Gas Mark Six

This is it. This.

naefearty

Here’s something I wrote when I was asked to speak alongside Sheila Jeffreys, who was speaking about her book “Gender Hurts”, about how transgenderism harms women. In the end, I didn’t say all this, but for those of you who are interested, here it is..

 

“For the longest of time I told no-one. It is only in the past few years that I have found the words to describe my experience. Thank you, Sheila Jeffreys, and the Radical Feminist community of bloggers for the gift of words.

 

I used to have an online friend (also a partner of a man who thought he was a woman) who likened the experience of being partnered to a transgender to the frog who is put into the pot of water and the heat gradually turned up till cooked – a deliberate programme of de-sensitisation as each limit is compromised or ignored, and…

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No… That’s not the Right Word, Either

I didn’t say the right thing. I could see that. He had been watching me so intently, his mouth curved in a slight smile that I didn’t recognize. His head forward, face down a little, tilted, as if he was presenting his cheekbone to me. Looking, up, almost, at me from the corners of his eyes. His eyes.

It was a very generous gift, I said so. And added, with a smile of pride, enamored, that he had very good boyfriend skills. Imagine me, my smile said, with such a fine catch as you!

It wasn’t the right thing.

I made mental notes, and the next time I touched on how well his mother had reared him, to give such thoughtful and unique gifts. They were just perfect. Because, they were. And he knew it, his eyes glowed as he watched me unwrap.

But, it wasn’t his mother. That wasn’t the right thing. That, very much, was not the right thing, said the involuntary tightening at the corners of his lips. The deadening of his eyes.

On the next occasion, I could tell by the way his eyes roamed over the gifts, almost caressing them, that a great deal of thought had gone into his selections. That he had thought deeply of me, of what I wanted most, when he made his purchases. I complimented his memory and attention to detail. Both very compliment-worthy attributes, but no, not the right things. Not the right words.

As a class, the word is appropriation. Those males, tired of their self-compliance to gender socialization, who decide it must be easier to be a woman. Who decide they can be better women than they were men. They re-define and re-word and re-create and re-claim. They appropriate.

As an individual, the word is inhabitation. He doesn’t want to be like me. He wants to be me. He wants to occupy me, my life, who I am.

Those gifts, they were never for me. They were for him. For his inhabitation of me.

“You Never Really Loved Me”

He’s right. I didn’t. I never really loved him.

I loved someone, though, very deeply. I trusted that someone. I loved someone and I loved being loved by someone. I showered someone with my attention and affection. With my charm, warm looks, intelligent conversation and hot sex. But that wasn’t him, it was someone else.

I tried, though. There was a period of 5-8 weeks when I tried so hard to love him. A period where I knew him and I wanted desperately to love him, because I had once loved someone so much and I did not want to lose that.

But that was someone else.

I knew someone else. I loved someone else. I didn’t love him. I didn’t know him.

And once I knew him, I could never love him.