progress through my therapy.

Zeta popped into existence around the middle of 2012. I don't remember exactly why she did, why I felt compelled at that moment to finally construct an image of a portion of myself. To add to the strangeness, I'd never even had a dragon character before, despite diving head-first into the furry RP scene a few years before. For some reason, though, it just seemed right. The imagery of legends, of power tempered by wisdom, may have had something to do with it.

At the time, I'd been away from the RP scene for the better part of 5 years, abruptly disappearing for what was actually the third(?) time during yet another cycle of religiously-motivated self-flagellation. Those years were crucial ones, though, as going from "This gets me off." to "This might actually be me." took a very long time to percolate. I've acknowledged this before, but it's important to note at this point that I primarily played hermaphroditic characters, as well as some female ones, but never had a male one. Funny how I never even realized that at the time. O.o;

2012 is four years in the past now as I write this, and I've changed a lot since those days. The road has absolutely fucking sucked for the most part, with more pain that I ever could have imagined. But I'm still here. And I'm still not male. I'm a woman stuck in a male body for the moment, though HRT is starting to change that day by day.

So why both, then? Why not just have a female 'sona? I don't know. I used to, but things have changed since then. It used to be a symbol, combining my physical self with my mental one, a tool I could use to balance out my mind and body. In imagining her and then in role-playing as her, I could make sense of my mis-wired brain, allowing the physical sensations of my body to make sense in a mental context that didn't quite match up.

Today, I'm not so sure. I've been leaning quite a bit more female these days, though there is still something I value in the blending. Something about being able to be both, being able to sheath yourself in your partner and *take* them, and to be able to carry their child too, is really, really special. It's a balance, and something that could be beautiful, if we let it. I'm not sure how we can, given the tension all around it, but I'm going to at least try.

So yeah. That came out a bit less structured than the first one, but maybe, just maybe, my heart spoke more directly today.

I love you all,
Zeta

I originally wrote this post on February 22nd, 2015, but had refrained from posting it until now.  Now, its time has come.

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This is going to be a difficult post. I'm a bit shaken after having returned from a movie that hit way too close to home in far too many ways... And let's get this out of the way up front. I am *very* angry.

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By now, some of you will have seen The Imitation Game. If you have not, do so. The movie is about Alan Turing's work as a cryptographer during World War II. Since you're reading this on a Turing machine, it's safe to say he's someone worth knowing about.

Alan's story is a difficult one, one of the most intensely personal tragedies of the modern age. Already a social outcast due to his odd personality, he had very few friends in his life, and only one person he ever truly bonded with. And, were it ever discovered, as it was at the end of his life, even that was forbidden him. You see, homosexuality was against the law in Britain at that time. Even though his work quite arguably won the war for the allies (estimates put him ending the war 2 years early and saving 14 million lives), he was, in the end, driven to suicide by the very country he helped save. He was forced into accepting hormone therapy, chemical castration, in order to remain out of jail, and his downward spiral found only one outlet.

In him, we lost one of the most foundational geniuses of our modern world. He not only *proved*, but *built* a universal computing engine, capable of solving any problem rather than fixed functions. It is his gift that powers the very screen you read this text on, his gift that connects this entire world. He could not have known exactly how it would grow and be shaped with time, but he *knew* what a fundamental change his discovery would cause. It is a poor testament to our legacy as a civilisation that we failed him and continue to fail others to this very day. The means may be different now, but our failures endure. *That* is what this post is about.

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Now, I knew this story before I saw the film. I thought I had grieved and dealt with the tragedy, but I was wrong... Why? Because his story is also, in some small part, my story... And it is also a difficult story to tell.

I've never had an easy time connecting with others... For a long time I made friends, interacted, and appeared to function normally to a large majority of folks I interacted with. Previous journals detail a bit more of than than I currently want to delve into, but a major part of finding myself over the past few years has involved the discovery of the term transgender, and the fact that it applies to me. I have been, and still am, fearful of judgement, even though I am trying daily to work a little bit at a time towards comfort in my identity.

