Flesh Vessel — A memoir about what Dysphoria feels like as an Autistic trans man
TWs: mentions of chest dysphoria, mentions of hair dysphoria, and mentions of self-misgendering, etc.
My Flesh Vessel
A vessel I have been born into… why must it feel so tiring to even live in it? Why does it feel like some Higher Power fucked up so badly on making my flesh vessel into something that doesn’t reflect me anymore? Why must the parasitic lumps on my flesh vessel feel so… exhausting? Like… Like I’ve wanted to retreat into my own mental and emotional fortress that prevents me from truly understanding myself and where my place is as the man that I am… It’s a vessel that is both my panopticon of flesh and also my home, it is something that’s been living and aging with me as I become more chronologically older by year, and even though I sometimes feel anger towards it (because of my perfectionist tendencies I need to manage for the rest of my own life), I don’t genuinely hate it and instead feel at least more neutral with sometimes being thankful for it letting me eat, drink, speak and survive life.
For a long time, I used to lie to myself thinking that I was okay with my flesh vessel and that I should be okay with it… But I am not anymore now that I know the truth about it. I used to be alright with the parasites on my chest, heck, I even wanted them as a youngling… Now I’ve realised that I mostly hate them more, but I am also neutral with those parasitic lumps from time to time. I remember the times that I was mostly fine with wearing bras that had no wires, and during my late teenage years, I wore underwired bras, and now during the pandemic, I don’t wear them anymore because they just feel both pointless and useless to me. I don’t see the value of them for myself anymore. Why is it that it’s fine for a person without chest lumps to walk around the streets shirtless, but when a person with chest lumps do it, it’s ‘inappropriate’ or ‘indecent’?
I still hate having parasites on my chest that others refer to as ‘breasts’ because not only are they horrid for my spine, they don’t help my fucked up and hereditary thyroid issues as well, and they don’t help my gender dysphoria, self-doubt, along with self-misgendering and deadnaming be any better because having those parasites on my chest make me feel genuinely worse.
It’s ironic as hell that I used to be fine with long hair, but looking back now with my wonderfully cut short hair (I’ve done by myself because I owe it to myself to relieve some dysphoria of mine), I am quite amazed, or rather proud of how far I’ve come in alleviating dysphoria in places I have alleviated. But… I still have a long way to go, and I am more than just okay with that. I used to feel more okay with my hair when I’ve just discovered myself, but as time went on, I knew that I won’t be taken seriously as the man that I am, and also not seen and respected for who I am, not for the false persona that was forced onto me at birth. I know that I shouldn’t say stuff like this, but honestly, I need to because not every guy like myself feels like he is who he is because of society’s fucked up expectations (that I am also just as guilty of subconsciously adopting) ingrained into people.
I remember the bad reactions I’ve gotten when I cut my own hair… It’s like I’m not even my own person, but rather, I’m ‘supposed’ to not ruin the family’s ‘image’, reputation or their public face, or I’m more like I am some doll to them who isn’t supposed to be his own person.
The times I get misgendered… bring me through an unpleasant kind of hell I sometimes have difficulty pinpointing down at times. To me, self-misgendering is a kind of hell I wish I didn’t have nor to ever deal with. But… Then again, no gender-conforming cisgender person would worry about such a thing like this, since most cis folks aren’t misgendered in a malicious way by others around them (from my experiences, but also from my own bitterness that I still get clocked as some dead ‘woman’ I’ll never be by random strangers)… Self-misgendering feels like a form of self-hatred that is not only an injury to yourself, but also something painful that no one should ever have to go through.
There are times that I wonder about whether or not I truly deserve to be here because there are times that I feel like I am ‘lying’ about who I am as a man, but there are also times that I feel like I know that I am who I say that I am. How can those who’ve invalidated me possibly know about ME? They’ve never had to worry about feeling rejected (internally and deeply) from their own families nor would ever have to face wilful ignorance and transphobia from them (nor would they ever have to worry about mourning over the fact that they used to be loving before their biological child came out as trans). They’ve also never had to worry about having their own life micro-managed because of the fact that they don’t even perceive Autistic trans persons as their own people with a better sense of themselves than NT and cishet people around them will ever have, nor did they have to even consider thinking about how their own families would try so desperately to stand in the way of their lifelong transition, still deluding themselves by thinking that we are our false personas forced on us at birth (that remain dead and stay dead for mental health, well-being, self-discovery and self-acceptance reasons) and going at their own lengths to try to emotion and tone police us.
Those who’ve invalidated me by trying to tear me down by constantly telling me that they support me while they try to save public face and their own reputation, villainising me when I do things for myself that they cannot stand, and also playing with my kind nature and with my vulnerability like it’s some game to them are the ones who are the real bullies and the real pieces of shit who don’t deserve to know the real me, nor will they ever deserve ME, ever. I never owed transphobes, ableists and queerphobes my damn time nor my battery/fuel and never will. For those who try to posit me as some bully to them and that they’ve been nothing but supportive to me, congratu-fucking-lations… you’ve proved the exact opposite of what you try to posit yourselves as to make yourselves ‘healthier’-than-thou, as people who are ‘normal’ in your own conservative and backwards worldviews, and you’re just going to continue lying to yourselves about who I am like you also want me to lie to myself about who you want me to be, not who I actually am.
A/N: This was what I’ve written during my week off from university, so I may not have much to say (mayhaps I am still in a writer’s block at times, but oh well, I’m here to experience my own life on my terms) about it except it’s from my own experience.
