What am I?

This past week I attended several events for the Transgender Awareness Week, including two festive events this weekend. 

Last year, only two months after my move from California to Colorado, I attended some similar events for the Transgender Awareness Week. 

A year later now, in many ways I’ve come so far… Even just from the medical viewpoint, I’ve now been taking HRT testosterone for over seven months and had my masculinizing mastectomy over two months ago. So there have definitely been some physical changes which are an important, outward testimony of my internal changes as well. 

I’ve come very far in understanding myself better and, especially, in being/expressing myself more and more authentically. I feel empowered by my legally-approved name change and non-binary ‘X’ gender-marker on my IDs. I love the way my more masculine body looks & feels. Many of my closest friends here in Colorado (& elsewhere) are queer people and I had been looking forward to attending most of the events for Transgender Awareness Week. And yet, at the two festive events this weekend, I realized I still feel somewhat uncomfortable in queer spaces. 

I’m not sure why this is so. I’m guessing it’s due mostly to my upbringing and conditioning. Although inside myself since being a young child I always felt naturally a strong sense of fairness and equality among all human beings (& even all living beings), a spontaneous rejection for racist/homophobic/snobbish concepts that were often voiced in the environments around me, and a strong draw toward queerness especially along the lines of gender-non-conformity & gender-bending, I grew up and for many years lived in spaces filled with homophobic and transphobic talk. My head and heart and soul and body — my whole being — rejected and was disgusted by such talk, but I did hear it, over and over again. How much damage did it do? Have I internalized some transphobia/queerphobia despite myself? Is this the reason why I still feel somewhat uncomfortable in queer spaces, especially those in which there’s a festive, celebratory, exhibitionist vibe? 

Or is it some sort of impostor syndrome I’m experiencing in celebratory/exhibitionist queer spaces, as if I didn’t feel “queer enough”? 

Or is it that I don’t wholly know, yet, who I am, what I really am?

What am I? A boy born in a female body? A non-binary person in between, or beyond, the male & female genders? A gay boy with female genitalia? A pansexual person? An athlete, a scientist, a sailor? 

And why do I even feel the need to give myself a label in the first place?

And why am I still unable to connect intimately (with physical intimacy and romantic love) with people? How is it that so many people I know seem to meet other people with whom they’re able to connect intimately (with physical intimacy and romantic love), whether in person at events or coffee shops or online, while I’m not? How is it that other people get picked up and/or pick up persons they like, while I got picked up only once in my entire life (& it didn’t even work out)? What’s wrong with me? Am I giving out some sort of wrong vibe? 

I feel comfortable and confident as an athlete: both physically in/with my body as an athlete and in spaces & doing activities with other athletes, especially if the other persons are on the more masculine side of the gender spectrum. Most of my confidence and self-esteem, even sense of identity and/or self-worth, come from being an athlete, performing well as an athlete, and having a fit body. In a sense it’s ironic: I spent my entire life since childhood rejecting the images of beauty & vanity that my family of origin tried to shove down my throat and fit me into for years, only to substitute with my own version of it, I guess… 

I feel comfortable as a sailor, in sailing spaces, because it’s an activity or skill in which I feel confident, having developed and honed it for a quarter of a century. 

I feel comfortable and quite confident as an “adventurer”, traveling, exploring, roaming, especially on my motorcycle or out in nature.

Sometimes I feel comfortable and confident in scientific spaces, especially in the academic setting when I’m the instructor. 

And in all of these spaces, I feel more comfortable around men or persons on the non-binary, gender-fluid, or male side of the spectrum. Is that also due to conditioning, to years of getting used to being in male-dominated spaces (sciences, sailing, motorcycle riding, climbing, etc.)? I’m sure that my feeling comfortable in male-dominated spaces is partly due to my own gender identity being more towards the male side of the spectrum: I was similar to the people around me in these spaces so it wasn’t too hard for me to fit in despite having a somewhat different body. But is there some other reason, too? Did I develop a “survival mode” to be, and possibly thrive, in these spaces? Is my getting used to or surviving and trying to succeed in these spaces part of the reason why I developed such a strong attachment to my athletic identity & strong, androgynous/masculine body? 

And is it also survival mode, albeit maybe in some other form, that is keeping me from connecting intimately (with physical intimacy and romantic love) with people? Have I just put on an armor to fight all my battles, to make it through all the storms I had to weather and this armor has simply become too thick and ugly and evident to those around me, keeping them away from me? 

Some friends tell me to “just be” me and do what feels comfortable to me. But how can I be me, if I don’t know what I am? And what if what feels comfortable to me is precisely what is keeping me from being happy?