From my drafts folder. Originally written On July 1st

There’s an interesting discussion over at the FTM LJ community.

The Original Poster says:

The trouble is, though, that I’ve realized that “being trans” so obsessively and completely pre-transition prevented me from establishing other interests. So now, I can go anywhere and do anything I want (safely) but I don’t know what I like, or what I don’t like, or anything. And I’m almost 24 – so people kind of expect me to have all of that figured out already – since most 24 year olds do. I kind of feel like I’m rebuilding myself from the ground up, and that I have to hurry in order to catch up to everyone else.

There’s a number of commenters who had a similar experience of being ‘obsessively trans’ until, they were then able to go stealth, and I am aware of real life friends that have felt the same way after realising that they *can* choose to go stealth.

I wonder if I’ll ever hit this point?

I somehow doubt it. My transition doesn’t have a finite time frame. Its not a check list.
Haircut? Check.
Boy pants? Check.
Testosterone injections? Check.
Name change? Check.

When does it end? When I get rid of the last of the stuff that I don’t like, and was only given to me because its the ’sort of thing you give a girl’? When I have a hysto? When I have top surgery? When I pass 100%? When my birth certificate erases my female past, and has my new name and ‘corrected’ gender added to it? When most people in my life know me as ‘that guy Ryan’ instead of ‘that transguy Ryan’?

Sometimes, because the stories of intersexed boys raised as girls transitioning to male are so common I feel tempted to not correct peoples assumptions. I want to be valid, I want to be acknowledged. I want to be a person with a medical condition corrected by the wonders of modern science.
I don’t have a medical condition. I will never be ‘cured’ of my femaleness, of my queerness. I am not intersex.
The medical establishment is not a hero, rescuing me from a dire situation. It is a gaoler with keys, and locks, and chains, and secret passwords, and if I say all the right things maybe I can get past every gate, every door, maybe I can get out, see the sky, find freedom.

I don’t see an end to my transition coming. I don’t have a check list of things to do before I stop being ‘obsessively trans’. I am not obsessively trans. This is all consuming, but not the way these posters mean. My life still has room for other things, and sometimes I get all gendered out, and have to take some time, have a breather, read a book.

I don’t have a destination in mind. I will never Arrive, because I don’t want to stop traveling. I might pause along the way in a few places, but this journey is a fascinating one, rich, and full of interest. I’m not ‘looking for myself’ anymore. I am looking for wisdom, beauty, fun, love, sex, rebellion, freedom…
I’m not looking for truth.

I am searching for understanding. I want to understand all the diversity that is out there. I will not slot neatly into a male role.