A Trumpet Call to Explore Your Gender Identity
This article is a departure from my typical philosophical and scientific musings.
Instead, I intend to pledge to Medium to take action, and I invite you to take action along with me. I made an error in a previous article that inspired me to create a new Discord community for exploring gender identity. Further information about the community is found below, and I’d like to discuss what led me to believe that it is necessary.
An erroneous view of my power of gender
Recently, I had three separate conversations on the same topic. In each conversation, I railed against behavior I also had adopted. In public. Really egregiously.
In an article published two weeks ago, titled “The Perfect Gender Transition,” I explained why transgender men and women will go to such great extents to feel like ourselves (emphasis mine):
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we put ourselves through the pain of surgery, the dysphoria of judging ourselves and finding ourselves lacking? Because gender is a social construct, and in order to feel like the men and women we are, we bow to society’s view of our gender.
Readers of Medium, I apologize. I was wrong.
To be ourselves is a gift
When I began exploring my gender identity in early 2022, I explained to my psychologist that I was unable to transition because of my commitment to be a father for my son, which required me to present as a man. My psychologist told me that the best gift I could give my son was not masculinity, but to show him that I value myself enough to live as the woman I am. The authenticity of my life would demonstrate to my son that he is to live his life authentically as well.
I decided to transition in July, 2022, and — if you’ve read any other article I wrote — you can probably tell that I am happy with my decision. I am close to five months into hormone replacement therapy, and I see results that make me ecstatic. But instead of throwing myself into my identity the way I claim all humans should, I wrote an article that painted myself as a victim of society’s whims.
No longer.
Who is society?
In the quote above, I commit the fallacy of assuming that society provides me with a view of gender. But who is society? We are trained from an early age to understand “society” as “anybody who is not me.” We are told that we should do our best for the sake of society — perhaps even to sacrifice our lives for the sake of society.
But society is not a vague abstraction. Society includes you. Society includes me. We all contribute to what society is, to what society believes. We are not impotent in the face of a nameless adversary who prevents us from being the people we are. Not at all.
When we perceive that society is not the way we would like it to be, we can change it, because we are it. You contribute to the beliefs society holds. I contribute to those beliefs. And if our beliefs are too quiet, we must pump up the volume.
A public pledge to Medium
The past five months taught me a harsh lesson. If I felt accepting myself enough to begin transition was difficult, drawing a finish line and a schedule in which to reach it feels nearly impossible. I began researching a change of wardrobe, makeup I find attractive, training my voice to sound more feminine, and changing my name across the important documents of my life.
But for every task I begin, at least another three present themselves as obstacles to the progress I never feel I make. Even with the vast resources the internet provides, I can find several reasons not to explore my identity, most of which are fiction my subconscious feverishly dreams up.
To be succinct, there will never be a perfect time to transition. I will always find a reason to put off the hard work of exploring my identity. Heck, I might put off exploring my identity to finish writing an article — attempting to convince you to explore your identity!
No, the perfect time to transition will never arrive. Instead — paradoxically — the right time to begin transitioning is now. As I move forward, as I see steady progress toward my goals, I inch closer to being able to say the words I claimed imply a successful gender transition:
I see enough of myself to accept the rest of myself.
Readers of Medium, I pledge to do the hard work required to become who I am. I pledge not to write another article exhorting that we all explore our identities while I remain quiescent in the background. I pledge to be the person I have known my entire life. I pledge to be Amethysta.
And I want you to help me.
Introducing a new community
I have slowly assembled the pieces of my transition, yet many pieces of the puzzle remain to be found. As a result, I decided to build a place — a safe space, if you will — in which people may explore their gender identity. I don’t mean “transgender people.” I truly mean “all people.”
I have set a goal to change society: to reject the false binaries of sex and gender, and to make personal exploration of gender identity the normal course of action in the Western world.
The first step in accomplishing my goal was to create a Discord server, to define its purpose, and to set its intent. From its humble beginning, I hope this Discord community can do more than simply provide passive resources to help you explore your gender.
With all of us cheering each other on, I expect the community to keep us honest, to keep us moving forward. I intend to make good on my pledge above, and I promise to help you do the same, so that together, we become the men and women we have bottled up inside us.
Let’s do this!
I wrote before that exploring our likes and dislikes uncovers our deepest-held beliefs. As superficial as it may seem, the clothes that appeal to you provide information about the kind of person you are. How you choose to communicate — gruff or soft, high or low, bright or dark — tells you about your relationships with others. The way you wear makeup — or don’t — gives you clues about who you are.
I intend to see the day when children are not forced to perform a gender role for life based on a doctor’s guess on a birth certificate. I intend to see the world grow content as people create identities that radiate with their inner power. I intend to stand with each person who chooses to explore gender identity with me until we feel comfortable in our skins.
Who’s with me? Are you willing to prove it?
For more information about the Discord community, please visit the web page below:
