Dear Janus, Earth Angel and Poet:

Tomorrow will  be exactly four years since you started your thread! Please do something small to celebrate the four years anniversary of the longest thread in the history of tiny buddha.

Thank you for the Resonance Poem. Here is a key sentences for me: “Looking for a way to be myself and also fit into the world”, and “I don’t know who I am yet”.

In your post before the poem, you wrote: “The pieces that I have don’t seem to fit together well”- you definitely feel that the female body pieces that you have, curves, for example, do not fit, aka gender dysphoria. Most people feel that some pieces of their bodies don’t fit. People complain of noses not fitting their faces (too big, too wide, too this or that). Or legs too short or thighs too big and on and on and on. The list of complaints of body pieces that don’t fit is endless.

What do people do about this kind of distress: diets, exercise, make up, straightening or curling the hair, removing body hair, cosmetic surgeries, and in the case of gender dysphoria, more elaborate surgeries and taking hormones.

“I know that I feel comfortable as a male… I feel like I’m being made to fit into a box so that I can be seen as male, but I find that the box of traits doesn’t really fit me well.. I might not be seen as a guy by society and that causes me much anxiety.. I always feel like I’m not being enough in the world.. worry if my body doesn’t look masculine enough… if my life ends from gender dysphoria and anorexia I will feel sad that I didn’t live fully. Hope this makes sense!”

This is the sense it makes to me:

1. You have been harming your safety and physical health for a long time by “working out intensely and following a strict diet and being anorexic”. This has to be dealt with first, you need to eat regularly and in moderation, as well as exercise in moderation.

2. You are so obsessed about not appearing feminine, that if you do go through the surgeries and hormonal injections involved in transitioning, you will still worry about having curves and appearing feminine. Transitioning, as I understand it (and I know very little about it), does not fix the body so that gaining weight is no longer a possibility.

In addition to that, if you had a professional show yo a visual representation of how you will probably look after physical transitioning is complete, you will be able to tell (and receive input by the professional and other people, based on the visual) if you will indeed look unquestionably male. If not, you will still worry about other people seeing you as female. Better settle this issue before starting the difficult, elaborate, expensive process of transitioning.

I have a question for you: there are males who look feminine. Is it something you are able and willing to consider, proceeding in life as a guy who looks somewhat feminine? I mean, can you accept being a guy who has some curves and who looks somewhat feminine?

anita