Reflections only ever lie

Today was a pretty warm day and silly me was wearing my winter coat as I had been doing for the past (colder) weeks as I cycled to the office. At arrival I was thus more than happy to take off said coat before heading into the building and let the warm Autumn air cool down my skin somewhat.

Walking inside with my coat on one arm and wearing little more than a tank top above my jeans, I waited for the next elevator together with this man who was already waiting there. Right from the beginning it was obvious that he liked what he saw, as his eyes scanned my body. Engaging in friendly conversation despite all this, I was nevertheless happy to get out of the elevator on my floor.

I know from experiences that heterosexual men consider me to be quite attractive. I think I can kind of understand why, yet at the same time it makes me feel confused and sad.

There are many times when I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection somewhere and I suddenly realise that damn, I do look like a woman. Many times when I am alone I will stand in front of a mirror, acknowledging that I can only describe the body I see reflected back at me as that of a tall, ivory-skinned, reddish-haired woman. I will then proceed to tell myself in an ironic tone that I really, really look like a guy, as all of those doctors and psychologists have been telling me for over a decade.

Also, before that decade I was simply supposed to be a boy, then a guy, and that was the end of it. Now I'm a woman. Kinda. Depends on which doctor or psychologist you ask.

The two doctor appointments I have the coming two months are essentially yet again about bringing clarity to the question of what I actually am. What should I be seeing in a mirror's reflection? What do others truly see when they look at me? What is the medical and biological reality? Could I maybe truly be not only a woman, but also be fertile as one? What is the reality I should accept and embrace?

The fact that there are male to female transsexuals out there who look pretty much like natural-born women terrifies me. It feeds the fear that looks can mean absolutely nothing. That the outside is irrelevant and can be moulded into anything one likes. That the mirror's reflection lies to me.

That just makes it more important to me to learn what is going on inside this body of mine. Whether I truly have been menstruating for the past two decades and that this explains the monthly pains during that time. What my natural hormone cycle looks like. Whether I am overdosing on hormones right now because my body is far more feminine than I had assumed years ago when I tested my levels for the last time. Whether I have functional ovaries.

Whether I truly am intersex.

Part of me acknowledges that it is not a settled matter, that at this point I'm still a nothing, a no-body, a medical question mark. That at this point nobody can say that I am male, female, intersex or something else. Medical opinions are all over the board after all.

Some days I wonder whether I will ever know the truth, or whether there even is a truth. This then leads me to consider the point of continuing to live if the coming decades will be just like the past decades, filled with doubt, uncertainty, fear and continuing scorn and harassment from so-called medical and healthcare professionals.

I wish I was born normal, or not at all. Anything else is just a life filled with incredible pain.


Maya