I “Feel”, Therefore I “Am”

It’s interesting, but the way we label the whole LGBTQ community can be broken down and systematized in such a way whereby it’s all too systematic, and one would wonder whether certain categories follow the proper logic or not.

You hear of people like Caitlynn Jenner (formerly known as Bruce Jenner) in the media. As a male who was cast as an appearing member on the hit TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, he was one of the few men that was broadcast and followed around amongst the slew of females who plastered around town within the hit confines of L.A, making their lives known to millions all the while doing nothing and raking in the dollars just for having cameras follow them around. An interesting storyline within Keeping Up with the Kardashians was the father Bruce’s sudden decision to transition from being a male to a female. On screen, Bruce was initially broadcast as a former Olympic athlete who won several medals in his lifetime. He was a man in his mid 50s who was formerly wed to Kris Jenner and made regular appearances on the show to highlight how the two interacted, and how the children (all female) reacted to his walk ins.

Of course, the storyline of a male deciding to opt for surgery to become a different sex would intrigue anyone upon first glance. Yet, even the producers weren’t necessarily able to really hone in on what the build up to his decision to become a female was. The storyline mostly involved Bruce’s hidden secrets bit by bit before he would show his final true colors as a post op female now, injected with hormones and a new name to go with it. Viewers weren’t able to truly understand what the true motives and true intentions behind this were. All most remember was that significant moment when Kris Jenner had finally seen Bruce as Caitllynn, adorned with the feminine outfits and whatever surgery could do to make him into his wish of being a female as much as possible. It was a memorable scene having scene Kris plop her head down on the kitchen counter in agony, surprise, and shock having seen a new character literally in front of her eyes.

Most will never truly understand the logic behind transgender characters. What’s more interesting and strange is that transgender can be either heterosexual or homosexual. Transgender is only in reference to one who has not undergone the surgery to alter their physical selves to become the opposite sex, that is considered transsexual. With all this to take into consideration, one would need to draw a diagram with the systematic chart of what category flows into what.

Having a bit of a spiritual background, I was able to put the pieces of the puzzle together somewhat, realizing that perhaps transgender is more a spiritual issue. One can feel certain things simply from energy. We are all made up of energy. Our sense of self is encapsulated in this energy at any given time. This sense of self also gives us our divine masculine and feminine. Energy can travel from body to body and exist in simultaneous physical bodies or natural objects as well. Being transgender is something that more so involves who we “feel” we are, but is exempt and irrespective of our actual sexual orientation and drive-something our physical body and hormones gives us.

I know that it is hard for one to control feelings. Sometimes your feelings and moods can change with the physical environment you’re in, with time, and with what you surround yourself with. This is why empaths can go on emotional rollercoaster rides by feeling very aggravated around distraught mothers in foster care homes, to feeling calm and soothed in a group meditation circle. Our own feelings and energies can be charted forward by decade and century spans with sciences such as astrology. If this is the case, can we “feel” a certain gender?

This emotion tied to one sex is ultimately tied to our sense of self. A sense of self is who we “feel” we are, and can change over time and space as well. Ultimately though, personality does remain consistent within a given lifetime. It’s what makes a character who they are and gives them their quirks and cons in order for others to recognize and predict how they will act when presented upon a certain situation. Why can’t a sense of self involve a consistent gender we feel throughout our lives?

Transgenders ultimately knew what sex they felt like ever since they were an infant. They didn’t need too much of the socialization norms to configure whether they were male or female. It was an instinct that was tied to them and not socially manifested. This is where the divine masculine or feminine plays its parts. It’s not the exposure to barbie dolls or toy trucks that pulls the spectrum from one end to the other. There isn’t even a part of the biological brain that we can even pinpoint to “feeling” a particular “gender”. The biological parts of our brain that dictate roles related to sex include hormones and physiological mechanisms that play its part in sexual drive and orientation.

I happened to come across a guy who was my ex’s former best friend in junior high through Facebook. I had heard of him and seen his profile, which gave me a few clues as to what he was. He was someone who studied neuroscience at Princeton University and was planning to wed a very attractive female soon. His profile showed pictures of him and her together, at restaurants, outside by the lake, and dressed up in suits and wedding dresses. I thought he was a very standard male with a typical life. What was impressive to me was his pursuit of a graduate degree in Neuroscience from Princeton. He moved from Toronto to study at Princeton, and then came back again. I always had considered messaging him here and there, but never really knew the right trigger or excuse to get me to talk to him.

It wasn’t until one day when my ex decided to block me from Facebook. I was upset with this move, because now I couldn’t talk to him anymore. My inner motive was to stay ‘connected’ to this ex somehow. More interestingly enough to add onto this, was the fact that Adrian had suddenly started posting profile pictures of him adorned in makeup. He was growing his hair long, and had lipstick on and eyeshadow to match. He wore more makeup than I usually did. This profile picture naturally garnered as much attention as one posting a pic of their newborn as a Facebook update would. He liked to call himself Adrianna now. I couldn’t turn my attention away from this stimuli grabber either, like most. I thought to myself, ‘maybe I’ll contact him to talk to him about his transgender status. I’ll tell him that it’s a spiritual issue, not a biophysiological one.’ That would be my excuse. Deep down, I just wanted to get back in touch with my ex in someway. Why not contact his former best friend to cyberstalk him?

