I Didn’t Know I Was Privileged until I Gave It up.
Gaining firsthand experience with the gender divide
For most of my life, I presented, even identified, as a heterosexual, cisgender man. I always knew something wasn’t quite right with that but it took me quite a while (read “decades”) to realize that gender was my issue. I suppose I should actually say that I finally accepted that I am a trans woman. Well, a trans femme non-binary . . . look, gender is complicated. My likes, interests, attitudes and even the way I dressed were always on the feminine or androgynous side but I convinced myself that I was just an effeminate man until the time came when I could no longer live in that denial.
Looking back, it was pretty obvious. My love of going shopping with my exes to help pick out new outfits, the discomfort I felt around men when they were talking about women, the fact that most of the women I found attractive were gay or bi and my emotionality that often had me joking “I’m the girl in this relationship” where all giant red semaphore flags being waved by my inner gay woman spelling out:
Y-O-U__A-R-E__T-R-A-N-S.
Once I confronted my gender issues (you probably noticed I still deflect some of them) and decided to live openly as a transgender person, I felt the need to figure out what had kept me in…
