I Am A Man, I Think

I am a man, I think. I have the body parts for it. I’ve never really felt uncomfortable with it. I grew up as a boy,
into a man, and I never felt like I didn’t belong in my own body. Occasionally, I wondered what I would be like as a woman. What would it be like to be a woman? What would it
feel like to have a higher voice and longer hair, breasts and a vagina, to wear bras and panties on a daily basis?
Sometimes I’d wear makeup and dresses, but most of the time I’d probably still just throw on sweats and a t-shirt
and head out, the way I do now. But until recently, it was no more than a passing wonder. That’s not to say it’s become a predominant feature of
my life lately -- it hasn’t -- but I have found myself genuinely wanting to be a woman recently. Not that I’m uncomfortable being a man. I like myself as I am, and I would be perfectly content living the rest of
my life out as such. And it’s not like I want to live as a woman, necessarily. But once in awhile, maybe once or
twice a month, I feel this distant yearning to have been born as a woman, or at least to trade bodies with one for a
little while. What is this feeling? Is this what being genderfluid is like? I don’t think I feel this often enough to justify calling
myself genderfluid. Am I trans? No, I don’t think so. Even at the times I feel that yearning, I’m still more or less
fine with being male. Is it some sort of sexual kink I’ve just uncovered in myself? Maybe it could be. I occasionally imagine myself
fondling my own breasts in a distinctly sexual way. It could be that, I guess. But isn’t it natural for someone to learn about their body by experiencing sexual sensations? I did that years ago
the first time I masturbated, completely discovering the sensation by accident one night in my bedroom. So could
it, in some weird, metaphysical sense, be my mind’s way of learning about a body I occasionally yearn to have
by pretending to experience the sexual sensations of that body? The most scary part of this is that I don’t know. I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, or if it’s normal. Is it a
cceptable for me to be having these fantasies of myself as a woman, fondling breasts that I don’t have? Am I, in
having these fantasies, somehow demeaning the struggles of people who genuinely were born the wrong sex? Is
this some elaborate ruse I’m playing on myself so I can somehow, in some convoluted way, feel as though I have
the right to voice myself by putting up this barrier of self-righteousness and false victimization? Am I somehow forcing myself to feel this? Should I try to stop myself from feeling this way? That can’t be healthy, but should I if I am, in some way I don’t
quite understand, infringing on someone else by feeling the way I do? Maybe I should just let myself want to be a woman when it happens, and beyond that just go on thinking of
myself as a man. Or maybe I should genuinely try and experiment with my gender, privately dressing up like a
woman to see how it feels. Maybe it’s okay that I don’t know. Maybe it’s fine to just let myself feel what I feel and not try to define it. I
don’t need to know it, or fight it, or even share it, but just to feel it once or twice a month and move on with my
life. It’s not as though this is a defining characteristic of my life. Maybe I don’t need to question it. Maybe I only need to let it be. Is that the answer? It is, I think.