I put out a few feelers via HR at my current workplace, trying to discover if there was insurance coverage, but beyond that, I've not really signaled very much. The few who I asked basically dropped the issue as soon as I was done asking the question, so it's clearly something that's still uncomfortable to them. I *think* the engineers and management I work with will be accepting, but it's going to be a struggle for me, especially as some of my roll is customer-facing. I'm not a field applications engineer (FAE), but I do stand in as one on occasion, and I doubt there are very many transgender ones of those...

That's today though, after my move to California, to a place that's hopefully more accepting than the state I had been living in. Arizona may be beautiful, but the minds of many of its inhabitants are sadly not as inspired as the geology that surrounds them...

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While in Arizona, I worked for a small defense contractor, the name of which I'm choosing to leave off here. Said contractor isn't a name you'd recognize, but their primary work is in a similar area to Turing's. Although it's been about 20 years since being gay would result in the loss of your security clearance, transgender employees are still rare enough (and security personnel paranoid enough) to result in all sorts of awkward questions. Having gender identity issues hanging over your head makes you a prime target for blackmail if you're not out as trans, something that can result in immediate loss of clearance.

As such, I lived in fear.

Though the president signed an executive order forbidding discrimination along gender lines in all federal contractors two years ago, it only takes one person to declare you a security risk and you're done. Job, lost. Career, in tatters. Hope you've got some savings, because who's going to want to hire someone who had and then lost a clearance, even in the private sector? I thought I could probably trust my coworkers with my secret, but what if I couldn't? It only takes one.

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If that wasn't problem enough, I began to have ethical problems with my work that I simply could not overcome. In the movie, Turing quickly realizes that an intelligence source that the enemy knows about is useless, a fact that remains true to this day. In order to protect access to German communications, he (and the other members of his team) had to carefully manage what intelligence they used, making sure to guard against the possibility of discovery. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands died while they watched on, knowing that to save one ship too many, one in just the wrong way, would result in the Germans changing all of their codes. They became the arbiters of life and death, a position none of them had ever desired.

And so was I. Many still are. To work with these technologies, even to build them for another's use, must imply knowledge of their purpose. These agencies, these departments, compartmentalize their knowledge, seeking to remove the ethical choice from the builders, to place it on the users of the machines. But compartmentalization is damned from the start. These people know what they're building, they know how powerful it's becoming, and they sure as hell know exactly what it's being used for. As such they are as ethically liable as anyone else. As I was.

That is not to say that these technologies are bad, that the ability to intercept and read communications is fundamentally flawed. But it does mean that when those systems are turned into targeting systems, or handed to foreign governments who abuse their own people, that we are responsible. A lot of people have asked me why I left my job in Arizona, despite knowing how "important" it was. I know there are people alive today who would not be if I had not worked there. But I also know that there are the dead.

I am no naive innocent, imagining that every conflict can be solved without the use of violence. Though I now seek peace more directly, I fully recognize that there are some people who can only be dealt with through the use of deadly force. My problem is with neither of these statements. It is with the avoidance of responsibility. And even more fundamentally than that, it is that I am a healer, and that is not my path.

So yes. I left defense contracting. I will never return. I have seen the lack of accountability that comes with secret decision making turn into erroneous claims that "you know better than the public," that your "special access to information" gives you the right to make the call that affects so many others without their knowledge. And I am done with it.

Had I been discovered with these views in my time working for them, I would also have been escorted from the premises. It's dangerous to profess Chelsea Manning as a hero while working for the self-same industry, even on projects that are far less egregious than the ones they disclosed. But the end is the same. I could no longer trust those who I built machines for to use them in good faith, or to not hand them over to 'allies' who imprison their own people in the name of political expediency.

