In the Mirror

Posted on by Realistic Autistic

I looked at myself in the mirror today at work. And I saw something new. I saw a boy.

I was wasting time in the bathroom. They’d sent us home early, and I didn’t want to lose all that money. I could linger in the bathroom for a few minutes and be justified as I washed the dust and dirt off my arms. By and large, I don’t pull stunts like this… but it was like this every day this week. We were supposed to be working full time hours, but the company could get away with only giving us 4 hours in a day. So they did. Every single day for two weeks.

I was tired of it, so I was protesting in a very small way. 5 extra minutes in the bathroom, when I’d normally take only the needed amount. A pitiful defiance, really- the wasted time wouldn’t even buy a cup of decent coffee. But I stared into the mirror.

My face, masked as always at work during the Pandemic. Barely-visible, easily-dismissed eyes behind large glasses perched atop the face-swallowing mask. A blue mask, of course. Middling blue today. My hair, cut very short and near-freshly dyed: sapphire blue, fading a bit at the very front as some of my natural golden shine tried to re-assert itself. The result: a more seafoam blue at my forehead than the true sapphire I prefer.

I looked past my face, to my torso. My chest, with the breasts my genetics determined I’d grow. Not so large as to be intrusive and cause back problems. Large enough to not be missed. Broad, manly shoulders- a gift from my father’s side of the family. Most of me is built on a larger scale. Shoulders and hips to start, but legs too. I’ve been overweight most of my life, but because of how big I am, I carry it well.

I returned my own gaze calmly. I’ve been known to unsettle people simply by looking at them. Nobody’s ever told me why. I assume it’s the intensity of the expression. It comes in handy sometimes.

My clothes were work standard. A work t-shirt, grey today to match my mood in the morning. Brownish-grey cargo shorts. Underneath, a plain white sports bra (over a decade old- don’t fix what isn’t broke), and plain white underwear. By and large I don’t give a crap about undergarments. Other people do, and that’s fine. It’s just not my thing.

Bemused, I pressed down on my chest. With my breasts out of the equation, I looked even more like a boy. Inexplicably standing in the women’s restroom.

I don’t particularly identify as male. There’s nothing affirming about being told I’m “manly.” “Capable,” yes. “Strong” or “authoritative” perhaps. But masculinity and the toxicity that so often goes with it is really of no interest to me. I don’t love hunting or fishing or shooting guns or explosions. Or violence.

And really, masculinity shouldn’t be defined by those things… and perhaps it no longer is, as the times change. But it’s how I see it I guess. And gender is, after all, a psychological construct.

I’ve experienced moments of joy when referred to as “sir” or “young man” (by a half-blind older man as I held the door for him). The easy answer would be to assume that’s because I’m a trans man in denial. And that could still be it… but I don’t think so. The answer is a bit more complicated.

I think, thanks to the Internet, I’ve come to see “male” as the default human. When I was growing up, people assumed you were a guy in virtual spaces unless you specified otherwise, or your voice gave you away. Since I stayed away from voice channels, I was merely annoyed by the joke “there are no girls on the Internet.”

In time, though, rather than loudly proclaiming my identity as a vagina-haver, I simply let people think I was male. And thus, rather than bringing gender baggage into the equation, they were more likely to treat me like an equal and a fellow human. And so that was my default.

Real life doesn’t work that way. People of my generation and older look at a person and automatically assign them “male” or “female” based on presentation and physical features. Sex and gender are usually assumed to be one and the same. They are not, obviously.

But I think that mid-point is what I’ve been unconsciously aiming for. T-shirt and jeans or shorts are more “masculine” clothes, but they’re also what’s comfortable for me. I don’t experience dysphoria around my chest. I’d get rid of my breasts for being mildly annoying, but they’re attractive to more than half the world, plus the surgery is expensive. So why bother?

It was a strange, but valuable, experience. I understand a bit better why I identify as non-binary.

Limitations

Posted on by Realistic Autistic

I’ve been thinking about the nature of our interactions with each other.

You see, as we meet and learn about people, we determine for ourselves what kind of person they are. We take what we know of the world and people in general, and apply it to what we see of a person’s actions and words. We develop a story for ourselves about that person.

That story is inevitably wrong. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Our perceptions and biases warp our judgments. And it’s not possible to entirely understand a person. People are always changing, and act differently in different circumstances based on their own perceptions and history.

That impossibility hasn’t stopped me from trying to fully understand people, but as I’ve aged I’ve come to see I can never truly do it. Like fundamental truths of the universe and life itself, it’s complicated beyond my ability to comprehend.

I know that. And the temptation, in knowing that, is to stop trying. But I can’t. I won’t. Truth is my highest ideal. And in the seeking of truth, I get closer to it, understanding more and more.

Today I feel like I’ve reached a milestone. I realized this morning, based on how people have been dealing with the new supervisors and old ones, that the stories we tell ourselves about us and about others fundamentally limits their potential.

The way we treat people, based on those stories, can limit a person. If, for example, you have supervisor that acts like a bully, a petty human being, and a general pain in the ass, you may come to see him as merely those things.

In truth, he does those things… but not all the time. He is a different person when he’s in a good mood, perhaps a different person to his equals and superiors, and probably a different person at home.

It may be pretty reasonable to expect him to always be a misery to work under… but in doing so you limit his ability to change or be any different.

This was more obvious to me in the treatment of the new supervisors. They seem to be trying to treat us like people with opinions that matter instead of inmates to be herded, which I mightily appreciated. But not everyone seems willing to give them that chance to do better.

Which limits their ability to do better. Enough limitations, and their attempts and intentions won’t matter, and the cycle will repeat itself. I really don’t want that.

It broke my heart, this morning, thinking about how much we limit those around us with our expectations and our judgments. How much we limit ourselves…

In 20 some days I’m going to New Mexico to meet Koopz and Más. Over time, I’ve come to know them. Or at least who they portray themselves to be online. I have, in essence, built stories about who they are. How they act. Why they do what they do. What they want out of life, and what they believe.

Soon I will come face to face with them, and they will not be exactly what I expect. I hope to love them anyway. As much or more than I do now. I can only hope they’ll be able to do the same.

One of the strengths of growing up partially oblivious to the expectations of those around you, is that they don’t limit who you might be. As a result I suspect I’m far odder than I would have been otherwise. But also far more interesting in my opinion.

I am still discovering things about myself, especially now that I’m not held down in shackles of depression. I think I would like to be the sort of person that expands, rather than limits, who and what a person could be.