Estrogen Diary – Day 60-ish: Choosing to Take Up Space as a (trans) Woman.

He was 6’8”. If i had only one word to describe him, Texan would do fine.

As he stepped on the elevator, he looked right at me – down on me – as i stood there in my tight green shorts and blue-gray spaghetti strap tank top hands clasped behind my back, looking to the ground to avoid his gaze.

From that moment – his first eye contact was an immediate look of disappointed rejection – i had an awareness of myself in the body of a scared 12 year old girl.

On one hand, it was horrifying to feel
that … vulnerable.

On the other, it was affirming to feel that … woman.

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

Theres this part of me that is amazed to watch – to experience – the changes in my body.

But its a new body and it doesnt move like i imagine my woman does.

And it takes up space different than s
Gynger wants to take up space

I love how when i reach for the coffeepot, my arm – every so subtly – brushes against a blooming baby boob … that never happened before. My body is expanding to take up space.

I love how my left boob is already heavier than my right boob.

I love how my skin feels as soft as every woman – and no man – I’ve ever touched.

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

But I dont want my body – woman or not – to just take up space.

I want to take up space as a woman who is proud while humble, elegant while clumsy, tantalizing, flamboyant, theatrical, sophisticated but earthy, and unapologetically, a trans woman.

Thats a lot of learning and unlearning: especially that last word.

i want to infect my womanhood with the certainty – the same certainty i was taught as a man – that my existence is entitled to take up its own space in this world.

I will not achieve that through violence or the emotional cousins and physical expressions of violence, but through love and the emotional cousins and physical expressions of love.

For decades ive said “Limitless Black Power” is my goal.

Let me now add to that “Limitless Chick Power.”

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

I think what im going through right now is that im choosing how i will live.

Thats been the anti-story of my life: my name, my “values and beliefs”, my way of life, my likes and dislikes, my friends and my community…my home….my family ….. my identity … has been chosen me for my whole life.

Being a man – at least for me for now – is about rules. You have to be and act certain ways or you are not trusted to faithfully execute the Office of Man. Violence, and its emotional cousins, are the consequence of rule breaking.

Being a woman – at least for me for now – is not about rules. Its about choices and the discernment necessary to make choices that further my belief that “Everyone gets L.A.I.D.”

There are no rules about what it means to be a Woman.

Yes, male apologists like JK Rowling try to make up rules – and some are beguilingly accessible – but defining woman is kinda like trying to define Love, isnt it?

And so that is the first lesson of being a woman that ive been trying to wrap my head around: i get to CHOOSE how i want to present as a Woman to the world.

Ive only recently started to choose how I want to dress.

Ive just chosen my name and have started the process of changing it.

Ive never chosen how i want my living space to look and feel.

Ive never chosen what I want or look for in a friend, or chosen the nature of the relationships I want with people.

Ive never chosen how i want to do “the fuck”. Or who I want to do it with, in many respects. Sometimes, If I want to do it at all.

Maybe that can all be fun and not scary.

🫶 🤍 🧡 ❤️ 🩷 👩🏻‍🦰 🍯
Gynger St Clare

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