~Invisiballs

I could write a book about sex, gender, and sexuality. In fact, I already have, it just happens to span across 28 years, a few landfills, 40 binders, 10 notebooks, a few megs of hard drive space, and 5 years of the Internet. A little difficult to bind.

No matter how much I've written and talked about it though, it never stops being difficult; difficult to explain it in a way that gets the point across to people, and difficult to trust people enough not to take their own insecurities out on your skull.

Even the basic concept of sex, gender and sexuality being 3 different things is a tough concept for most people to get. I usually start off with the basic sex: biological stereotype, gender: social stereotype, sexuality: who you sleep and/or partner with. From there I attempt to get people to see that what they think makes them a man or a woman really doesn't. That gets tricky. That's when people's dander gets up.

So, why do I bother?

Because I don't want one more human being to have to go through the HELL that I've been through, or the hell that I still go through daily, because of what happens to be in their pants, what they choose to wear, or whom they choose to love.

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It's tough to talk about, all the sex and gender stuff.

Pictures are rough. Beyond rough, actually. I see pictures of myself when I was younger, with very few exceptions, and I'm a mess. It's seeing pictures of myself being abused.... tortured... and knowing that people find pleasure in those pictures. I can't even really put into words how it makes me feel. Suicidal would be close.

I "stole" a bunch of pictures from my mother. I'm often caught with what to do with them... save them or burn them. Saving them... there's proof... there's proof of what they did. Burning them would feel good though... a symbolic "fuck you".

Many of the pics that exist are from "holidays". "Holidays" were the worst. The fights were beyond bad. It was all about getting me dressed. The last holiday, before I left home, my stepfather pushed me down the stairs and had me backed against the wall. I wouldn't put the clothing on that they wanted me to.

It was always like that. September is "Jewish New Year", then there's Thanksgiving, then Chanukah, and finally New Year's. New Year's was a little less horrible than the rest.

It's funny. They blame everything for my leaving home. I wanted to be rebellious. Drugs. Whatever they can. I think it's really ridiculous that it never occurs to them that underneath it all, aside from a lot of it - the physical abuse, the dysfunction, the traumas and their effect - the reason I left home was because they were trying to turn me into a girl.

I could have dealt with strict. I could have dealt with getting my ass kicked every now and again. I could have dealt with ridiculous rules. I could have dealt with a lot of things. I could not deal with being forced to wear dresses. I could not deal with being punished for who I am.

I was nice. I was respectful. I was well mannered. I was funny, talented, intelligent, and creative. I just wasn't a girl.

To this day, they'll say that I am/was/etc. That abuse continues. They'll want me to see old photo albums... thinking that I'll see them and smile. They'll point out that they changed my diapers.

I hate them. All of them.

I do what I can to control the effects of the rage. It's a full time job.

Maybe all I want is for, one day, for them to apologize... and to treat me with respect... To realize that they were wrong for what they did to me... for what they've done to me for 34 years.

It's not the easiest thing being different. My body is different... but that just makes me a guy who's different, not a girl. It wasn't about wanting to be a guy. I am a guy. I just wanted to be myself. It took me a long time to undo what I could of the damage they did. ...the programming runs so deep... It took me a long time to realize that no matter what I did, I could not become what they wanted me to be. I did try. Through all the fights and the breakdowns and the suffering, I tried. You just can't be someone you're not. It doesn't matter what you wear, you are who you are. In a dress, I was a guy in a dress. Guys can wear dresses, if they want... it's ok. It's just not ok to force someone to wear clothing that they don't want to wear because of the message it sends. It's not ok to put a dog into a cat suit. It's not ok to abuse a dog in every way possible to make it into the cat you so desperately want it to be.

All they had to do was listen. All they had to do was give me the benefit of the doubt.

Looking at those photos hurts. The last pictures taken of me in a dress were from 8th grade graduation. From that point forward, one by one, I took things into my own hands, and as I did, my "parents", of course, responded by "punishing" me. It escalated to physical/violent behavior on their parts by September of '84.

It was my loss. I didn't have the guidance I needed. My brother lost out not having me around. My sister lost out (and still holds a grudge) because of my leaving. Yes, I won in that I circumvented suicide, but 20 years later, I'm still trying to live.

