songsfortheotherkind.com

I was born with male anatomy, and for the first many years of my life I was unaware of any other way of interfacing with the world except through the more introverted of 'masculine' activities - video gaming, academics, mind games. All of which could be exhilarating and enriching in their own right, but there was always an emptiness, a distinct sense of lack and disconnection that would not go away. I attributed the shame and the invisible cloud hanging over me completely to my muscular dystrophy, not trying to find any other reason for the suffering.

Many awakenings and transformations took place in my sixteenth year, not least of which was a discovery of the feminine in spirituality. I read of aborigines living in harmony with one another and the environment, of Goddesses and movements of the bohemian spirit. I delved into new, stark yet dreamy forms of music (Enigma was my introduction). I adored nude art and other expressions of the female form (and admittedly used them to 'explore my sexuality'). Eventually all this led to an emergence of and recognition of the feminine in myself.



The past six years have been a slow, steady unveiling of that which has been hidden, though only in the past three years have I questioned my gender identity. I grew my hair out long, got my ears pierced, wore bracelets and thick-rimmed glasses. At first I called myself a 'male lesbian,' the first three definitions of which still resonate with me to an extent. Boy was I castigated the first time I used that term in a forum. Then I called myself androgynous, then a transgender lesbian (yes, it's possible), back to androgyny, then genderqueer... you get the picture. I felt oddly rewarded when someone 'mistook' me for a female.

Eventually I became doubtful and discouraged about the whole thing, especially when my hairline started receding. I cut my hair short, stopped wearing the little flairs, and generally reverted to my 15-year-old self. In retrospect, I can see that this coincided with a lull in the otherwise extraordinary progress I'd been making in terms of getting in touch with my true voice, the one that longs to share all the heart I have. The repression eventually grew to a boiling point, and my being would have it no longer. So here I am.

It's obvious to me that I'm not a classic transsexual. I don't think I could stand being polarized to one end of the spectrum, because I still have quite masculine tendencies, preferences, and urges. If someone asked 'how feminine do you feel?', I would say my energy is 55% feminine, the rest being a mixture of masculine and Otherly qualities. But how much does that really help, in the end? What is really, truly fixed in this world? Instead of a spectrum, I could picture a 3-dimensional model of gender, where one could move not just left and right, but up and down, in and out. Or how about a multidimensional existence that renders all conceptions utterly irrelevant? (I believe Songs has talked about this)

Nonetheless, I recently began seeing a transgender therapist to further refine the understanding that I have of myself in this area, and to figure out where I want to go with this in my external life. I feel that it is an important step on my journey that is prompting me to clarify where I stand on this whole gender business, even if my identity is fluid and will not submit to a fixed label.

There are also the darker aspects, the doubts and hurts which nip at the edges of my awareness. What if all of this is just a frustrated, inverted expression of my virginity? What if the emotional distance between me and my parents created some need for compensation?... among a plethora of pseudo-Freudian theories. At the same time, I realize that these conceptions, even if containing a grain of truth, cannot nearly approach the full truth of the matter.



Because before I am a sex, a gender, or any other personality trait, I am a person. There is an infinite freedom in the full realization of that statement that is essential in maintaining, if I am to navigate the maze of cultural variables that lie before me. What I have experienced is beautiful and valid in its own right, regardless of the conditions which engendered it. At least part of it lies beyond the causal reality through which I operate on a daily basis. Truly, it is what I make of this in the present and going forward which will grow my evolution.

I will be using this thread for a few more explorations of this topic, and perhaps as a journal of the steps I take to express my femininity in my outward life.

Feel free to join in with any related stories, sentiments, stances, or questions.

Thank you Gekko, for trusting us with your explorations of Self. I feel honored.

_________________
Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. ~ Mark Twain

Me too. Forgive me, but aren't you quite young? How the hell can someone be so articulate if they're not a crumbly? And then I think ... ah, maybe such exploration of Self leads to level-ups not usually had. This world is not particularly geared for exploration of your kind, and I suspect many people live their lives denying what you so excellently express and explore, and hit a brick wall instead of evolving.

You sound pretty bloody interesting to me, and I'm glad you're here.

What a beautiful post. There is an incredible energy through your story Gekko. Of sensitivity, delicacy and strength.

Your words remind of the gecko. When I lived in Australia, they would be ever present during the warmer months all through the house they were. I loved their song and always just only thought of them as delicate because of their almost transparent skin. But I never forget one night, turning around with a start when I heard this thumping against the wall. It was one little gecko with a cockroach in its mouth, almost the size of its own body. It was whacking it against the wall and it had such power, which I had never considered before.

