the burg of doom

Transgender

So a few weeks ago, I posted this work.

Antigen- a piece about the sensation of gender dysphoria

However, I never really explained here anything about the piece or my drive to do it, and I’d like to take the opportunity to do that now.

(Some of you may have followed me over from deviantart, and if that’s the case you’re probably already aware, but I’m going to delve into a little more explanation here so feel free to read on :) )

I am what is referred to as an FTM, F2M or female-to-male transsexual. Which means I was born female bodied, but I have never been female in mind/heart/soul to put it cheesily. Now before Chaz Bono came out there wasn’t really much coverage or educational media about FTM people, and what was and sometimes still is out there about transsexuals, and transgender people is often pretty biased and also often watered down to humor. This doesn’t do much for understanding, and truthfully a lot of people don’t agree with how Chaz is representing the FTM community either. I don’t have a huge following, and who’s to say I’d really do it any better (I’m certainly not implying so), but still, I want to explain this in the best way I can. I don’t expect anyone to come away with a perfect understanding or in perfect agreement, because unless you ARE a transgender person you likely will have never had these sensations, and obviously everyone experiences things differently, but a measure of understanding is my hope.

So what does it mean to have been born with a female body but with the mind of a male?

A lot of transgender people, whether male or female gender, will have their own explanation of this. But before I go into my own understanding first I want to separate sex and gender, what most people consider the exact same thing. Have you ever wondered why girls are expected to wear pink or play with dolls, and boys are expected to wear blue and play with trucks or trains or cars? That is very simplified but you get the point. These things have nothing to do with your body parts do they? What do trains and barbies have to do with your body at all? Why are they even specific to boys or girls? In different parts of the world, even in different time periods, these expectations of boys and girls have changed dramatically.

This is gender. And it doesn’t just include what people expect of you, in fact quite the opposite, it is, MUCH more than anything else, a part of what makes you you.

Gender is a part of your personality in a way, right down to the core, so deep it’s something you cannot change, and it’s with you forever. As a child, your parents may have tried to coerce you to play with certain toys and wear certain clothes because you were male or female, but that doesn’t mean you did it or liked it does it? You can be male and play with barbies and love pink can’t you? You can be female and still like to play sports and roll around in the dirt can’t you? Of course! Everyone knows deep down who and what they are, and this drives how they act, react, what they like or dislike etc. You know what you like and don’t like, and you know how you feel. No one can tell you those things, only you. You are the one who knows the ins and outs of your own personality, and this is the same with gender.

There is always a core to your personality, some things will change with time, and some will always be the same at the center, and gender is something that does not change. Yes your ideas about gender may change, what you like and don’t like may color this idea, add to it, change your ways of expressing it, change your understanding, but it is and will always be at the core, instinctual. At least it has always been for me.

In my own terms, to the core of my persona, I have always been male. And many transgender people may agree with this. It is a sensation of complete detachment from certain parts of my body, because how I feel and who I am does not align with what is female.

Consider this scenario for a moment, waking up to find your body completely altered from what it was, completely unrecognizable. You look down and who on earth is this?! Who are you? The inside is there, but the outside is completely different! Obviously it would feel horrendous, extremely distressing, crippling even, to consider going through life this way from now on. How did it happen? How to fix it, how to cover up, how to live your life with these things that are not you at all? The solution to waking up this way is to change it back obviously, or do whatever it took to make them match again. What you do is ultimately up to you right? Except suddenly it is everyone’s business, and they all say no no, you’ve always been this way, this is who you are! Only those who have experienced this understand completely, and how many people have really woken up in the wrong body?

This is how I, and many transgender people, wake up every day. This is body dysphoria, gender dysphoria, and it is the part of transgender most not-transgender (also referred to as CIS or cisgendered) people do not understand.

This sensation is what I did ‘Antigen’ to express. In your mind, you are one thing, you are free and yourself through and through, outside of it you are being swallowed by a hollow something that is not you at all, it is completely different from you, something else entirely. And some would wish it to swallow you completely, conform you to something they understand so they don’t have to try and consider the complexity that things actually are.

For some people this is what it feels like to be transgender. Everyone experiences their life differently, it means different things to everyone, but many transgender people who can and eventually do come to terms with it (many never make it that far, suicide rates are extraordinarily high for transgender people) decide to change their body and/OR lifestyle to fit who and what they are. And that is my case as well.

So here I am, Asher Dumonchelle, previously Ashley, coming to you and saying I am no longer lying to you or myself. I am male, my name will match that now, and my body will too one day. I hope you can take away from this some small measure of understanding, and if you do I hope you spread the word, reblog, link, tweet, what have you.

Thanks for listening.