There are many things about which I do not allow myself the luxury of contemplation. I keep these things tucked away in the back of my thoughts, covered with whatever I can find in the hopes that they will remain forever hidden from me. I do this because to consider these things – to bring them into the forefront of my thoughts – is simply too painful. They become too much of a distraction – to the point where they will occupy the majority of my thoughts. They become an almost deafening noise in my head – and once released, they are difficult to re-capture and once again tuck away. And so I bury them – as deeply as possible – in the hopes that they never again see the light of day.

It doesn’t work … It never does.

I think I can understand why some people turn to drugs or drinking: anything to make the noise stop – to make the daemons return to from whence they came… If only for a while.

I accept that I’m trans, that I’m genderqueer, and that I’m never going to consider myself to be ‘a woman’… But what I cannot deny is that I want to be seen as a woman: not some anomaly. More than just that, I want to be seen as desirable as a woman. And most of all, to be desired by a woman, as a woman.

Like I said, there are things I keep locked away – because to consider them aloud can be profoundly painful.

I know that this ‘fantasy’ of mine will never be realized. I don’t pretend that ‘maybe some day’ it will happen. I know better – I’m not that naive. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is something I carry around inside of me and, despite my best efforts, I am unable to shed. Lately, it seems that the light has been hitting this one far too often.

I always have preferred girls (when younger) and women as friends over men. Somehow, being with girls / women has always felt right to me. There is something at an emotional level I get that I cannot seem to get from friendships with men. This has always been the case for me – even before I knew what ‘trans’ was or that it applied to me.

Men tend make me feel uncomfortable: not all the time, but often enough. I don’t know what to call it, but there is definitely a different vibe hanging out with women – and I feed off of that. It’s a positive energy: not an affirmation of me as a ‘woman’, but of someone they consider a peer – as ‘one of their own’. I know more about who has their period, who waxes what, who’s been lasered and where. We talk about spouses, kids, families – relationships. We interact in a way which I never have with men – nor have I ever seen men interact. One thing I have never been is the ‘guy’ at the table with my women friends.

I have, for the first time in my life, what I can only characterize as a girlfriend: not in the romantic sense, but in the ’share your secrets’ sense. We take the train together twice a day. We share, we laugh, we cry… We are there for each other emotionally and have had far too many long discussions about issues in both of our lives. It is not a relationship I could ever see myself have with a guy – ever. It is a different kind of relationship – one that satisfies different emotional needs. And while my friend from the train doesn’t see me as a ‘woman’, the interaction we have much more closely models that of ‘girlfriends’ than it does a guy-girl friendship. One big thing I get from this is that she does not see me as ‘trans’. She no longer sees what others see when they look at me. All she sees is me – a person who is her friend: I cannot describe how special that is to me. And as far as I can tell, my other women friends treat me in a similar manner. Perhaps it’s me seeing what I want see, but they seem more ‘accepting’ of me than men. Of course, I want them to be, so there you go.

But there still seems to be something missing in all of this. Even as a child, most of my friends were girls and we played girls games. They didn’t think of me as one of the ‘stinky boys’ like the ones up the street: we played together as peers – as equals. When I hit puberty and trans stuff kicked in, I wanted not just to be with the girls: I wanted to be like them – to be one of them.

And now, some 25 – 30 years later, that feeling is still there: still alive and well, in the back of my mind. It is something forever just out of my reach. Sometimes, I think I can get close to it – but never actually have it. Perhaps I need to resign myself to the fact that for whatever it is I’m looking, I’m likely not going to find it.

This ‘mystical bond’ I imagine women form may be just that – imagined. And it could very well be that there’s nothing to find – that I continue to torment myself for no good reason… Which makes me feel a bit like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there.

I feel that I am where I am largely because of the choices I have made in my life: I cannot ‘un-make’ them. I am left feeling that ‘what I want’ must come second to ‘what I must do’. I feel I have commitments which must take precedence – and that my ‘wants’ can figure in only to the point where they do not ‘unduly’ interfere with with those commitments.

What I want it to have it both ways – and I know that I cannot… But that doesn’t stop me from wanting what I want.

Time to find a new hiding spot…