Percentage matters….

I knew I was queer from a very early age.

Having a parent own a gay bar and spending much of your childhood watching drag queens dance around while getting the most fabulous Dorothy Hamill haircut in the neighborhood opened the “closet” door much easier for me. There could be some “what came first: chicken vs. egg” or some “nature vs. nuture” arguments made about how I ended up proclaiming my first kiss would be from a girl but that’s not the point of this blog post.

While I’ve known and been comfortable with being queer most of my life, one thing I’ve just started to come to terms with is this idea of gender. Confession: I very much believe in the gender roles played out before my eyes for the last 42 years. Now before you go off and talk about women’s equality and men being overly dominant of their women counterparts I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about women staying home, barefoot and pregnant while the men beat their chest with a caveman like ferocity and hunt for food with their McGyver tools…(hahaha or am I?)

No, I’m talking about the subtle things that clearly separate the boys from the girls.

The opening of the doors. The pulling out of the chairs. The hand holding positions. The red lipstick and long moments in the bathroom making sure everything looks just right. The perfumes. The high heels. The sharp button down shirt. The carrying of the heavy bags and then flexing so that a particular someone might notice. The distinct separation of clothing because what’s hers is scooped necked and color coordinated while what’s mine is jeans and t-shirts…all boy cut.

I’ve been in weight loss maintenance since November of 2011. You hear stories about people gaining the weight back (and in more cases than not gaining more weight that previously lost). It happened to me a few times. Why it happens there are many reasons. For me I think something was missing and I didn’t really know until I watched Mitch make his transition. I don’t have the right to talk about his transition because it’s a personal story but what I can share what it was like from my perspective and how it affected me to make the changes I needed to make to be more congruent with how I felt on the inside with who I was on the outside.

My whole queer “dating” life consisted of dating girls that could easily pass as boys. In fact the more boyish they looked the more I was attracted to them. I loved them because they too fit into the gender roles that felt comfortable…except not 100% comfortable. I mean someone was opening the door for someone but it was usually them opening it for me. High heels and newly polished dress shoes were worn but I wasn’t the one wearing the dress shoes.

(is this making any sense?)

Watching someone you love, stand up and proclaim not only to themselves, to their families and to the world that the physical body they carried around did not match the spiritual body inside is an amazing thing.

A revelation of sorts.

In June of 2009 he started his transition. In December of 2009 I started mine. I thought it was only weight that I was losing but slowly as my body started to change on the outside, how I perceived it also started to change…no wait, that’s not right. Not change…became more clear. It became very clear that I no longer wanted the door opened for me. I no longer wanted the chair pulled out for me or help with my coat when dinner was over and it was time to leave the restaurant. I no longer wanted to be in a relationship with someone who would be mistaken as a boy or as it was in my case be married to someone that had fully transitioned to male because I didn’t want to be placed in a role that I was no longer comfortable with.

I can never explain to you how difficult it is to be with someone, build a life with someone, settle down into a “happily after” with someone, watch them become congruent with who they are outside with who they are inside and then realize that this was not your happily ever after…To leave behind all that was “right” because it felt “wrong”.

Much like my experiences during my childhood and exploring my attraction to women, my experiences with Mitch and his transition allowed me the opportunity to explore my own gender and realize after many years that while I cherish the gender roles I was trying to force my “square peg” into a “round hole” (yhea I had a giggle over that one too).

Once I acknowledged that I liked my body boyish, that I like my boyish haircut, that I like acting, smelling, looking like a boy my world became very right. I don’t fear gaining any weight back because I’m not trying to hide how I feel on the inside with a body that doesn’t match on the outside. When I let my heart accept my gender percentages, my heart reached out and found me the perfect match.

(and she came with the most delicious heels)

Weight loss maintenance isn’t just about keeping the weight off. It’s about exploring how you feel on the inside and making that match on the outside. Being congruent doesn’t necessarily involve gender it just means allowing yourself to be exactly who you see when you close your eyes. It’s about finding all the pieces of the puzzle and taking the necessary steps to putting that puzzle together.

Sometimes however it’s about throwing away your skirts and buying a good pair of dress shoes.