gender. wtf.

i don' know if this will make sense at all but i will write it anyway.

i can't wrap my mind around this whole gender thing.

i can't.

i try very hard to be proper, i don't want to offend anyone or fuck up anyone's pronouns, because to me there is nothing more embarrassing. it is not that i don't understand someone's decisions about their gender. i just don't understand gender as a thing- what is it?

is this making any sense?

when i was in senior soc, my teacher told us that we do not actually have any recollection of our memories from when we were younger- that they are probably actually a creation of our imagination pieced from stories we have been told. i wanted to tell her that she was full of shit because no one ever told me about the first time i realized i was female and i am sure ive never told anyone about the time that i realized for sure that i wasnt female.

---

i was young and wild and in jamaica. a lot of my stories start off like that, me being young and wild and in jamaica. but this story was different. i was very young, maybe three, maybe four. my cousin shelly anne and i were swinging on the gate in the entrance of the house. i dont think i can describe this gate lookswise, because to be honest, i dont remember. now, it would probably be a little higher than my navel and it was a beautiful gate, all made of iron. back then, the gate had to be my height, most likely taller, and my cousin shelly anne and i would take turns swinging back and forth on the gate, in front of the entrance to the house. no one would pay us any mind, because what could they say to us? we were young and wild and we had to learn our lessons on our own. they could only pray that we didnt have to crack our heads open to learn our lesson.

so shelly anne and i were swinging away, like usual. we would stand on the bottom of the gate, and clutch our hands around the wrought iron designs in the gate as we swung. but stupidly, we decided to ride the gate. we wanted to ride it because we were wild and crazy and stupid, so we did. i wanted to go first and have stacy push me. she wanted to go first and so she obliged and pushed me. she pushed me right off that gate and on the way down i hurt that soft spot between my legs and the pain hurt so bad that i wanted to cry. but i didnt- not then. instead, i went to the bathroom and squatted down on the toilet and i peed and it hurt. as i inspected the damage i noticed a hole that was never there before- the hole that the pee was coming out of! so i began to cry because i was broken now, because there was a hole in me and it was shelly anne's fault. and i told my aunt and anyone else that would listen and they just laughed at me and called me a silly little girl and hoped that id learn my lesson, to not play on the gate. but no one ever told me what that hole was and how to fix it so ive been broken ever since because now theres a hole where there shouldnt be one.

---

i dont remember how old i was when i jacked off for the first time. i had masturbated before but this was different, jacking off was different. i would close my eyes and i would touch my thighs and run my fingers through my pubic hair, and grab my penis with one hand, sometimes two, depending. and i would pump up and down and if you saw me doing this you would think that i was crazy, pumping the air in front of me. but it worked- it was doing something for me, because i would arch my back and sigh, and i would close my eyes real tight and i could feel it. i cold feel myself getting hard, getting real hard from all the pumping. my breath would get all quick, and my back would be so far up off my mattress, i would begin pumping into my hand like i don't know what, like i couldn't get enough of this feeling. it was like this invisible limb. i couldn't see it but it was there because i could feel it in my hand. and right before i could climax it would go away like there was this barrier between me and the pleasure that i wanted.

i dont think there is anything more frustrating than not being able to jack off properly.

i think maybe it was the shame of what i was doing. i never thought of this as a fantasy, because it wasnt- to me it was real. i was really pumping something and getting a reaction. but i got earlier and realized that this is kind o silly because i am a girl and girls dont have invisible penises that they can jerk off whenever they want. thats not normal at all.

i would assume that this is because i was a man in a past life, that it was like body memory. or that being she meant being s/he, that you are both. because you are not human when you are woman, you are goddess. and god is both male and female because s/he is whole, s/he is both, just like i am or i was or i might be. but thats very cocky of me (no pun intended) because how dare i compare myself to god, that is silly, that is blasphemous, that is such a human thing to do.
---

i am neither butch nor femme. i am neither man nor woman. then what the hell am i? i remember i cried one night when i tried to think about it. and the night after that. and by the third night i was done crying because i was all dried out and confused. what the hell am i.

i remember when i was 14 my mother was very frightened because i had not bled yet for the first time. i could care less because it seemed like such hard work, being a woman, but i wanted to experience it at least. my mom complained to my family about it, why wasnt i bleeding? what was wrong with me?

that very night i bled for the first time and i had this feeling of satisfaction but i was so humiliated that i didnt say anything because i didnt want my mother to see how womanly and vulnerable i had just become. i took some tissue and stuck it in between my legs and i went to bed although i didnt sleep at all because i was so uncomfortable. and i woke up to a wet pool of red and shame because now i had to tell my mother- there was no way getting around it now. so i did, and she smiled in her awkward mother way and said congratulations and called my father all the way in philadelphia and told him that i was a woman now. and she handed me the phone and all he said was now you can get pregnant. i told him i wont and changed the subject. no one ever mentioned my bleeding again. thank god. i only bleed once a year, if even that. i dont think i can actually get pregnant.

---

sometimes i wonder what i would look like if i didnt have big breasts. if i had no breasts. i wonder if i would look better. my mother told me today that my breasts looked smaller and i felt uncomfortable. what was i supposed to say? should i be happy or sad? i envy girls with small breasts. they can hide them if they want. they can show them off if they want. my breasts are like a neon sign. they mark me so blatantly as something woman.

a man asked me for directions one day from his car and i leaned down by his passenger window and said that i couldnt help him because i did not know. and he said in response, damn, you got some big ass titties. yeah, i guess i do. i wonder if that should make me smile or make me cry. it depends on the day. i wonder if my breasts determine my gender. am i female because of them? does that mean i should wear makeup and skirts because i have big breasts? what if they were gone- would it be okay to wear baggy jeans and polos then? can i be a woman with pearls and polos and no breasts? can i be a man in a dress and sneakers and large breasts? i don't know.

i envy people who know. people who don't question that they are male or female. who have a clear(er) idea of what that means. i don't know. i'm so confused. but i'm trying to understand- i want to understand myself, my own gender, and the gender of those that i love and know. is there an inbetween place? not a confused place, just a... grey area. and if so, do some of those inbetween people look like me?are there breasts large or small? do they call themselves male or female? do they tell people how they feel or do they keep it to themselves? are they s/hes too, like god? are they complete? or are they empty vessels- neither he nor she, with nothingness trapped between their legs?