I don't know how to be a "normal" guy, not because I don't have nuts to stuff into my jeans, but because at the age I needed guidance, all I had was Boy George (thank you, George, for giving me the courage to live as myself) and the street. (That made me a very mouthy Punk, but a far cry from "normal".)

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I suppose that I'm at an interesting crossroads, of sorts, in therapy.

When I started seeing SH in October of 2002, I decided that I was going to tell her my life story. I'd never done it before, told the whole story, to anyone. I'd tried, on paper at least, to get through it all, even for my self, but never was able to. I usually ended up stopping somewhere about age 7 or 8.

Well, I got past 7 or 8, and have ended up at 14 or 15. This is the critical mass point. It's after my "awakening", and before my leaving home. It's what it all built up to...

SH has cried and gone bug eyed over much of my story. There's no problem "justifying" my "disorder". I have enough within the first couple of years to do that. But now... here's the critical mass point... the point in my life where, depending on how you look at it, I cracked entirely, or I gave up, or I decided to "survive".

I left. My mother, to this day, dumps that on me. I chose to leave. It's about me wanting to be different.

that's what it's all about...

Am I "bad"? Was I... am I "wrong". Am I weak? Am I simply rebellious? Am I selfish? Did I ask for it? (Those are rhetorical questions.)

So... it's critical mass. The point where I sit and I ask my therapist those questions. Where I ask the opinion of an "outsider" who now knows every last bit of what happened, or at least has heard it.

Will she take my side because she's my therapist and it's her job to do so? Can she stop crying long enough to step back and see it as a parent might? Do I really want her to?

There's "part 2" of the story to come. It doesn't get a whole hell of a lot prettier.

In the end... if it's all justified... if it's really not my fault... then what? What happens if at the end of all this storytelling it boils down to that... that it truly is not my fault... that I'm truly and justifiably "disabled"... that's it's not about my not trying or my choosing to be this way? What does that change? Will my knowledge of "the truth" change anything? If I stop doubting myself, will others around me stop doing so? Will I ever stop wanting to kill people, or myself, every time I hear "You look fine!"?

I don't know what I'm getting at. My head is spinning a little.


It's not so much about "blame"... but then sometimes it is. Depends on the day. Do I want others to want to kill my mother as intensely as I do during my matricidal swings? Depends on the day. Do I want people to understand why I want to kill my mother? Yes. It's not about "blame", it's about hurt, anger, ...RAGE. The whole thing is that it will always be my word against theirs... my word against the world's...

I do hope that one day I can grow to the point of it not mattering to me what others think, but I'm certainly not there yet. I'm still at the point where people's opinions matter to me. Still at the point where if someone takes the side of my parents or believes the crap that they or any other family member spews, I can barely control the rage. It's odd though... often, when that rage hits, it's not that I want to kill any of them, it's more myself that I want to do in. The "blame" shifts, and then I become such an awful person that I don't deserve to live... and the pain becomes so intense that I don't want to.

I go day to day. I try not to kill myself (blame myself), and I try not to kill others (blame them).

Just typing about this is giving my head a run for its money. It's trying to shift... trying to switch... visions of razors dance in the back of my mind...

Drink. Drink Drink. Sometimes I forget that my head is actually fucked up. I take their words to heart and blame alcohol... that's what they often blame... drugs and alcohol. It's not that my state of being was legitimate, it was something I did to myself. My fault. The blame is on me.

I never could prove it to them that it wasn't drugs or alcohol. Even when I was tossed into rehab, and the rehab booted me because I wasn't addicted to anything... even when the rehab said that what I really needed was therapy, not AA or NA... that wasn't enough. To this day they still want to blame the symptoms, rather than the cause. They still want to say that it was my fault... that I chose this.

I want so desperately to walk away completely... but I can't. I love my brother. My brother is, and always has been, part of what makes my life worth living. He's linked though... to all of that... to them... and I can't tell him to take sides. ...but there are sides. As much as I want there not to be. Every time I talk with him, I realize that there are. Even if I don't blame his family, they still hold an opinion, and that opinion, based on what they saw... how I had to be around them, backs up "the other side".

"You look fine"

Yes, I'm a master at that. I'll always look fine. I'm well trained.

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