No human being should have to make the choices Alan Turing made as he decided who lived and who died. We *still* make those same choices now, though we are told that others will make that decision for us in the end. It does not absolve him of his responsibility then, and it does not absolve us of ours now. Some actively avoid this knowledge, safe in the fact that the system is geared towards that isolation, but others, like myself, are leaving because we can no longer stay. We are asked to be trustworthy by a system and by people who cannot be trusted themselves, and that can no longer endure.

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I'm tired of living in fear. I'm tired of living with guilt. I'm tired of pretending that this shit isn't broken, and that we aren't failing both those who serve and those who they intend to protect. I am fucking pissed, and this is the end of my imitation game.

I was reading a few things today and they got me thinking.  I want to expand on my previous discussion about shame.  I'll start by saying that shame is absolutely *the* thing that has crippled me from a mental health standpoint for years on end.  It still is impacting me, and though I'm now getting professional help in dealing with it, it's something I feel a need to talk about.  Why?  I know I'm not the only one.

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So let's talk about shame.  Shame is one of society's ways of saying "No, that's wrong. That's not acceptable here."  And, in all fairness, society does sometimes need the ability to say that.  It should be fair for people who care about each other to communicate about harmful behavior and attempt to come to a resolution.  But... shame isn't the way that happens.

Attempting to influence someone through shame is, quite possibly, the most toxic and passive-aggressive thing you can do.  We've all been guilt-ed by shame at some point or another, and we all know how it goes.  Disapproval of personal behavior can start with as little as a nasty look, and can, in time, escalate full blown social isolation.  Rather than addressing the underlying problem directly, shame relies on the person performing the undesired behavior to eventually become uncomfortable enough that they chose the group dynamic over their own.  Even worse, since there's no direct communication about the cause of the disapproval, the person subjected to it is often left in an anxious state, trying to guess what they might have done wrong.  Sometimes it's clear cut, but not always.

So let's talk about the toxic effects of shame.  It's not like we don't know what it does to people.  It's not as if we don't know it drives them to anxiety and depression, to self-hatred well before it makes any change the person outside sees.  This process of internalizing the fact that something about yourself is wrong can take years to unravel, and that's only assuming the person in question actually manages to reach out and ask for help.

I guess what I want to say here is this.  Shame sucks the life out of the person it is directed against.  It is the tool of those who do not have the courage to speak out and actually say what they think problems are.  "She knows what she's doing wrong." and "He's getting what he deserves." in reference to these kinds of actions are an outright cancer, and we need to start cutting it out.

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With that out of the way, I'll add my own story here.  This is something I've never written down, and I'm honestly not sure how it'll come out, but it's a start.

I grew up in a household that used shame and passive-aggressive behavior as a method of control, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  It's been ten years since I left home and I've barely made a dent in the damage that it did.  Though I'm working with a wonderful therapist on this and other issues now, I still can't function entirely normally in relationships, to say nothing of my issues with gender and sexuality.

In that household, like many others, we were taught from the time we were little to not "air our dirty laundry in public".  Basically, if you had a personal problem, you were not to discuss it or otherwise let on that something was going on around anyone outside my immediate family (the unspoken idea being that to do so would bring shame upon all of us).  In practice, this extended at least somewhat into discussing issues that affected us within the family as well, leaving us alone an isolated with our problems, repressing and pretending like everything was always 'fine.'  That's a word I can hardly use anymore, as it and the corresponding "It's nothing." are now huge red flags for me in any conversation.

Here's the thing.  Directing shame at 'undesired' behaviors (sexuality, gender, etc) inside the family, while directing those within it to never speak to outsiders for support was a fucking terrible system.  It created a self-reinforcing feedback loop that turned anything outside 'normal' into self-hate, and forced me to emotionally disconnect from my family and wear a mask at all times in order to self-protect.  I understand *why* they did it, that some of these things (religion especially) bring into question their own sense of identity in a way they're not comfortable with, but it's still not something that's easy to confront.  Or forgive.

