Things They Never Told Me

They never told me that there would be points in time that I would still struggle with my body image.  That I would think back to the way my body used to look and be sad at some of the changes that have been lost: the curve of my hips, my butt, my waistline.  Things that I thought I would be happier without, and I find myself missing them,

They never told me that as I began passing as male in the majority of social interactions, that I would miss the days when I could identify and pass as a woman.  As I learn more and more about how Black women have really held it down and held up the Black community, I find myself missing that feeling of sisterhood.  Of being looked at as someone struggling towards liberation on equal ground, rather than as someone who is holding progress back or the source of he trouble (when I'm read as and assumed to be a cis man).  It feels weird and it hurts when I still identify so strongly with Black womanhood, and yet I'm cast out, isolated because of these benefits I now have bc I'm read as a cis guy.

This in-between space, as a masculine-presenting genderqweer person is lonely. I find it hard to find other Black folks who are walking along the same genderfluid lines as myself. Sometimes it feels like we're so few and far between though....