A Great Mind Must Be Androgynous<\/b><\/p>\n
By Mars Sell<\/b><\/p>\n
No one ever thinks of me as human<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n because I am more ghost than flesh,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n because people fear that my gender expression is a trick,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n that it exists to be perverse,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n that it ensnares them without their consent,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n and once they have fed off my queer,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n they\u2019ll regurgitate all the parts they did not like.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n From an early age I knew I was different. I wasn\u2019t interested in the things others my age did, and I didn\u2019t really feel comfortable in the clothes my parents bought me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I was 17, and the girls around me were all girls and I wondered if something inside me was broken, or missing, or if my body was simply ignorant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Naturally, I did not come out of the closet.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n The kids at my school opened it without my permission.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Called me by a name I did not recognize,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n said \u201clesbian,\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n but I was more.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n It had nothing to do with hating my body.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The struggle for acceptance was not just internal, it also felt as if my classmates didn\u2019t know what to make of me.<\/span><\/p>\n I was told that I was too much. Too loud, too dramatic, too pushy, too big. And somehow that made me feel like I wasn\u2019t enough. I was convinced that I was broken.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I hid my identity, hoping to gain the approval of people whose opinion was nonsense.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n They put me back into the closet,\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n hung me with all the other skeletons.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wore some drab shades that made me fade into the background. Everyone’s eyes just slid right over me.<\/span><\/p>\n It had nothing to do with hating my identity, I just loved it enough to let it go.<\/span><\/p>\n But it was soul destroying, thinking I was being denied a fair shot at existing happily.<\/span><\/p>\n Then I learned what it was to be trans.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I could say I am simple\u2014my heart<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n again a newborn with a shelf life.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n But there is nothing simple about<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n my body and its fruity orbit around<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n the sun. When I had my breasts<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n removed from my chest, the surgeon<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n did not ask if I was ready to sleep<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n so violently.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n It was shocking, to have the words. I had only been able to point out what felt wrong. But that, that one detail felt right.<\/span><\/p>\n