So I turn my thoughts to discover where I am right this very moment. Now. I’ve been blinkered, unable to sit and settle into this space for fear I will sprout roots and be unable to leave again. That something unseen will kidnap me in the night and hold me hostage. Of course it has already, this unseen beast of a thing is called Fear. Icy tentacles have pillaged my motivation and left me stranded on the couch. But not anymore.

I begin today with a yoga practice to clear my mind and open my body. I eat nourishing food and not too much of coffee (my Hindlish is staying put), I update my resume for a meeting tomorrow and I arrange a couple of massages. In the ‘doing’ I become a being, I rouse myself into an action awake and my mind finds purchase in the slippery slate of Now. I connect with my body and find myself back in the present, this unique and beautiful moment that has already passed, that means too much and so little and creates a fissure and fracture in its absence, an absence created by the distraction of a distant and longed for tomorrow.

So the words come again after being taken for ransom by a girl. My words flow elsewhere in love and lullaby as this blog goes into drought. The settling back into a Sydney skin is taking time while my heart yearns and my fingertips reach out to Dharamshala.

Yet I am here, yet who am I?

Some History

I left for India in October 2009. My head shaved close to my scalp, my face hardened and my jaw set into an absolute. I declared myself Boy and set off into the wild wide world to experience life away from my Gay Ghetto for a time. Read of my adventures here if you fancy but allow me to fast forward.

I was determined to Pass as a male, convinced it would be simple and sure that my experience of India would be that little bit easier in my Obvious Male-ness. Um…NO! Not once did I pass! Not once was I called ‘Sir’ and if I mentioned my desire to pass I would always be met with looks of incredulous surprise. Couple that with an immensely male culture that holds a distinct and obvious lack of female energy and women in public in general (despite the Shakti, the Mother Goddess prevailing) and it was either going to make or break me…it broke me then made me!

OMG What Happened!!?

I came face to face with my demons in India. I realised how my actions and behaviours have affected those around me negatively (and positively also so it wasn’t all horror). I have been able to make amends to some people I really really hurt (and didn’t even realise I was hurting!) and can finally truly see The Part I Play! With that humility came a new softness and a new connection with my own Shakti, my own Divine Self and it is distinctly feminine And masculine . Ardhanarishvara the Hindu deity, represents feminine and masculine divinity as ShivaShakti also manifests in all of us. I embraced my new and unique version of my own femininity and felt whole again! As if by focussing purely on my transition to become a man I lost a core part of myself and became someone I could no longer fully connect with. India softened me by pushing my limits, confronting me with my own shit and by providing 1.2 billion people who saw me only as a strange woman! She also provided an essence of spirit that helped me fall in love with a new thread of existence that pushes away any need to put myself in a box, boxes suck!

So what does this all mean?

For starters, I will not be taking testosterone. I feel completely ‘transitioned’ enough. I bind my chest because I prefer it, I generally prefer a pronoun of ‘he’ but ‘hyr’, ‘it’, ‘monster’, ‘sie’ will do fine, ‘they’ and ‘them’ in the singular just feels weird to me but I think that is because I am a twin and am already a plural anyway!  I’m not much of a lady but I’ll be your bitch, I’m a faggy boi, homo, pansy with a penchant for femmes and bears…go figure.  My decision to not take testosterone has been part of this intensive unstitching, this peering into the great inner cavity of me and finding immense peace, freedom and jubilation in what I’ve found.  Why would I want to make such an extreme and permanent change to myself when the notion of fluidity, flexibility coupled with a desire to push the binary seems so much more fun to me!

Having said that, I am so inspired by my trans brothers and sisters who decide to walk the hormone path,  the see the changes they experience and the freedom the find is a thing of beauty.  Let’s face it, transmen of any variety are ridiculously hot as Dar the Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary maker says here:

Transmen...ridiculously hot!

My friend Ash spoke all of this so well during a speech at Camp Better in 2007.  I relate to and wholeheartedly agree with Ash’s experience and opinion of using testosterone and would love you to read the speech here.  May as well not invent the wheel!  Here is Ash’s blog of awesome also:

http://imyerjoeyramone.livejournal.com/

This is what I believe:  Gender is stupid.  It is a societal construct of pink and blue that means nothing but seperation and stereotype. If a baby is born with ambigous junk in their trunk then a state of emergency is called, if a President decides to wage war on a country he supplied the weapons to it’s business as usual, if an Indian state outlaws the promotion and village applause of the burning of widows on a funeral pyre (sati) then hoardes take to to streets in protest.  Surely these are all signs that the KaliYuga is upon us?  Why is it that the binary of gender is so terribly important to our existence?  I am not floating down a denial that says men and women aren’t incredibly different (except when I say that men and women are also ridiculously similar!) but I just don’t get why it’s such a huge deal! Why does difference need to be unpacked, examined and wrapped up again in rules and red tape?  Why do we, as humans, need to Understand Everything?

The answer I guess is simple, it’s because humans need structure and a sense of unity and belonging to create meaning so that life seems filled with purpose instead of a whole jumble of hell, horror and humour that ultimately mean nothing but karma, a cow and an endless soul stream towards a much larger and higher consciousness which we may or may not call God god goddess Goddess higher power universal trickster.  Simple yeah?  And I guess, somewhere in the middle of all that, somewhere down the line humans began to control eachother based on the bits that were different instead of celebrating to beauty that exists in the hunter and the nurturer (of whatever sex that role chooses to be!)

But of course I have digressed (how unusual)…back to the star of the show…me!

Gender identity is a beautiful and fluid thing that is also extremely personal.  My own identity, my own core belief of who I am as a (non) gendered person can change depending on my mood, my social calendar, my cycle, the moon and anything and everything.  My identity is as complex as a fractal and I love that I am free to explore, unpack and play with it as much as I want! I exist in a middle place, I’m definitely not a woman but certainly not a man either and what liberation I experience to even write those words.

Teddy: gender pirate queer as fuck shakti ghetto boi.  Has a nice ring to it I think!