i found this amazing sculpture on the mcneill gallery by csilla varga entitled “between worlds” a while back.

somehow, it spoke to me on a personal level regarding my path through transition. and that brings me to today’s observation, via the view from (ab)normal heights and a post by stephanie kay that she calls in the zone?

she links to a blog by walt heyer called “trading my sorrows; celebrating the journey to wholeness”. interestingly, the page title is “gender, lies, and dna”. there’s no “about” page, but i get the sneaking suspicion that walt is an “ex-trans” person.

walt has a post called born in the wrong body which i find extremely disturbing, with regard to the assumptions he makes (and even the assumptions that the medical community makes).

i’m transsexual, according to every diagnosis in the book. i was not born in the wrong body. let me say that again, just so i make myself perfectly clear.

i was not born in the wrong body.

and while i know a good number of trans people who claim that they were born in the wrong body, i do not, in any way, believe that for myself. i don’t even know what that means.

now while it’s true that i have modified (and not the dreaded “mutilated”) my body, my body is still the same body that i was born in, and it was “right” when i was born, and it is still “right” after all the modifications, which also include a few piercings, tattoos, minor surgeries and trimmings.

i was “whole” when i was born, and i’m “whole” now. i was “complete” when i was born, and i’m “complete” now. the changes i make to my body are mine to make, as my body is mine. and it’s mine in a way that one can’t claim ownership to anything else. i believe our bodies are the only thing we really do own. except, of course, if one is a woman, and that woman tries to take ownership of her reproductive system. in that, trans people and women have a lot in common when it comes to ownership. but that’s another rant.

trans people are not homogeneous; we have different narratives, different motivations, different ideologies, different politics, and different experiences. like all other classes of people, one person’s story is not every person’s story. and our diversity is as wide as any other class of people. even, dare i say, men.