I'm still fighting these demons, and I don't win every day.  Some days they best me, and it's everything I can do to force myself to go to work.  I'll talk more about my response to anxiety and the accompanying depression in future posts, but suffice to say that I think I understand why anxiety and paralysis are linked for me now, largely as a result of managing to write this out.

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I want to leave with a few resources that have helped me over the years.  I'll be talking about these more in future posts, but for now a short description (and the links) will suffice.

QC is a story about a group of friends in the northeast US who move into an out of relationships with each other.  All of the characters are 'real' in the sense that they all have issues, some of them very serious.  Running the gamut from anxiety to control and OCD, to outright grief, this strip will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.  And all the time you'll be learning, about both yourself and others.

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1

Venus Envy is recent find, but one I wish I had found ages ago.  Both the artist Erin and the main character Zoe are transgender, and though Zoe's struggles take place way back in high school (well before I managed to break out of *any* of my shell), they still mean a lot.  If you've ever wanted to understand a transgender person's desire to just fit in, be normal, and be accepted, you'll want to read this.  Beware though, it's not an easy read.  Lots of tears ahead.

http://www.venusenvycomic.com/index.php?id=2

Sunstone is another recent find.  I've actually never considered myself to be interested in BDSM-related material, but this comic caught me a bit by surprise.  The way it portrays an alternate lifestyle in such a positive and loving way, with no fear or judgment, is absolutely huge.  Learning new ways love can be seen and experienced is never a bad thing, and as much as it surprised me, I think it might surprise you. 

(NSFW link warning) http://shiniez.deviantart.com/gallery/35675685/chapter-1-completed?offset=0

This is going to be a somewhat-sequel to my previous 'Touchy-feely' journal from way back in November, which can be read here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4068006/. ; I'm not sure exactly where it's going to go, but it's important for me to write it out, as I need some help.  It may not make a lot of sense at first, but bear with me if you can, as I could use some wisdom just now.

This story, such as it is, will mention a few individuals anonymously.  The point of mentioning them is not to single them out, or blame them for anything, but rather, to thank them for things that I doubt they understood the importance of at the time.  Their small, caring actions fundamentally changed both myself and the way I look at the world in a way that's going to take quite some effort to describe.  Unfortunately, there are a few complications whenever something like that happens, and this story is no exception.  Let's begin, shall we?

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I am a furry.  Silly statement, I know, on a website such as this, but it means a bit more to me than people realize.  (It perhaps matters more than it should, but that's not the ground we're going to tread tonight.)  To clarify, that doesn't make me an otherkin, therian, were, or anything else of the sort.  I'm just a human with a stranger side than most, and a healthy respect for legends and the power they command.

Unlike most furs I've met, I didn't self-identify as a furry for a very long time, though in hindsight I can say that I've been a furry since I was old enough to get on the internet, starting at about 13 years old.  That age is known for a few things, and I was no exception.  I found a few sites and ended up hooked quite deeply into the adult side of the fandom, choosing a female persona in my online interactions from day one.  I didn't know why, but somehow it just felt right.  Years passed, and as I mentally fought with my religious upbringing, I turned away and back several times.  As time passed, my 'sona also changed, from mostly human, to naga, and then finally, to the bi-gender dragoness I've now settled on.  It's taken years for me to come to terms with this, and most of my progress on that front has resulted very directly from discovering other people like myself, in terms of not just furry, but also not-quite-standard gender identity and sexuality.  I still might be the strangest person in the room, but I'm among others who are okay with that, and that means the entire world to me.  Specifically, you guys reading this mean the world to me.  You are kinder, more thoughtful, and all have your own little twist that makes life a bit more interesting!

Back to the subject at hand...

