Just as peeling an onion reveals many sub-layers, so human sexuality can present a complexity when one looks beneath the surface of the socially accepted binary labels of male & female. I use this particular image to give, what I consider, a tantalising glimpse into the place where my sexuality leads me. I’ve lived with my male assigned gender reasonably happily through my life to date. However, underlying that outward image since a very early age, I have also felt very strong affinity with my more feminine feelings.I have spent years agonising over the rights and wrongs of my dual existence, to the point where I am reasonably comfortable that I enjoy being a happy synergistic blend of my male and female personalities.
In an alternate life story I could have been born female & had a completely different take on how that life played out. I could also have been born in a generation, like today’s, where, given the way I feel now, I might have chosen to fully transition from male to female. That would be the extreme end-point to my years of self-analysis, trying to define irrefutably where I truly fit in the transsexual spectrum.
Today, living as a cross dressing male, still increasingly curious to reach the point of experiencing life as a woman as authentically as possible, I continue to add more layers to my experiences. The truth, however, is that I can never truly reach full understanding, due to the ultimately inescapable fact that, even with gender re-assignment surgery, my birth gender means that I will never have the development cycles, life experiences and complete anatomy of a cis woman. That is my personal viewpoint, others will disagree.
To try to summarise. I am incredibly curious regarding how my life would have played out had I been born female. I am so envious of the more frivolous aspects of femininity, in which I indulge myself as a cross dresser whenever possible. I love feminine fashions & choices, makeup, hairstyles, lingerie, perfumery & friendships. However there is a darker side to being a woman, cis, trans, lesbian, black, white, Asian or otherwise. Women still suffer in a predominantly male dominated world. That should never be allowed to happen. None of us would be here if not for a woman at the beginning of our story. Women face abuse, exploitation, limited opportunities and ignorance in this world, not to even mention the prevalence of gynaecological disorders & cancers in their lifetimes.
Ultimately, whether I am myself, bisexual, Trans or whatever blend of those labels, I love, appreciate & wonder at femininity. This blog is an attempt to illustrate my personal layers from my alternative viewpoint in a confusingly complex dilemma.
Laura.
