Tranny Queer, I’m a Man, Baby

The Artist D

When I was 13 years old I remember being so angry that people didn’t know I was a girl. It was one of my few lifetime ambitions to become the woman I knew that I was. It hurt when people around me said I was a boy. It made me angry when I was mistaken for a boy.

As I grew older and into my teenagehood of fabulousness I began dressing like the girl I felt inside. By the time I was 18 I was a flaming pile of fleshy rage towards anyone still refusing to accept me as female. I remember how insulted it felt to know I was one thing while other people kept calling me the other thing. I hated my gender label, the names I was given, the things people thought I was, and the boring clothes I was forced to wear. Because I was not. I was not, not, not!

Eventually I paved my own road and shucked my world clean of those confused people. I entered into another  world more customizable to my vision and found my own tribes. They called me what I wanted to be called because people tend to do that if they don’t know you. “Hello, I’m the fabulous Artist D . . .” and from then on people called me she, her, it, or just “This is D, yes, just D, no, please don’t ask . . .”

I am now in my 30s and for the first time in my life I am embroiled with confusion and offense when someone calls me “she.” The tables have turned and I don’t know what happened. Without knowing it I morphed from the marshmallow peep into the marshmallow bunny and didn’t notice the transition. I was born a biological boy and demanded that I was a girl because I knew I was. Then somewhere along that stretch of road I became the man I never knew I could be.

This is difficult to explain to you, beautiful stranger, because you need to avoid jumping to conclusions. Sometimes when I think about gender and my feelings it sounds as if it was always an ego thing. I hated being a boy. I thought no one liked me and I couldn’t blame them because I couldn’t stand me. They knew I was different, because I truly did feel different. Which is why this isn’t entirely about ego! I really am different. I really was and am odd in an amazingly fabulous way which few appreciated. They sensed from an early age that I was gay. But even more so they sensed I was something even more different. Something they couldn’t peg and it sent them into wild bullying tangents. These only made me dislike the plain yet different boy that they saw.

I fell in love with throwing on a wig and some bargain basement drugstore makeup because people loved her so much. I truly did feel like I belonged in that wig and those heels. I really did feel more comfortable in a dress than pants. I get it, gentle readers. I’m so with you on this quest to be who you know you truly are. The only difference between some of us is that we’re not all on the same quest. Some of our paths change and we don’t even see it coming until it’s already happened!

I never transitioned. I just went on with my gender queer self and somewhere turned from that peep into the bunny. From boy to girl to woman to man. Now I find myself in my 30s and I love myself. I found a world who accepts me for being myself. Sometimes the more sensitive creature inside of me wants to cry because I am surrounded by people who do not think of me as inferior, childlike, or irresponsible. They look up to me as a peer and a Director of Things. If Artist D says it’s a good idea then it’s a good idea and hey let’s all head into this ballroom and see what happens next! Maybe love and acceptance can make more of a difference than we know or maybe my genetic male hormones finally kicked in and ate her.

I now find myself being offended when people call me “she.” I find myself at the other end of the spectrum than I started. They now call me “her” because they have always called me “her” and it’s because I wanted them to. It’s no longer their fault for assuming as I already told them what to call me and they did!

I find myself sitting here on the gender queer fence and in a tranny queer melting pot of my own brew. I made them call me female and now I want them to call me male. But I’ve been so enraged by being called either or one at the wrong time that I can never blame anyone for ever slipping up. We used to say back in the day that if it was in a dress always be sure to call it “she” and I think that rule can still stand. It may stand taller now than ever in the age of the pandrogyne.

This chapter is not meant to dismiss people who require physical gender reassignments. A lot of transgender people can easily misread me  and I would ask that you give it some relaxed thought. If it’s not your thing then it’s not your thing. I know it can seem offensive to people who are dead set on the path they are on. To think anyone can go back and forth as if it was all an emotional egotistical spasm.

I’m often called out in the trans community because I’ve always had that gender queer in my ranting and raving. I do not think people can change their minds about it. You’ve just got to be you!  Some people have to be one or the other and then there are some others who can crisscross wildly. The transgender person who truly has been born into the wrong body still remains one of the many ways to be in this world. (And stay tuned for the next chapter for more about that!)

All I know about my truth is that many years ago I yelled, “I’m a woman, goddammit!” Today I quietly correct, “I’m a man, baby.” I ate her. I ate the marshmallow peep.

Tags: featured, genderqueer, Identity, pandrogyne, theartistd, Transgender, Transition

Category: Transgender Body & Soul