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That sinking feeling…

I’M FEELING super-secure in my masculinity, and/or I’m just not giving a %#$# what people think. I can’t remember the last time I felt that sinking feeling of gender dysphoria, even when I’m completely naked or sitting down to pee or taking my binder off or any of those activities that remind me of my body.

At least I couldn’t remember until today…

I was sitting on the train and I saw this family. A cute little blonde toddler, a boy around seven, girl around nine sitting on her mother’s knee. Next to them, the husband and father, looking contented, chatting to his family. I looked at him… and it suddenly hit me. Just how fucking lucky he was to be a regular guy who had met this gorgeous woman, got married (presumably) and fathered three healthy kids.

Maybe he has a “boring” suburban life (by the looks of him he probably does), going to work, coming home to dinner, watching TV and playing with the kids before going to bed with the wife.

A hell of a lot less ‘interesting’ than my life. But at that moment I would have given anything to have traded places with him. He looked to be in his mid 30s, his wife maybe five years younger than him at the most. I imagined his life story. Going through puberty and having his voice break without any artificial intervention. Having his balls drop instead of boobs swelling up on his chest. Dating girls in high school, going to uni or TAFE, playing footy and cricket and being able to use the changing rooms with no worries.

Going to work and flirting with the girls in the office. Meeting his future wife… being able to get down on one knee and propose without having to think about the legalities of their union or whether they’d just have a ceremony for show. And most of all, the amazing feeling of having a child who has half your genes, who is a part of you.

I wanted all that for myself so badly I felt like crying. All day I’ve been unable to shake off that feeling… that sense of… I don’t know. I guess it’s part loss, because I did make myself deliberately infertile in a sense and I could have had all that except in the female role, if I’d wanted.

But there’s the rub – I couldn’t have had it really, because it would have driven me insane to deny the very essence of who I am. And most of the time I just manage to accept that I am a man who is infertile and lacks a penis and has tits and was raised a girl.

Henry (2004). That sinking feeling. Torque, 4(4), 8.