Tenacious Honesty

Coming up with something to write has been tricky for me the last few days. I've had a lot of things on my mind, most of them a little too personal for here, even for me.

Jesus, just like that I thought of something.

So why is it I can be so candid? I do share a lot of personal feelings and experiences. It is actually a result of how I defended my feelings to myself when I was hiding this from everyone. What happened to me was that I started doubting my feelings and desires during my teen years, but all that doubt started taking over other areas of my life. I started doubting my actions, my thoughts, my choices, and I needed to come up with a way to accept all of these things I doubted.

I guess luckily I had seen people's misguided judgments on the actions, thoughts, feelings, choices, and desires of others for what they are. So I assumed I was making the same misguided judgments on myself, and it practically saved my life. Instead of believing my own doubts, or believing what other people thought about those things in me I started looking for reasons why I, and they, could be wrong.

The answer is simple really, but it wasn't a simple process to get to, or accept. The simple answer is there is no reason at all to judge any thing anyone does. (For the sake of this argument, I'm going to leave out people intentionally hurting others.)

To use myself as an example. I would get the insatiable craving (the only way to describe it) for feminine clothes. I would shame myself away from the store for an undisclosed period of time before I would eventually build up more desire and courage then fear and go to the store. The shaming of myself always came in the form of what others would think. Would a woman say something while I was looking at the racks of clothes? Would the cashier say something to me while checking me out? What are all of these people thinking?

I remember I had one emotional breakthrough one day at Winners. I was standing in line at the check out with three or four pairs of panties in my hand. There was an older lady ahead of me that I didn't take much notice of and she didn't say anything to me. When I handed the cashier the clothes I had she leaned in and said to me.

"That lady could not stop staring at your panties."

My reaction surprised me, I laughed and said something like "Ah well, some old people are close minded."

Now in my head, in the moment, she didn't emphasize 'your' enough to make me think she was thinking I was going to go home and put them on myself. It seemed like she meant they were 'mine' like buying a chainsaw and baby food are both 'mine'.

On my way home though the reality started hitting me. I didn't have a chainsaw and baby food, I had three pairs of panties. I didn't say they weren't mine, she really seemed unfazed, but the others in the line behind me (I had stepped ahead and turned around a little) were a combination of shocked and mortified as the cashier and I talked. If she wasn't so nonchalant about the whole situation it would have went down differently.

I felt exhilarated after I realized what happened. It was a split second of the mask being off, even if the cashier or the people in line had no idea what was going on, and someone was ok with it. To my face.

It reinforced what I was starting to come up with on my own. That there is no reason to judge people. I was just "caught" and the worst thing that happened to the people around me was they had to deal with an emotion they probably weren't expecting to deal with in a line up at Winners.

I think being transgender forces you to be open-minded, though I have seen examples that that isn't necessarily true. It did force me to be though, I didn't feel right not accepting people for their 'different' wants and desires because I didn't want people to do that to me.

Now how this all relates to my being so candid would take a philosophical trip through my brain. The short story of it though is I don't think anyone should be forced to hide their feelings from anyone. Force coming far more subtlety then the violence we all focus on, It comes from people's unspoken discrimination. Not to get too deep, but we all believe we have freedom of thought, the most basic freedom, but do we? When you start thinking things that you know the majority of society isn't "ok" with at this point in history you can easily start to shame yourself. You start berating yourself for thinking these things, for feeling these feelings 'no one' else does. That isn't freedom of thought.

My honesty comes from that belief. I feel like we shouldn't be afraid to talk to others about our personal selves. In fact, when in humanity did it start to not be that way? I feel like this is something intrinsic in us all. We all want to be heard, to have our feelings shared and accepted, with and by others. Why should I hide how I feel? Am I the only one on the planet with feelings? The point here seems so obvious to me I'm not sure how much I can keep going without beating a dead horse.

I've gone through some hard times, I am going through some hard times. In some ways, it's harder now then it was before, but in others it's far easier. Why not share that with people? Someone will read it and take comfort they aren't alone, someone will read it and understand a friend a little better, someone will read it and give me some assurance, or confidence that day. All of these people I could possibly be helping, how much I'm helping myself, all coming from the ability to be open about myself, something  we all have the ability, and desire, to do.

Not to sound selfish or pitiful but one thing that has come from my being honest is actually seeing how hard things have been for me. There are several things, and several people that after I talked to had said "wow I had no idea." or something of that nature, and it's about something that has been a regular part of me for all of my life. It gives me some perspective. I've tried to deal with this with the attitude of "I can handle this, everyone's life sucks, mine's no worse." and that was hurting me. Doing my best to convince myself I can handle it on my own, and I did convince myself for the most part.

At the same time I'm getting this feedback it's also explaining to them more of what's going on. So little is known of transgender people and every bit of information about us that we can get out there is better for us. Even if it is something as simple as letting a friend know how hard life has been. Now they know that, now they can share that with their cis friends so they can understand a little more, or any trans friend that need their support.

There are times I feel anxious about what I've written or said to people about my personal feelings. Every single time I'm worried about what others would think of the 'real' me. I'm not worried someone will "prove me wrong" or catch me in a lie because I'm being to open and honest to leave room for that. I am worried about someone reading it and thinking "Holy crap, stay the hell away from Becky." when all I'm doing is telling you how I feel.

It is very liberating. Essentially I'm walking into a crowded room and scattering sheets of paper that is "my life" all over the table and staring people in the eyes while they look over it all. It's the end result of all the hiding, it's a "Here I am, here is everything. Judge me as you will and move on. I'm done being afraid to live."