Since my last post, I've had a bit of a hard time dealing with some things on the emotional front.  My barriers have been crashing down right, left, and center, and leaving me quite exposed to a lot of feelings that I'd sealed off without ever meaning to.  Can you imagine what finally recognizing affection means to someone?  How about how confused they are when they find themselves physically attracted as well?  It sounds crazy, but I somehow lost this a long time ago, and have only rediscovered it in the last two years or so.  It's come crashing in, shaking apart many assumptions I'd made about myself...  (Can you believe I thought I was straight as an arrow until two years ago, even while having a herm 'sona?  WTF, past self, wtf?)

You guys helped with that, and I'm very grateful, as I really did need that part of myself to be a healthy whole.  All the little playing, teasing, etc, helped break through walls that all the gunpowder on the planet could never have hoped to breach.  It's also left me in a very serious bind.

Imagine, for a moment, that you wake up for the first time in your 26 years and discover that you've been missing something all your life.  Imagine having drifted away from family for various reasons, and somehow never having had much beyond fairly good friends in the meantime.  Add to that never trusting anyone enough to tell them your secret, that you are a fur, and of the type that the stereotypes warn about.  Imagine that somehow converging into a mental place where *it never even occurred* to you to date, or seek out a serious relationship with someone else.  Imagine thinking that you were strong enough to handle everything on your own, and then imagine those illusions shattering like a fortress constructed entirely of glass.  This is my problem.

In all 'normal' respects, I appear perfectly fine, my life in general being considerably less complicated than for most.  However, this recent internal turmoil has damned near brought me to my knees a few times in the last year.  A few months back, a friend of mine simply held me for a few minutes, snugging up and giving me a hug.  She didn't know it, and I was so surprised that I didn't realize it at first, but it was the first time ever in my life that a friend had done that.  It shattered me.  I had no benchmark, no yardstick for that level of geniune affection, and I broke down crying.  It was the second of three 'happiest moments of my life' that seem to be coming at an alarming rate as of late.  In answer to the obvious questions, nothing 'untoward' happened.  It was a simple hug, letting me know that she cared, and even that nearly broke me.  Weeks later, as my mind caught up with that simple act, I realized for the first time in my life that I was deeply lonely.  Not only lonely, but that I had been for a long time, and had never known.  That realization hit me like a cannonball to the gut, and I was still trying to handle that when...

...a few friends, and even a few strangers have recently complimented my appearance or made advances towards me.  Holy crap, batman.  What does do?  Brain what now... *faceplant*.  I'm blushing even as I write this damned text.  I was, and am utterly flattered by those remarks, and in most cases was far too embarrassed to return them, even though I felt the same.  This sounds crazy, but I've never had that happen before either, and I sure as hell don't know how to deal with it.  Physically, I am a 26 year old virgin, but mentally, I've been involved in the adult side of the fandom for the better part of 13 years, RP scene included.  One side of my brain turns into a gibbering idiot, and the other... well, let's just say my fursona is a hermaphrodite for a reason.  That side would like nothing more than to... *clears throat*  Back to the subject...  (To note, I am genuinely gender-confused, and that seems to be the happy medium as far as I'm concerned.  I don't consider myself fully trans-gendered, but I certainly fall into that spectrum somewhere...  That's a big part of the reason this has taken so long and been so difficult.  >.<)

I'm just very confused...  I don't know what to do, and I've been afraid to even write this for fear of scaring friends off.  There are way too many furs out there who write journals similar to this, tending towards the emotional vampirism state in the process.  I'm not that, and will never be.  I just need some help...  I need someone, someones, or even everyone, to talk to about some of this stuff, and I need some feedback (preferably not of the "you're fucking nuts" variety, though that may also be fair :P).  I know I don't always come off as touchy-feely, either, but I could really use a hug as of late.  :s

This is probably the single hardest thing I've ever written, and every word of it is true.  I'm writing this, not to just vent and be all 'woe is me', but in the hopes that at least one of you will have some idea of how to help.  I sure as hell don't know what the hell to do...