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Post date: Feb 14, 2017 3:42:12 AM

Cis women often say things to me that sound super trans. Like, "I don't really feel like a woman, but I guess I'm fine with being treated as one." Also, straight women often say things to me like, "Women are obviously way more attractive than men, but anyway, I'm straight." Historically, it's all I can do not to shout

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF??

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS

but also, historically I have felt myself deeply to be a woman with a fervor unmatched by any cis woman so far, and historically I have been pretty defensive about whether or not I'm "queer enough." Largely because I have measured that quality in myself by the ratio of relationships with women vs. relationships with men. By that metric, I'm pretty much a poser: long on sentiment, short on action. But that's fine, because my deeper sense of queerness, of hidden biome, of yes-and, isn't tied to my sexuality at all. It grows out of my gender. It's odd to write about queerness, even just to myself, when I am a cis woman engaged to a cis man. But it's the freest relationship I've ever been in. Inside our partnership, I am genderless. The full spectrum of human experience, ability, aptitude, flaw, are available to me. And him, too. He is a whole person, undivvied by what's allowed him as a man. I am a whole person, dating another whole person, and it's important to me that the whole person I love can anchor me in the masculine experience. We women and femmes often like to think we're the authority on gender experience, but there's a lot of complexity to man-ness and masculinity. I am learning that from him, and becoming more whole.

Sounds trans, right? But I like being treated as a woman at work, on the street, in my friendships. It feels like revisionist history to do anything else-- like it would deny the fact of my context, my obstacle course, my skill set. Lately I feel like I'm a woman the way that I'm a bookseller: like it's an activity I do, a transaction I make with society, and I love it, and when I go home, I leave it at the door.