Journal #8814

I'm sure it's of niche interest, but I'mma take a moment or two to reflect upon something that has troubled me lately.

As I've mentioned in the past, I am transgender. Though I have been sure of this for some time now, for a variety of reasons, I have yet to make any moves towards making any physical or social changes. Regardless, there is a dichotomy between how I see myself and how others perceive me.

I am, at present, largely unable to affect those perceptions. In real life, it's much more convenient to simply suppress my discomfort and present myself as male, saving myself from any potential uncomfortable questions, harassment or abuse (I'm sure in this town, I would have no trouble finding it). Those closest to me know my feelings and respect them, despite the fact that there has been negligible difference from their perspective (which can be a different kind of difficult, in a way).

As far as TWHL goes, I'm perfectly comfortable presenting the way I feel, because y'all are (generally) great people, and I know that the people I care about here are the kind of folk who won't hold it against me. This place, to me, is not just a place where awesome people hang out and do awesome things, but is also a sanctuary where I can be myself; where I don't have to question myself. That's a very powerful feeling at this stage in my life, and I couldn't be more grateful to have it.

The crux of this journal is where dichotomy creeps back into it. Being the internet, my persona here is simply a distillation of my personality. Plain text conveying my thoughts, carrying no perceptions of who I am physically. So it can be very, very hard to introduce any of the rest of me. There's a reason why I'm not in the Teamspeak of these videos, as much as I very much wanted to be. To present my voice is to challenge who I am here (and, indeed, who I feel I am). As a result, I am cripplingly self-conscious about my voice, even more than I am about... well, the rest of me.

The past handful of days, I've been challenging myself by joining the SnC fellows for videogames. Part and parcel of that is joining the Teamspeak. As much as I love joining in with them, it takes some significant psychological effort every time I have to hit that push-to-talk button. I guess I just want to shout out Archie and Urby in particular, for being just so damn accepting and welcoming. Being able to join you guys means more to me than you might think.