Dysphoria, Dysmorphia and Morpheus

Growing up as a girl comes with challenges. You are constantly taught how you are to be more subdued, less energetic. I'm sure you've watched a little girl scream at the top of her lungs as she ran around in a fit of imaginative play. I've seen mothers and fathers both try and calm the child, even going as far as telling the poor thing off. 

Have you ever seen a little boy behave in the same way? Shouting and yipping out in glee as he battles against the monsters that resides only in his mind? I've seen mothers and fathers heave a loving sigh before shaking their heads, often following their actions with a muttered "Boys will be boys."

Little girls then grow and are told to not sit with their legs apart as it's 'unladylike'. This has always been such a strange request, as I've never been able to truly define what a lady is and why she shouldn't be allowed to sit how she pleases. All the while, when boys sit like that, they're told that they're 'man-spreading'.

Living in this heavily 'gender dependent' society has made my life, and I'm sure there are countless others too, feel as though they don't truly belong or don't truly fit. It's almost as if we're Neo and slowly starting to see those little gaps in the Matrix as Morpheus proffers a red and blue pill. 

This metaphor doesn't come without reason, as my fiancee and I had recently begun watching the series. I asked her which pill she'd take if she were in Neo's place. I'm sure some of you may agree with her that ignorance can be bliss as she said she'd take the blue pill and live out the rest of her years under the mind control of the system.

But what happens when we don't get that choice? What happens when the only true way to happiness is to leap into that abyss and pray to whatever deity that we may make it out alive?

Like myself, I'm sure some of you know what that feels like. 

I grew up female. I had a small friend group of girls, I wore dresses, wore makeup and even had one or two barbie dolls. This, my dear readers, was a part of that matrix. I was told that barbies are what girls played with, that girls wore dresses and girls wore makeup. 

I remember all the adults laughing when I begged for my hair to be cut, when I screamed at the top of my lungs to have my hair gelled and spiky like the other boys in my class. But patiently as ever, I was told that little boys have those things and little girls have pony tails, plaits and longer hair.

What shocked a lot of my family was my question at bath time. When you grow up in a large family, you have a whole lot of cousins who, for all intents and purposes, become a sibling. They act as such and you're treated as such. So, when my mother and her sister-in-law were bathing my male cousin and I together, I struggled to get my child-like mind around why my cousin looked so different to me. Why he had a penis and I didn't.

My mother's face was a treat, I still remember the shock that lingered in the weathered lines of her skin, how the little crows feet that had started to develop stretched out and smoothed as her face slackened.

When I came out as gay, it was a surprise to no one except my mother. I was the ripe age of sixteen and as I tearfully explained my burgeoning sexuality, I was well received. Having a large family meant we were all exposed to at least one person who was homosexual or bisexual, so they all knew the nicest way to respond. 

I was what some may call a butch lesbian. I had short hair, I wore shirts and ties and even felt the freedom to allow myself to study the things that I was always interested in: Engineering and science. 

(That's not to say women can't study these things, but I can promise you, if you are a woman studying a male-orientated subject, you are more than well aware of your gender. In more ways than one.)

It was when I began to watch YouTube more that I began to understand that I was even more different from those around me. Those 'glitches' I'd been noticing in the matrix my entire life were slowly beginning to make sense. 

"Good luck with your transition."

Those words were a lyric in a song for lesbians about lesbians. I identified with every single point the song had to make and when those last words were spoken, I realised that there was something far more in depth about me that needed addressing than just who I was sexually attracted to.

My body had never been perfect. I'd always been self conscious about my voice, my face, my body and even how I walked was something that troubled me. I'd been labeled as having body dysmorphia. This term is probably very familiar with people who are self conscious about their weight. 

I wasn't upset about my weight (although I was teased for being overweight by my classmates), I wasn't upset about my sexuality, nor was I upset about much else in my life. But that very question I'd asked as an innocent child returned to me. Why wasn't I like other boys. 

The answer, for a long time, was that I'd been born a girl. But as I began to reach this precipice that I've lead you all to along with me, I realised that the answer was plain and simple. I was a boy stuck inside a girl's body.

I didn't have what other boys had because I'd been born wrong. A great mistake happened at my conception and subsequent development. Science tells us many different stories. Most prove that trans people are born with the mind of their gender identity, but their body matched their sex assigned at birth.

And that was the crux to my story. I was the subject of those scientific studies. This was the glitch in my matrix that I'd seen time and time again but never had an answer or a name to speak of, to explain how I felt. 

I can say now, that coming out as a trans man is the best thing I've ever done and I've never been happier than how I am now. But that was the key part, coming out. Thankfully, my family were unendingly supportive, my friends were the same and I even got to meet a fiancee who thinks the world of me.

I bet now, you're wondering what the point to this post was. I can't really say. Some part a coming out to all of you, some part an educational endeavor, or maybe it was brought out by watching the Matrix.

You may not know, but the twin writers of the Matrix are transwomen. They were assigned male at birth and realised they had the minds of a female and subsequently changed their body to match what they felt. 

So, that is what I see in the Matrix metaphor. In this long post, I come to my conclusion. I felt connected to the movie because just as Neo took the red pill and tugged himself away from the matrix that held him so firmly in its grasp, I took my own medication and found my way stumbling out into this strange world of being a transgender man. 

If anyone wants to further their education, maybe your sibling is trans, your child or maybe you yourself is a trans person, then I would love to direct you towards Mermaids. They're a charity who help people like me. They're based in the UK and even worked with Starbucks to raise money and help the transgender community.

But before I leave you, I ask. What would you chose? The red pill or the blue pill?

Stay safe, Devs out!