I’ve been posting a lot of pictures of girls performing the various roles discussed in my posts recently. Pretty sure you don’t have to be a psychologist to figure out why, if you’ve been reading any of this at all.
Turns out, just like choosing genders in video games, I am still self-conscious about this, went out of my way to find one that didn’t explicitly feature a female for this post’s picture. I really do hate myself sometimes.
This post is about my (what feels to be) irreconcilable self-image.
I think I’ve mentioned that I hate looking at pictures of myself. I’d say that I’m on the lower end of “average” for a guy in terms of size, but every time I see myself, I look at how big and awkward I am. Not graceful in the slightest, just lumbering and awful.
I hate my male body, I really do. I can’t help it. I don’t know why, and I wouldn’t wish it on another, but I do.
Here’s a question I once found in my research of transgenderism:
“You are presented with two buttons. By pushing one, you would remain male, and never again have any feelings of gender dysphoria. You would never hate your genetic sex again. By pushing the other, you would become completely female, and moreover, everyone you ever knew would only ever have known you as female. You would be no different from any other natal female. Which would you push?”
This is supposed to be a “test” for determining whether or not you are transgender. And I’ll be honest: the first option disgusts me, while the second one would be the realization of my very deepest desire.
In fact, for many years during my adolescence, and long before I found that question, I prayed for this very reality. This probably sounds blasphemous if you are religious, but it is a fact. Every night, I would pray for those I loved, those that were sick, and then, I would pray to wake as a girl, and for everyone to only have known me as such.
This post is not a discussion of my spirituality, but I will add this disclaimer: I don’t believe that prayer is a form of wish-fulfillment, even though I have foolishly treated it as such before. But I do feel that I have a deep spiritual connection with God, and prayer has comforted me innumerable times when nothing else could.
The truth is, neither buttons offer a reality. My reality is that I was born male, and internally, I identify as female. Do I admit this and seek help? Do I transition?
In a way, nothing would make me happier than to do just that; it’s as close to the second button as I will ever get. But then I think of how I will look at myself in the mirror after making that decision. And I am absolutely disgusted.
I don’t know if my external reflection could ever be representative of how I perceive myself, or how I want to perceive myself. The only thing I see for myself down that road is as a grotesque “other.” A warped, hideous simulacrum of a female, lonelier than I already am, pitied at best, hated at worst, and never loved again.
I’ve also prayed, many times over, to cry at my sadness. But the tears rarely, if ever, come.
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