I am a man. I was born a boy, and I have all the right ‘bits’ to be a man. But I haven’t sat well in my gender, and I haven’t sat well being a ‘man’ or a ‘he’. Perhaps until now.
Growing up I felt limited to be a boy. Like I was boxed in a certain way. Like I had to play a small version of myself and not the full story. I think we have boxed boys and men for so long that part of my unsettledness was simply being part of this cultural tunnel-vision. As boys we get asked to be certain ways: unemotional but capable; non-tactile but physical; functional and not aesthetic; good at certain things and not others. It takes an effort to be different. You’re noticed if you wear a dress or a pair of frilly socks (this wasn’t my thing). You’re noticed if you are too cuddly or talk too much about emotions or your own feelings. You’re noticed if you cry. You’re noticed if you’re shy or fragile. I wanted to fly under the radar so I didn’t want to be different, and I carefully modelled the behaviour and style of my big brother and other boys out there to seamlessly fit in.
What did I want? What was the a gap? What was my yearning? I felt like I wanted something that I perceived to be more ‘female’ territory than I could access. I think I was happy to be a boy in many ways, but I also wanted to experience more, the ‘other side’. Physical closeness with friends, not sexual, but intimacy and sharing. Especially in high school boys stood back more. We didn’t cuddle. We didn’t say nice things about each other. I’m sure I romanticised this, and few girls would regularly experience what I longed for. Of course I never thought it was possible. I was stuck in my gender and I never considered being able to do anything about it.
At university I studied femininity and tomboyishness, and I remember scoring higher on the femininity scale than my gorgeous feminine girlfriend at the time. The scale was stupid, as most psychological scales are, but I found it strange that I, as a guy, would score higher than my female partner on ‘qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women’, if that’s what the scale truly measured.
I’ve often wondered what it means to be female or male, and what it means to be feminine or masculine. I’m not clear on this. On the yin and the yang of people. Of myself. I look like a man. I feel like a man. But I yearn to be able to step into the yin. To be able to be a woman. If I could click my fingers I’d be able to flick between both genders. I’d never considered this was possible, but it feels like a new world is opening up. I can call myself ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘they’. I can change my email signature. Will that feel good? Will it make any difference? Is the label important or the doing? And what would the doing look like?
There’s no real emergence or sudden realisation for me about my own gender. It feels like it’s been brewing for a long time. If anything, I feel more and more like a man, like a clearer case of ‘he’. I feel like I’m finally arriving as a man as I ponder and delve into myself. But I’d love to be bigger and wider as a person than the gender labels offer.
Perhaps I might start using the pronoun on my email signature: ‘He, with complexity‘.