I’m a Perfectionist Trans
For years I’ve tried to be perfect.
At times I would get discouraged realizing that, in reality, I wasn’t who I was trying to be. In those moments the worst part of me would take over: superficiality and laziness would drive my choices.
In my life I have always been sure that I could be like everyone else. Everyone else, to me, was represented by male individuals, gifted with chromosome Y, which innately made them better than me. Because, of course, it was “natural” that I, human being of female gender, would be inferior and unable to do what they managed to so perfectly. And we’re talking about everything, obviously. From playing soccer to studying, from bike riding and jumping on sand hills to pursuing girls, from having the freedom to do what I wanted to do instead of what was socially expected of me like, for example, housekeeping.
As years went by I progressively realized that, in order to be like everyone else, I had to strive way more because I had to fight the social barriers that were blocking me. But mostly, I had to break the mental chains that were suffocating me.
I have always considered biological men as “carriers” of perfection par excellence since they were, unlike me, born perfect.
Transition has given me the chance to placate this sense of inferiority that had been destroying my mind and soul for many years, but clearly it hasn’t destroyed this obsessive mechanism of pursuit of perfection that has been with me since I have memory.
This often leads me to be an hopeless jerks who sees mistakes everywhere and anywhere, both in myself and in other people. And it brings me far beyond my limits, like working until ungodly hours without eating. It also leads me, as much as I dislike it, to be a know-it-all that points out my colleagues’ mistakes whether work wise or language wise. The relentless pursuit of excellence drives me to wanting to be that person who is constantly accommodating, fit to face any situation and find a solution to any problem, often to my own detriment, because then I find myself prioritizing other people problems while fixing my own problems when it’s too late.
Eventually being recognized as a man on the outside hasn’t totally quenched my thirst for perfectionism. Maybe because I know, deep down, that despite being assimilated with what I consider my true self on the outside, I still have a lot to do in order to reach my coveted perfection.
Probably I won’t reach the perfection I long for until I realize that I’m perfect just the way I am.
[This essay has been translated by Myriam Gambini. You can find the original version, written in Italian, here]
