What do you feel like? What do you want to feel like? What do you feel, experience, dream about? What do you see your body as? What do you think your body is? What do you want your body to be? Why?
Most of my life seems to have consisted out of these questions being asked over and over again. By myself. By others. Some of them mostly after I found out about my body being intersex, and suddenly it was assumed that I would have to question all of those things about my body and my sense of self. About which genitals I prefer. What clothing I am into. Why I'm not wearing make-up if I do the 'female' thing. Which gender I prefer. Which pronouns I wish to be addressed with. When I'm getting surgery to fix this wretched body of mine.
I can see now that they were all just veils, illusions that were covering up the truth. Designed to trap a person in a maze with no exit, only to keep them wandering around forever more in a world that almost makes sense. The concept of gender, for one, is merely a social contract [1] that has no bearing on an individual's intrinsic qualities. Yet it skillfully traps a mind the way a spider's web would trap an unsuspecting fly.
In that sense, the question of 'do you feel more like a man or woman?' is not a question that can be reasonably answered, especially when taken into account that the brain does not encode a preferred biological sex [2]. The turmoil which I experienced therefore in my mind the past years was not due to me having to get into touch with my True Feelings or such, but rather because I kept getting asked questions which do not have an answer.
I cannot feel like a man or a woman, because that's not a valid question. I can only ever feel like myself. Because every brain is a unique mosaic with unique memories. Similarly, every human body is different. Because of one's DNA. Because of one's phenotype because no body develops the same way. This makes every individual and every individual's body uniquely them.
Similarly, the question of which genitals I would prefer to have is a nonsensical question. Why would I want to remove what my body has unless there is a medical need to do so? If I felt that way, I would question the feeling instead. I have had years to ask myself whether I would be okay with having not just female but also male genitals. After I pushed away society's expectations, I found that I could easily accept and love my body the way it is. How could I not? Because it's 'different'? I grew up with this body, so to me it is per definition 'normal'.
This body that I was born with, with its unusual phenotype, is as much of a valid phenotype as any other, because it exists. My body may be more unique than that of most people, perhaps, but it anchors me to reality as much as any other body would. With my senses I can experience reality. With my limbs I can move around and manipulate the world around me. This is reality. This is me, my body, in reality.
Turns out, reality is pretty simple. It are the delusions that make it complicated.
Maya
[1] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/gender-is-social-contract-not-part-of.html
[2] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/your-brain-doesnt-care-what-genitals.html
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