Dear Anita

I feel like I enjoy the model sets that children get like legos or building blocks. I enjoyed building towers and making fun cubes out of the small connection cubes. I feel you on that one when you talk about disassembling machines and repairing them, sometimes it’s hard to keep focused to put the parts back together. I enjoy taking apart toy cars and putting them back together but most of them were snap-on parts that were easy to assemble. I often got tired or frustrated if I couldn’t reassemble a machine that was complex back together after taking it apart. I feel like taking apart machines question is a bit vague because many people take apart things that can be considered machines regardless of gender. I have watched children take apart toy trucks that had snap-on pieces and put them back together or build things out of legos. I think maybe the question would be better worded “i enjoy taking apart machines from major appliances and technology pieces.”  That way it’s more specific. I feel like taking apart technology or appliance machines including cars and washing machines can be quite complex. I sometimes tend to get distracted because I can’t sit still for a long time trying to figure out how the appliances connect together. But I love being creative, and building things like crafting things with legos and putting pieces together to make fun car toys. Also, before the 1900s biological men tended to dominate the social sphere so men were professional bakers. I think in the 1920s there were new waves in the women’s movement and they began to start taking roles like baking on tv. Now it seems like baking and cooking is a typical 19th century women’s work. But I feel like cooking, being able to repair things, save money, work at a job making income are basic life skills that shouldn’t have gender attached to them. I think that gender is a spectrum and society tries to dictate what’s right for how people are born. But society tends to change with time because back then, pink was a darker color and used for men while blue was lighter color like the sky used for women and now it’s different. I feel like gender doesn’t have defined boundaries like society makes it into male and female but there’s other identities in between. There’s a spiritual belief that the soul has no gender and there’s a balance of the divine masculine and feminine in all of us. The divine masculine is powerful, will, control, action, logic, judging and the divine feminine is creative, nurturing, intuitive, empathetic, meditative. Both work together to create balance and make decisions and some people might have more masculine sides while some might have more feminine sides.

I feel like transgender people are people who transcend the binary stereotypes of society and they seek out their own identity and self-expression that makes them happy. There’s no right way to be trans, and exploring what makes a person happy is what’s important. I feel like the main question people wonder sometimes is how they know they’re trans. I feel like if the person is struggling with their gender identity to take time and reflect on themselves and do what they enjoy. Try new ways of expressing themselves like different styles of clothing or hair styles and find other people who have similar struggles. I feel that a person who identifies as trans will know if it feels right when they express themselves as the gender opposite of their biological sex. I think I fully realized that I was transgender when I read on the resources in college and took some time to reflect on myself. I had lgbtq support groups where I could express myself enjoying painting and other crafts in a relaxing environment. I realized that I really felt like I had discovered something amazing and felt happier being a guy. That’s when I realized that I was trans because I could see myself living as a guy and feeling happy. I feel like transgender people get quite caught up in trying to be one way or another because they want to be acknowledged as valid. The important thing is to strike a balance, do what makes the person happy and work on creating awareness in society about the person. The person might decide to use different pronouns like he/they for transmales or she/they for transfemales and see how it makes them feel. Also, starbucks and some places have people put their name along with their orders so the person might try a name they’ve been considering and see how it sounds when it’s being called out. It’s okay to feel unsure about things and question things as people learn things at different times and they grow at different paces. What’s important is for the person to trust their feelings, seek out resources and be kind to themselves as they work along things. Also, sometimes gender dysphoria can be intense for transgender people and there might be times when it seems overwhelming and the person might feel like they’re losing themselves and that’s okay. Don’t fight the feelings, breathe and acknowledge them, drink some water, take a wall, listen to some music, call a friend to talk to. people are there for them and they are not alone. it’s normal for transgender people to feel like they hate parts of their body or feel like they were born wrong, that’s okay. Remember to appreciate themselves for what they can do and to remind themselves that they are valid. Self-love can be hard, but practicing compassion and acknowledging feelings knowing that the person is valid can be helpful.

Hugs friend and blessings