I don't identify within the gender binary anymore. I don't really feel like I'm in the wrong body, or like I would like nothing better than to go back and be reborn as male, nor do I want to live as just a man and not have my transsexual past be known except by those closest to me. That's not me. Some will say this means I'm no longer transsexual, but I think most would call me a transsexual anyway since I'm on hormones and have had top surgery (chest reconstruction), and since I do identify and want to be seen as a guy. I still use the term transsexual to define myself; it's just that a lot of people get a certain image in their head when you say "transsexual," and that image isn't really me. (That's what this poem's about.)

This poem was published in Issue #95 (Fall 2001) of Transgender Tapestry. Go me!

(Written spring 2000)

It's different.
When you talk about "men," you probably don't mean me.
When you talk about "females," you probably don't mean me either.
When you talk about "butches," you probably still don't mean me.
When you talk about "transsexuals," even then you probably don't mean me.
But I am all of those things.
I am a butch female transman.
I am a man, but I wasn't taught or expected to be a man.
I don't see things the way other men do.
It's different.
I am a female, but I never took the lessons of "being female" to heart.
I don't see things the way other females do either.
It's different.
I am a butch, but I'm not woman-identified or dyke-identified and never was.
But butch is still a part of who I am.
It's different.
I am a transsexual, but I don't feel like a "man trapped in a woman's body." I don't mind my female body. Just certain parts of it.
I can be a butch man.
I can be a female man.
I can be a transsexual who doesn't absolutely hate his body.
I can be whoever I am.
I am a butch female transman,
And it's different.