Sweetness

I go to a wonderful queer-friendly and trans-friendly church, which today was all decked out in rainbows for the annual Pride service. Let me tell you, if I ever needed proof that I am in the right church (and the right city), nothing could possibly top watching middle-aged gay men dancing to Lady Gaga between the pews.

Another reason I know I'm in the right church is that a few days ago I went to speak to my minister about being trans, and she was not only accepting, but completely unfazed. I told her I was nervous about transitioning at church (I started coming in December, when I was still "she" and only just barely Elisha) and she was like "Oh, people do that all the time here." Most of what she said was on the mark and made me feel lots better, but a couple things were off. One thing that's stuck in my head was this comment:

"I try to tell my trans guys to hang onto some of their God-given sweetness when they go on hormones."

That sentence obviously didn't sit right with me, but as I've thought more about it, I'm glad she said it, because it made me realize something about myself. See, when I was living as a girl, I was NOT sweet at all. I actively tried not to be, because I recognized that sweetness was part of the cluster of cultural expectations that are thrust on girls. "Be pretty, and be delicate, and be demure, and be graceful, and be sweet. Don't talk too much, and when you do talk, for God's sake don't actually say anything." And from a very young age - perhaps the first time someone told me little girls are supposed to like pink, perhaps even before that - I rebelled against that. Fuck being pretty, I want to play in the dirt. Fuck being demure, I want to yell. Fuck being delicate and graceful, I am not your goddamn porcelain doll. And fuck being sweet, I have things to say and if you piss me off you are going to know about it."

When I was living as a girl, being sweet made me dysphoric. I didn't know what dysphoria was at the time, but I did know it made me feel squicky and skin-crawly and it made me want to kick and scream. The idea of being anybody's sweet little girl made my stomach turn. And the more people admonished me to "be sweet" (and growing up in the South, you hear that a lot), the more I wanted to act like an obnoxious little ass. If I was an obnoxious little ass, I won. If I was sweet, the people who thought I should be having tea parties in some fucking English rose garden had their way, and that meant I lost. So I spent a lot of time being an obnoxious little ass, and stepping all over other people because that was the only way I felt I could find a place to stand.

It is only in the last few months, as I've begun to be recognized as male by most of the people in my life, that I've felt free to be anything close to "sweet". Being a sweet girl might make me feel like clawing my skin off, but I love the idea of being a sweet boy. Maybe that's the rebel in me, feeling more comfortable smashing gender stereotypes than conforming to them. Maybe that's the part of me that made me spend my teen years fascinated by guys like Freddie Mercury and Christopher Lowell, the part that never wanted to be a pretty girl but always wanted to be a fabulous drag queen. But isn't that my gender identity? Isn't that a more important fundamental part of who I am than whether or not I yearn for a dick? That whole "born in the wrong body" narrative leaves so much stuff out. If being a boy makes me want to be sweet and being a girl makes me want to fight my way through life with fists of barbed wire, isn't that reason enough to be a boy?

And if I decide to go on testosterone, so that everyone will know I'm a boy and I don't have to try so hard, and that makes me feel even freer to let the light inside me shine out, I will be able to let more of my God-given sweetness out into the world. Maybe I won't feel as much like talking about my feelings or hugging strangers or whatever, because that does happen to some guys. But it's even more likely that I won't feel the need to prove I'm male by standing in the corner with my arms folded when I really want to go dance to Lady Gaga between the pews.

It's only just now, as a boy, that I'm starting to learn the value of sweetness. One of the ways I'm healing my broken parts is by focusing on the sweetness in my life and how I can bring more. I used to focus on love, but we use the word "love" for so many emotions that it's hard to really know what another person means by it. Love can heal, but love can also drive you mad, or make you think other people belong to you. Love can make you want to abuse other people or take abuse from them. Sweetness is what it is. Genuine sweetness - not the syrupy manipulative kind - is free to give and free to receive. It doesn't ask you to give yourself away. You can give it to a stranger, even anonymously. You can be sweet just inside your own head, and that alone will make your life better and everyone else's around you, too.

But you can't do that when you're concentrating all the time on trying to prove you're not going to be what other people want you to be. You can't be sweet when it means someone else wins and you lose. And sweetness doesn't come from estrogen. It comes from the light inside your soul that shines out through the holes in your armor. And the less armor you have to wear, the more light you can show. If taking testosterone means a guy can trade in his heavy suit of armor for flexible chainmail, then testosterone will allow that guy to shine out much more of his light. And that's really what it comes down to: Give people the freedom and the tools to be comfortable being who they are, and sweetness and light will follow.