What I’ve Learned Being a Man

18.03.2005

If you want to be a man or are becoming one or flirt with masculinity or whatever, here is a partial list of things I’ve learned after about 12 dedicated years of travelling from F to M.

  1. Being comfortable in your body matters.
  2. Having a penis does not matter.
  3. Treating women badly won’t make up for your past or the body you may not like. Discretion is the better part of valor.  Especially if you sleep with women.
  4. Transsexuals and former transsexuals cannot pass. 
  5. Passing assumes a static body, which exists only in advertising.
  6. People will not understand you. 
  7. You’ve gone to the edge and over.
  8. You must understand yourself now that you’re flying over that edge.
  9. Gender is all about the body you want to be perceived in so you can have sex with people as the gender you are.
  10. Sexual orientation may change with gender.  Mine did.  I went from being lesbian to being a straight man.
  11. No is hot.  In our world of voicemail, email, blackberry, mulberry, instant messaging, no is very, very hot.  Make it a habit.
  12. Your lover’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with your gender.
  13. Men are not the enemy.

More later….