My point is, I never knew there was more to the spectrum of a gecko until I saw this. My next thought was: what more is this creature? Actually, these days, I think this of all living entities - there is so much more and by labeling what is anything that lives - I believe is to set limits.

What has this got to do with your exploration? I don't fully know - but boldly going to who you are and can be, that is so celebrating! I look forward to reading more about this Gekko.

_________________
It takes the time it takes ...

One of the reasons I find it so frustrating to post pictures of Otherness is the rampant human sexualisation of Otherkind- the polarised sexuality of either or, and if some nod is given to the choices in between they are kept gravitating like moons around these two 'sacred standards'- standards which of course are nothing more than the decrepit relics of a controller paradigm.



For my Self, I have long experienced the polarisation and contortion of 'relationships' within the human contructs; I still find talking about connections difficult because there are so many expressions that the paradigm strives to crush out of existence with the social programming



and so at most the conversation becomes a mindnumbing two step, mechanically moving in a shuffling side to side boredom and clockwork disinterest that I can't participate in, so I stay on the edges, watching, mostly silent. I've tried to talk about it before, but the gulf between my 'Verse and this world often reduces me to little more than an a curio, another passing blip of different in a stream of information designed to medicate, placate the chewing gum and instant food mentalities rather than liberate, so I keep mostly silent and wait to see what might happen in my life in the Otherrealms, what I can create there, to connect me with something that feels.

I lived that way- trapped in the grip of a polarised paradigm, within the restrictions and rules of others- for the first part of my life, despite my constant experience of lighting up around particular Beings while being utterly oblivious to their gender or 'orientation'; to me there were simply Beings, expressing their cosmic Art



in whatever way they were expressing it



and for me that was the thing that would call me, inspire me, turn me on, light me up inside





I was so open when I was young, despite the experiences that could have made me otherwise; I was intensely shy, often wordless and watching, unable to negotiate the bizarre behaviours around me yet constantly open to the signal I was looking for; if I ever stumbled across something that looked remotely like that longed for song my world would shift



and every gate in me would open.

I didn't know then that I was approaching the Other signal that some humans carried as if it were Otherness itself; I didn't know that I would respond to these humans as if they too grokked and resonated to the multiverse within- I thought they spoke my language, knew what I was saying energetically- and for a moment they would light up, caught up in the power of my signal and in the experience of having a Being like me open the internal gates- and I didn't know what I was doing, I would just do it because that was the language I spoke



It was utterly sexual and beyond sexual, beyond definitions and limitations, beyond notions of gender and neatly labelled little boxes, beyond controls; the pure language of sui generis, flowing, unlimited, the expression of one unique Being dancing with another because of the joy of the signal, the joy of the infinite possibilities within that signal and the co-creation






but the language I spoke wasn't theirs, shit happened through my lack of grokking the heart of the error and the light in me gradually became hidden- I locked away what I am, what I could be, my sui generis expression and learned to become part of the landscape



to try and blend in with those that kept insisting that they knew what was 'real' and 'right' and 'proper' and 'How Things Are'



and they told me who to be and how to be, what my breasts and my yoni meant and what they didn't mean, what my body, my mind, my heart, my spirit was for and what it wasn't, who I could be and who I couldn't- they ignored my ability to harden my body at will and become angular, taller, wider in the shoulders; they ignored the oddness that meant during all my years of high school nobody was actually really sure what gender I was, even when I wore dresses- so I was isolated, shunned

alone

and I got very good at being able to become invisible



and my Otherness died every day, a little more, while the heteronomy tightened its noose around my cosmic Art, my expression of Being, drained by the insistence of their words and their rules, their laws-spoken and unspoken- and their insanities




I did this while grappling with broken memories of impossible worlds, flashes of a different Self in places and spaces so old that there were no humans at all and the experience of a physical form that liked to go utterly non-human; the heteronomy weighted me down, like the witch tied to the chair- damned one way if I drown, damned in another if I don't-



and insisted I become my own jailer and refuse to allow my Self the space, the voice, the fullness of the expression that was naturally mine.

Until finally it all broke, as any system cut off from the evolution and the Life does



and I broke, and in the breaking, gradually found it wasn't me- and it had never been me- that was broken.