“Hey, how are you doing?” I dropped a line on Facebook.

“I’m doing well.”

“Your profile picture is interesting. It got me thinking a little bit about things.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I was thinking that transgender is more of a spiritual issue than a biochemical one.”

“Well, that can make sense,” he replied.

“Do you want to hang out sometime to discuss my theories about this further?”

“Sure.”

We set up a time to hang out and meet at his place. I didn’t think much of the location and the usual implications of that at the moment, since I was more so entangled with getting back at my ex and also bombarding him with my spiritual theories. Little did I know that we would end up in bed together fooling around a few hours later.

“Transgender is a spiritual problem. It could have to do with a spirit having been assigned to the wrong physical body during their reincarnation process. They were supposed to be the opposite sex. This is why the remaining feelings of being in the wrong body persist,” I presented to Adrianna.

He nodded, but didn’t have much else to add to that. He was dressed not as a drag queen and so made up that day, but in his usual tee and shorts for that mid spring afternoon. I really didn’t know how else to push the theory and conversation further, so I decided to relate that to his neurological knowledge of gender association.

“You hear of sexual drive being tied to the hypothalamus and pineal gland. That’s where all the hormones are within a specific sex. Females have both progesterone and estrogen. Meanwhile, males have testosterone. Is that the case?” I asked him.

“I got 60s in all my courses,” he mentioned, not wanting to spew out any jargon related to the neuroscience behind sex or gender identity. I was a bit surprised. After all, he attended Princeton of all places. Overall, his mood appeared to be a bit glum. He was prepared to head out to a bar later that night with his friends, but his energy wasn’t necessarily there to converse much with me.

Instead, he decided to lean a bit closer to me while we were in bed and make sexual advances on me. This surprised me. I thought he was homosexual. After all, if you think like a woman, wouldn’t you want a man of all things? I assumed he had kept hidden the part that he was gay or bi to his ex he was planning to get engaged to as shown on Facebook. I guess I was wrong. The foreplay began, and I didn’t know what else to do but play along with it, since he was beginning to lift my top off and grapple my breasts now.

After the sexual session ended, Adrianna had this thought of relief flow over him, and his mood and energy had seemed to pick up now. I asked him, “I thought you were homosexual?” He looked at me and replied, “No, I’m straight.” I admitted that it was very awkward, the exchange between the two of us. “I feel a bit weird after all of that. Considering we both know Jackson as well.” Adrianna rolled his eyes. “Jackson is self interested.” It seemed as though he could care less about him. “Okay.”

“Hey, you came over this afternoon, so I assumed you wanted to fool around, right?”

He tried to sort of explain his advances on me with these implications. I was a bit taken aback, but didn’t want to necessarily fight it. I didn’t make a comment. It was nice to see his mood somewhat elevated now though.

He started to reach for his closet and started picking out shirts that hung from the closet. These were female shirts, with bold colors and creative designs to match.

“How does this look?” He asked me while holding this pink buttoned shirt to his chest.

“Good,” I responded.

I watched him go through his tops the way a true woman would scour through her closet looking for the best matching outfit to show off her body. He surely seemed to act the part of a woman at that moment.

After having finally decided on a nice green top to wear that night, Adrianna appeared even more revved up for the coming night. It was interesting to see the turn of his energies. The sex session surely changed his mood.

“Well, I guess I’ll let you get ready for tonight,” I mentioned, declaring my duty to let him prepare for tonight.

He gave me a nice wide grin and an overall satisfied look on his face.

I walked away a bit surprised and left wondering, but it made me realize that things aren’t obviously what they always appeared to be. He was someone who probably had a hard enough time meeting girls, but to do it advertising yourself as a woman. He also showed me that sexual drive is segregated from gender identity. Even I thought and assumed as though one had to have the sexual preference for the opposite sex if their gender identity was different. He just didn’t “come out” yet. Why else would one go through sometimes the surgical operations and hormonal changes? That wasn’t the case though. He was straight. He did have a genuine relationship with his ex he was engaged with. She probably wasn’t happy with his preferences to look like the opposite sex. He told me they broke up before he moved back to Toronto.

When Bruce Jenner started to undergo surgery, his preferences for women started to change to men as well. It was the hormone injections of estrogen that could have played a role in this. Cameras followed him even further with his own spinoff series, the Caitlynn Jenner Show. The messiness that this situation caused for him and those close to him grew even further. I could only imagine how hard it was to hide your sexual orientation. Yet, to have it altered somewhat and changed as well? I’m sure his family and friends needed the clarification. It’s unfortunate, but transgenders have a high suicidal rate, half of all transgenders commit suicide. The answers are never clear with them fully. They don’t live up to societal expectations and are considered rebels and outcast form society. At the end of the day though, we are made up of energy. We sometimes can’t fully control how we feel as a gender, and this a strong persistent feeling that makes up or own sense of self.