I embrace my feminine, but not my period

GenderFULL lessons and ADHD consequences

I got my period for the first time in years.

Let me back up a moment and explain: I’m nonbinary, more specifically I’m transmasculine with a gender spectrum that ranges somewhere between David Bowie and Joan Jett. I’ve been on Testosterone for more than a couple of years now, and a few months into my HRT journey my period had (gracefully, gratefully) vanished.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to have one, but this morning as the lower pangs started and that… feeling… just before it happens made the memories come flooding back. Suddenly my lack of patience, utter exhaustion, and bouts of crying last night made sense. My gums felt odd, my body felt wrong— something was up, but I didn’t feel sick— because I wasn’t.

I was getting my period.

I stared in disbelief, and searched for that just-in-case stray pad that lingered in my suitcase from who knows when. The last remaining remnant of what my body once experienced monthly. My jaw tightened as I held back the welling tears that threatened to break the damn of my lower lids while I repeatedly, internally, cursed myself for waiting so long to get the needles I needed to take my Testosterone. I had been taking less of it— trying to both space out the doses for longevity and to maintain my progress without progressing further— but I had gone too long, and I knew I had gone too long.

I’ve been overwhelmed. My plate has been overflowing as I adjust to living on my own with my son while balancing my full time job, my part time public speaking, my health, his health— cooking cleaning shopping socializing bill-paying IEP-meeting exercising hardly-sleeping— and that single errand to CVS had been pushed off for weeks. I had Testosterone, and one of the two types of needles necessary for a dose, and a handful of syringes— but that second needle had been left out of the bag when I last picked up my prescriptions, and I hadn’t made the time to go and get more— the consequence of which was my period.

My motha-fucking-period.

I cursed and blamed my ADHD and executive dysfunction, but as I talked with a loved one they reminded me that while yes that’s one factor, the issue with “just” going to get needles for my Testosterone was deeper than that.

I took a slow, tearful breath and listened as they explained.

“The world doesn’t feel very safe right now for trans people, and this is a new pharmacy for you. You don’t know the people there. It makes sense that you’d avoid outing yourself to new people in a new town. You have no way of knowing who is safe.”

They were right.

The damn broke, and I cried while I talked about how afraid I am, and how our community is at risk, and how heavy the world feels.

“I just want to live," I said— begged. “I just want to enjoy my life. I’m so sick of enjoying moments despite things. Despite the [past] abuse, despite my CPTSD, and now despite all the systemic shit.” They nodded along and listened to me expel more of what I had been holding onto.

If there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that I needed a few good cries.

I needed to release so much of the old that had been brought about by the new. I’ve been crying off and on for two days, and while I felt horrid and hardly slept, I know my soul will be thankful (eventually) for the release.

Today, however, someone somewhere will be texting their friend about the person they saw at the store with a cart only holding a bottle of single malt scotch, four bottles of wine, and two bars of chocolate.

(It’s not all for this weekend, okay?!)

Today I’m sitting with what it means to be transgender, both internally and externally. I’m sitting with the fear that blocked my executive function, and what it means for me to be absolutely sure that my period brings me nothing but dysphoria and misery. If I’m being honest, I’ve questioned lately how I’d feel to de-transition. Not at all because I’m not trans— but because I’m satisfied with what T has given me, and I don’t plan to “fully” (physically) transition.

Well, that, and I may not have a choice here pretty soon.

I wanted to know how it would feel, but it wasn’t a choice I was consciously making. I’ve been exploring, and thinking, and journaling— and while I didn’t purposely let it get this far, I do have my answer.

I may be embracing my feminine again, but I do not want my fucking period.

It’s not that I’m not grateful to have a uterus and for the beauty it’s given me. I have no part of me that wants to have it removed. My womb, after some trouble, carried my son. My chest nourished him for his first 14 months. My body went through incredible things and I’m grateful— but I have no plans on having another child, and every month my period was bringing me nothing but sadness, pain, and dysphoria.

Surgery was, of course, something of debate earlier in my transition. Not just because of my period, but because of my larger chest. There was a lot of pressure in the transmasculine community, too, as if validation came from top surgery and craving a hysterectomy. To a lot of folks it was the natural next step, but for me it was never a hell yes— therefore it was a no.

I’m grateful I heard myself on that.

As I explored what gender meant to me at the start of my transition, I donated all of my feminine clothes and shoes, and cut my hair short, and wore only mens clothing for some time. While I’ll never go back to women’s jeans (hello full pockets) the hyper masculine didn’t feel right to me, either. I love my masculine side, and it had craved being centered for some time before I really and truly embraced it. It is a big part of me— but it isn’t all of me.

I’m masculine, but I’m not a man.

In that process, I had rejected my feminine entirely, denying that other part of myself. I’ve known about that missing piece for a bit of time now, but it’s been hard to let it seep back in. For a little while I was afraid that embracing and exploring my feminine again, from a new angle, would mean that I would be misgendered more, or that I’d be seen as less valid in my trans identity. I was afraid of what it would mean to my journey as a whole, and all that I’ve expressed, and all that I’ve learned about my masculine. I was afraid, and I wondered, and I debated— but then I remembered a few important pieces.

First and foremost: my gender and my journey are mine, and they can only be made valid by me.

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to appease others, and blend in, and fit into whatever box people would hand me because maybe then I would feel worthy of their time and their love. My dysphoria happened, for the most part, when I was misgendered, and more worried about what other people would think of me, and worried about how they would perceive me— and less so when I was by myself, just existing.

Secondly: We all live in a patriarchal society and therefore hold misogynistic bias.

Somewhere, deep down, I denied my feminine side because I saw my softness as weakness. Okay, not deep down— I have PTSD. For many years, showing any sort of softness meant real danger, and I had built quite the wall around myself to protect myself from it. But as I cry out for simple existence, I need to recognize that it means I want to be soft. I crave softness— I crave trusting myself to be hard when I need to, but soft otherwise. I can hold my own, but I don’t always need or want to.

Lastly: Even when I was at the height of my masculinity and binding every day, people still misgendered me.

So.

I might as well lean fully into who I am naturally, which means embracing my femininity as strongly as my masculinity.

I’m not a woman. I’ve known that, but I do have femininity. I’m also not a man, but I have masculinity.

I’m both.

I’m all.

While I’m still exploring what that means for me— exploration that I’m putting no pressure on for an absolute answer— I’ve come to understand so far that my version nonbinary and androgyny doesn’t mean gender-LESS. To me, for me, it means I’m gender-FULL.

The balance of both within me feels right.

Sacred.

But I still don’t want my MF period. <3

In meh-ness,

Mx Dani