Fresh Shaved

I got my haircut yesterday, which means this holiday will be the first holiday that I go home with a fresh fade. Usually I purposely let myself get shaggy for a few months before I see my folks. I’m making efforts to not change or cover up who I am to my family. I need to trust in their love and acceptance of me.

Going home is always a pretty fair mix of good and awkward. There’s a lot of love to go around in my family, but there’s also a lot that they just don’t “get.” Just a few days ago I got a text from my dad that’s had me kind of spinning out since. He wrote me a quick message about a news article he had read, and how he thought I would find it interesting. I clicked the link against my better judgement and found myself on a pop science article discussing the idea that trans* individuals do not have male or female brains, but distinct “trans” brains.
My dad has a habit of sending me articles that he wants to talk about in person before we see each other. Usually this is relatively benign, maybe politics at the worst. A couple years ago we had a substantial argument over Mother’s Day when he tried to convince me that there was no good reason for gay people to get married (essentially telling me that marriage is solely for the protection and support of children…). I have not broached any sexuality-related topics with him since then and I don’t feel like I will want to this coming week, either. I especially don’t want to talk to him about brain sex when he was the one who introduced me to Dr. Fine and her work. I’m confused and feel betrayed, and I really don’t want to talk about it. I don’t know where all of this “oh trans people have special brains!” support is coming from when his lack of support (from the standpoint of science and reality) was such a strong indicator to me that I was doing the wrong thing while I was transitioning.

Honestly, sometimes I get really, really tired of carving out space to hold my experiences within “female.” I get tired of coming out constantly about being a woman. I am exhausted from watching my peers transition and from squelching my immediate pangs of jealousy. I’m tired of being the “female exception,” tired of feeling like the whole world is insinuating that I am not like the other girls when I am busting my ass to find connection and common ground with other women. I want to just live and exist in a world where my place within female reality is just a given, where I do not stand out so intensely. I truly and honestly do not think that I am such an anomaly.
I just want to go back into the woods, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to exist out here.