Jenerated Anomaly: The Almost Person

I am nobody / who are you?     ~Emily Dickinson

I am not a person. I have not been a person for some time, if I ever was. I am human, but certainly not a person. I am an almost person. I am almost female and almost male, but not fully either. I am almost whole. I am almost normal. I am almost put together. I am almost capable. I am almost someone worthy of respect and dignity. I am almost these things and one might think I am, until you see me, really see me. Then you know. Almost.

What I am is a generated anomaly, or perhaps better phrased Jenerated anomaly. I was born into a twisted half world. Female with male anatomy. From the start I was only almost. I spent the majority of my life attempting to be a person by fitting in with my male role models. I did not do a good job of it, though some argue the imitation was perfect. Even if it was, it was still an imitation. I knew I was female, living “successfully” male and so I knew I was only almost. The only thing I had going for me is, according to others, I was an attractive male. “Why did you change?” people ask me. “Why be female when you are so good at being male?” Because, I was only almost male. I was only male by accident of anatomy and a dangerous over exposure to testosterone. It was all fake. I knew it and it killed me.

Now I am a “trans woman,” an almost woman. Just as I had spent three and half decades denying my female nature, I am now dealing with aspects of self brought about by too many years of too much testosterone and inappropriate socialization. My body has taken on too many male qualities for me to ever be accepted as female by people. I am almost. I look in the mirror and I feel the generated quality of my existence. I see the past scrambling to get free, to reassert, to make me hate myself again. To drag me back down into an almost nature that will kill me. It is called dysphoria. To know that my self and elements of my physicality do not, cannot align. To be condemned from birth to suffer extreme cognitive dissonance for my entire life, to the point where looking in mirrors or seeing my photo causes a painful dissonance that can leave me a trembling mass of almost-ness.

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