And by that I don't mean that I'm old, but I'm in that generation after babyboomers and before whatever the generation now is. I'm a Gen X'er. I remember my family's first colour TV, and I grew up on Atari 2600 and 5200 games. And Colecovision. And Intellivision. I was 4 when the 1st/4th Star Wars movie came out.
I was born the same year as the following albums:
Dark Side of the Moon. Brain Salad Surgery. Tales from Topographic Oceans. Selling England by the Pound. Houses of the Holy. Greetings from Asbury Park NJ. Raw Power. Tyranny and Mutation. Larks Tongues in Aspic. Aladdin Sane. A Passion Play. Goat's Head Soup. Quadrophenia.
So yeah.
Old.
And I...oh, how to put this...I have a certain image of myself as a trans individual, and specifically as a trans female. There are things I love. I love makeup, but generally very subtle. I love doing my nails. I love certain looks...skinny jeans or leggings and boots, or trainers with slouchy socks. Overlong sweaters. If I had any skirts I'd wear them on occasion, and the same goes with dresses...I have a folder of pictures of stuff I like or appeals to me. But I don't feel I HAVE to wear a dress or a skirt to dress or present female, to prove myself female.. My skinny jeans, knee boots and pink sweatshirt should be enough to realise that, especially if I'm rocking the lipstick and eyeshadow and my wig, and I'm the 'transgirl on the go' I humourously label myself as.
I have issues with support groups, on two levels. In the real world, I generally feel that intersectional LGBTQIA groups cheerfully ignore the TQIA part in favour of the LGB part. And that's their prerogative, though it makes me feel that I am being consciously or unconsciously marginalised. On line, the problem is different but just as all pervasive; without much in the way of exception, the participants are younger (oh to have started this younger), and doing the dresses and side poses and the duck lips and...I know it's generational. Most of the older trans women I know, and remember, the plural of anecdote is not data, are hardcore into dressing really femme. And most of the younger generation I know are the same...except for the GQs, who do a lovely job fucking with the binary.
I'm not GQ. I fuck with the binary in that I'm switching poles, but I'm still going to be mostly at one pole of the spectrum.
And it's the mostly that is the issue.
I'm OK with not fitting in with either generation. Genuinely. I like dresses and skirts, and makeup and shoes, and I'll wear them. When I feel like it. When the need is there. When it's the right occasion.
But I jokingly tell people I'm going to be the femme-est tomboy they ever knew, and that's kinda true too. I love ripped jeans and combat boots and t-shirts and running in the woods or rock jumping at Ringing Rock park, and that's me too.
And the later shouldn't define my womanhood, or show that I'm lacking, just as my not always wanting to wear dresses and sweaters and heels should define me as not feminine. Which, I guess, moves me off the pole a little bit to some, but for me, just means that I am my own unique person with my own unique likes and stuff. I'm not going to show up at the Metropolitan Opera in jeans and chucks...you can be damned sure I'm gonna turn out as sophisticated as I can possible work. But when I am at work, or just going to the grocery store, I don't need to do that. I don't want to feel I need to do that.
And I don't know how this will go over with any therapist I see moving forward. Expectation, prison, blah blah blah...but I half expect that when they tell me that I have to present and live full time (which, let's face it, outside of the wig I pretty much do all the time anymore, even if it's femme tomboy), and I'm not in dresses or skirts every day, that I won't pass the audition.
This is jumping ahead, I know...but I'm reaching there soon. And I have to think of these things.
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