The Ideal Self

Musings about new beginnings and gender identities

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to begin anew, and the constraints surrounding new beginnings.

Unidentified, Two Assemblies, from Cave 224, 4th-6th century, stucco with pigment, 33 ¹⁄₂ x 30 in. (85.1 x 76.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.

The human conception of time varies across and within cultures. In many cultures, including our own, time is segmented into varying groups, from seconds to minutes to hours to days to months to years, and so on. Most of us accept and adhere to this segmentation— it’s necessary for our survival in this capitalist system, but these definitions of time are also a way to categorize, define, and connect with one another. Time scoops us up into age categories, generational categories, and drags us along its pre-defined cultural timeline, which looks something like this:

Born—baby—toddler—school-aged—tween—teen—young adult—adult—middle-aged—elderly—old.

And then there are the things we are supposed to do along that timeline, like:

Disneyland—prom—high-school graduation—college—job—dating—marriage—fur babies—babies—————

And so on.

I am not here to tell anyone anything about the value of these milestones for them.

But I am here to say that for me, they have been harmful. That these milestones are actually assumptions we make about each other and what we should be doing. When one doesn’t conform or meet the expected ideal, they’re often questioned and judged.

Man Ray’s Glass Tears // 1932

I’ve been thinking a lot about internalized narratives. Recently I wrote something about the ways in which I internalized ideas about my lack of intelligence (from moving so much as a young person), as well as ideas about my gender identity and cultural ideas.

I used to live inside a space of comparison. Everything was hierarchical. I positioned myself next to everyone and lowered myself beneath or above them. I was never equal.

That’s what I was taught to do.

It’s taken a long time to unlearn that, and the smashing of the comparative lens I learned to see as natural (not manmade) has been long. I think it started over a decade ago, when I had to confront my bulimia and release what I had spent so long striving towards: the thin, ideal self.

You see, for nearly all my life (yes, nearly all of it) there had been this other person, an other life, in the distance. The person was thin, charismatic, and loved. I believed that my life could be drastically improved if only I could get my body to be smaller. But when I got smaller, I was still me. So I told myself I needed to be smaller still.

This mirage-self allowed me to escape my current moment and live in a possible future. The mirage-self also kept me alive. By creating a future-self I assured my own survival. I think it’s important to acknowledge that everything I have harmed myself with also saved my life, until I didn’t need it anymore.

As a kid, I had a lot of fantasies about what my life could be. I dreamed of being a movie star, a famous singer, a well-known writer. Catch the theme? I wanted to be seen and loved, because as a child I was taught to make myself small and disappear.

I can’t say I’ve landed on what I want my life to look like. I question the idea of wanting. What if my wanting is limited? What if I can only conceive of something less than what is actually possible?

I never thought I’d grow up in this world and be able to be non-binary. For most of my life I couldn’t conceive of anything outside of the gender binary. I felt trapped by the woman-suit, yet I didn’t know how to get what I wanted without the woman-suit. How would I keep myself safe without the tools I’d been given as a woman? Who would I be in the world if I weren’t a woman.

Maybe it was stepping out of the woman-suit that taught me of the limits of my own imagination. I’d once thought that there were parameters around “nonbinary,” and that I couldn’t be nonbinary if the world still perceived me as a woman. As someone with a stereotypical femme body and features, I figured that I couldn’t be anything but a woman, despite how much I hated living inside of my woman-suit.

The desirous gaze of others, often aimed at my body, never felt good to me— not even when I was a sex-worker and reliant on my body’s attractiveness for money.

It’s uncomfortable being nonbinary, but the discomfort is reversed. When I was in my woman-suit I was supremely uncomfortable. I hated myself. But now that I have discarded that suit, I feel free.

But I am still wearing the suit. I move through the world perceived as a woman.

In the years since I’ve come out, this has been the most uncomfortable. I’ve asked myself: should I go back into hiding and pretend to be a woman again? I’ve told myself: it would make it easier for everyone. Everyone who keeps calling me a woman. It would be easier for them. But then I would be hiding again.

I ask myself: should I get top surgery?

I wonder what top surgery would give me. I think I’d like life on the other end of that. But it’s not financially feasible for now. For now, I am in my woman suit, and if I were to have top surgery? I’d still be in a woman-suit.

I always come to this place: my gender is not about how others perceive me.

This is my own place. This is my experience. Many other trans and nonbinary people have their own experiences. (I say this because it’s important for anyone to be able to access gender-affirming care of any kind).

I say to myself: I wish I lived in a world where people were more curious about what and who we are underneath these suits.

Please take a moment to watch this beautiful speech by Jonathan Van Ness at the GLAAD Awards. It’s inspired me to be more out as a nonbinary person and to get more involved in my capital city of Tallahassee. God knows Florida needs help.

Just so you know, you’ll be getting more words from me over the next few weeks. I’m learning that it’s my words you’re here for. And I’m grateful to you for that. Please feel free to share your own words in the comments.