I floated in the drift of my own knowing, looking out in wonder at the riches within me, and the universes I could birth with my own creativity



the connections I could make that had no dictates in what kind of genitals an individual had; I could touch the infinite wonder in me, touch with eyes wide bliss the infinite wonder in another



and be lost to the virus programming and limitations, lost to the empty labels and desperate definitions created to keep the evolution in tight check, lost to the rules and bindings and meaningless words that have no life in them at all



I found my voice again and discovered that for me, connection has no gender, no defined markers, no polarity around which to oscillate



the physical expression is as without contract, without constriction, agenda, bindings and scripts as the rest of sui generis connection is for me; I wish for nothing that could block the evolution- of my Self, the Self of the Other, the connection and the expression of that connection-

infinite possibility within the mind, the heart, the Being, the spirit, the body, without polarity







and she dances, she dances
with such grace and beauty



Jin Xing
so few know she was born male
and what difference does it make anyway?
she danced for the expression of her soul
told them to look at her Art
not her gender

so they did



I learned to breathe underwater



so that no Otherkind need drown again
tied to the witch's chair of virus expressions
condemned by a signal that is terrified of evolution

in the sui generis realms there is only

the beauty

that resides within each unique Being

rising in love with their hearts wide

and their eyes closed...



my last girlfriend
was beautiful and powerful

she had male genitalia
and felt no need to change
because she said
"i have nothing to prove to anyone
and this is who I am"

her son could remember the days
when she had been 'dad'
her wife married her back then
and simply accepted the change
when they realised at the same time
they wanted to be lesbian

I just thought she was beautiful
Just as I experience my lovers as beautiful

sui generis everything
and the wondrous worlds
of infinitely possible expressions of
gender
sexuality
and having a fun time...



*sideways eyed grin*

but then, I'm a succubus, so I think *lots* of things are fun...

_________________
"For every lie I unlearn, I learn something new"- Ani DiFranco

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. ~ TS Elliot

*Long exhale*

It was scary as hell to post that and I'm relieved. I couldn't have asked for better responses. Thank you. I have to leave soon and I don't want to start a reply that might turn into an essay, so I'll be back later.

Borden, I'm just a kid wielding a vocabulary too big for (his?) own good.

Your words are truly beautiful. Evidently you are a very beautiful being Gekko and you should be celebrated for reaching deep and seeking your identity without the constrictions of stereotyping and labels. I look forward to hearing more from you x

well, I'll post one more

Ahhh… thank you so much Gekko for this sharing. How wonderfully articulate and meaningful your writing is. I honor you and admire your honesty and courage. This is a an important subject and of personal interest to me. The box I grew up in has left it’s mark. An unbelievably macho father and brothers turned me so off that I have spent great periods of time alone from relationships on this physical plane, contemplating gender. The men that I am truly drawn to are very much in touch with, and expressive of, their feminine side and I know that I am not interested in any other kind. I like the idea of letting go of the labels altogether. In my own experience of true intimacy gender characteristics disappear. I have experienced the energetic merging that can happen outside this realm and it feels without gender characteristics though I feel myself.

This subject and what you have written so beautifully Gekko brings up intimacy of the heart for me… perhaps it is through the gate of what has been defined as feminine that we know it.

Thank you for sharing yourself. I look forward to hearing more

Thanks for sharing your innermost self, Gekko, on a subject that needs much exploration and has been taboo for far too long.
I have explored lesbian culture fairly extensively (gay culture less so) and though I often felt very much like a fish out of water (I'm hetero though very much a feminist ) it was a wonderful. very expansive learning experience.
Though gender adds so much more dimension to our experience as a race, it should not also be an "issue".

Actually, you're Otherkind and large vocabularies are often part of the territory with that because the majority of truly gifted individuals in this realm carry a high ratio of Otherkind signal. It's one of the things that marks us out as 'different' to the herd- heh heh, as if we didn't have enough things that mark us out as different...

I don't know if you've read anything I've written about my inamorati in the Otherrealms; when I do I use some gender neutral pronouns that I discovered in a series of books by Storm Constantine called The Wraethu Chronicles. In those books she created the terms zhe, zhur, zhurs, to replace the gender specifics; as my inamorati is not on the male/female pole, but is a 'gender' not known to this realm, I have taken those up in describing zhur although I am utterly aware that for those unfamiliar with the depth of the contortions that the virus programming creates in this particular instance, the distinctions and nuances of what these gender specific pronouns actually create is usually lost. I actually am constantly working on the sui generis language being expressed, in which there are no 'gender' specific pronouns or other language markers at all- it's part of my passion for the sui generis, to have a language that does not have categorisation and labeling as its first function.

I hold the space for you to use whatever pronouns and other descriptors you wish for your Self.

_________________
"For every lie I unlearn, I learn something new"- Ani DiFranco

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. ~ TS Elliot