Gender envy

I can picture my ideal body easily. Slender frame with wide, broad shoulders. A small waist
and barely there hips. Wavy hair that bounces when I run and falls to my cheekbones. A
sharp jaw. Covered in tattoos and piercings so I can be like all the men I thought looked so
cool as a child. A nice, feminine smile and long eyelashes framing wide, round eyes that
have curious children asking if I'm a boy or a girl as their embarrassed parents profusely
apologize. I know exactly what clothes and accessories I'd adorn this ideal body with. The
baggy shirts and loose jeans. Long dangling earrings and a simple necklace. I want to be a
boy so badly, but even more than that I want to be a woman. It eats me alive, the desperate
craving to be like women, to fit in with them. I envy the way women experience emotions,
friendships, relationships, I don't want to lose that. Men seem simple in comparison. The way
groups of girls huddle together, gossiping about mindless things. The way they share
amongst themselves, passing around decorative hand sanitizer bottles, chapstick,
hairbrushes, makeup, tampons, and pads. The way girls will carry things they don't use in
case another girl will need one. Sleepovers where empty air is filled with voices and laughter
late into the night. Doing one another's hair or makeup, dressing in each other's clothes, and
that warm feeling when you find something you like that way and incorporate it into your
daily life so that you now carry a piece of that girl with you at all times. Strangers that talk to
one another like lifelong friends because they found a common interest and then never
speak again, but think of the other whenever they indulge in the interest again. At family
gatherings when the men split off on their own and the young boys follow, eager to appease
the grown-up men. And the girls stay behind because the company of other women and girls
will always be more enjoyable. How the women snicker and make fun of the men that think
they're above conversation with a woman. My heart sinks a bit more each time my mom
takes my sister and I out, calling it a girls trip. I wonder if I'll be excluded once I've
transitioned, and I realize more and more each day I don't want to be. I've recently
discovered that I want children. Childrens first time feeling love is from their mothers, and I
don't know if I'll have that same effect. Boys look up to and respect their fathers, but love
their mothers. When they need to cry it's the first place they go. Mothers are a safe space.
Mothers and sisters are a young girl's first ever best friend. A bond that makes your chest
ache whenever you think of losing it, and I fear I will. The love I feel toward my mom and
sister is unmeasurable, not only because of who they are, but because they know who I am.
We share something men will never understand, growing up as girls. Fathers are admirable,
but no one talks about fathers like they do mothers. Dads see their sons as miniature
versions of themselves, then as competition as they grow taller, stronger, and smarter than
them. Sons will eventually see their dads as an obstacle to proving their worth. Girls know
their fathers will never truly understand them, try as they might. Mothers may not fully
understand, but they know what it's like to grow up as a girl, to have their heart broken and
to be looked down on. I fear that my daughter will believe that I don't understand her, that I
don't know what it's like. I fear that my son will see me as an obstacle to becoming a man
and growing into himself. I fear that they won't love me as they would a mother. I don't think I
could ever admire a man the way I do women, even myself. I wish I were a woman, so I
could experience more of the things I crave. Instead I carry those past experiences into
upcoming manhood and hope that they are enough to make me a better man.
Becoming Like Him

But even saying that feels silly. I don't believe there's such a thing as a good man. I wished
and prayed that I could be like my mom, but each day I become more like my dad. I'm selfish
in a way that's inescapable to those around me. I don't understand how or why anyone
would ever want me, love me. And I take it out on the people I hold close. Everyone's
competition when it's easier to look at them than it is yourself, everyone is a threat when
you've put yourself at the bottom of the chain. I push people away until they break down and
leave, then use it as a sob story to feed my never-ending victim complex. I used to fight
these traits I got from my father tooth and nail, digging myself out of the grave I was meant
to lie in until my hands bled, pleading until my voice gave out. Lately I've numbed myself to
it, playing dumb and ignoring the way I'm becoming. Forcefully clouding my mind and
weakening my own body to escape. I cling more to my mom now than I did as a child.
Cherishing those last bits of her I find in myself. I overheard my dad and brother speaking
today, mocking my mom for wanting to leave. Saying she's overreacting, it's just a thing
women do. It makes me ill to know that one day I'll be looked at and expected to engage in
mockery of the women I love like that. The way that men do. Being told I'm my mother's
daughter will never be as bad as being told I'm my father's son. One is ignorance while the
other is an insult. I'd say my biggest fear is becoming like him.

Dysphoria and the Effects of Girlhood

I don't think there's a single person that grew up as a girl that didn't at some point see their
own body as a weight holding them down. It's ingrained in girls' minds from a young age
what the perfect body looks like, the damaging ways to achieve it, and what boys want in a
girl. I felt all of that, lived through it and still fight against it till this day. As I grew, something
else clawed its way through, nagging at the back of my mind and settling itself underneath
my skin. When I look in the mirror I can feel it bashing against my ribcage, trying to escape.
Hating your body, wanting to change to look like other girls is one thing, but feeling
completely foreign in your own skin is a whole other. I hate my body, I want nothing to do
with it, so I don't care what happens to it. "Rip it to shreds" I used to think. Tear it apart so no
one can tell if you're a boy or girl, mutilated, that's all you need to be. I've let men use it,
even if that thing inside is screaming no because even though I hate it, it's still ingrained in
me that it's flattery if men want it. And if they don't want my body then they must not want
me. So I must keep it presentable, decorate it nicely, show it off, so that I'll be wanted. I can
feel that young girl seeping through in every interaction with a man, drowning any rational
thought out. If he likes you then why hasn't he made a move. If he doesn't want your body
then he doesn't want you. Cut my body open and save what's inside, please. Love what's
inside too. Sew it back together with ropes of vine and let it overgrow into a garden so I can
finally be beautiful.