On Being A Girl

by Jenny Lovelace

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

I am a biological male who desperately wants to be a girl – in my case, only some of the time because I enjoy the kind of gender wholeness that I personally have even though many girls-like-us cannot understand how I can be comfortable living both apparently different lives. That is another story and I have written at length elsewhere about who, what and why I feel I am.

However, when I am a girl (which I am inside, always, no less than I am a boy) I naturally seem to adopt certain attitudes and behaviours to give my womanhood authenticity. I am genetically male. For me that is okay. My soul is genderless and, in spite of my own life's deep challenges, my soul is full of powerful and self-possessed love. My life experience in this world is expressed in all kinds of satisfying ways. The woman in me is the anchor that keeps my genderless soul grounded in my personal earthly reality. The man in me actions the earthly purposes that drive my personal self-evolution. This is my way. It may well not be yours. It does not matter.

When I am expressing myself as a woman, dressed and as feminine in and from the heart as this lately come-out girl is learning to naturally be, then I feel strongly that I want to be free to evolve as the woman I am with no hindrance from anyone, any time.

Many girls-like-us have been awfully abused. I am so fortunate. Some girls work as prostitutes, often to support a drug habit. Others give themselves, submit, to what they hope are protective short and long term relationships that are without love. Too often we are negatively submissive to the detriment of our womanhood – and to our sanity. Too many girls like us kill themselves, mutilate themselves or disintegrate into mental illness. This need not be so!

It is a wonderful thing to be positively submissive, to be a nurturing woman who is actively there, from her womanly heart, for a friend, a lover, a child, a stranger in need on her own terms. Real women, and that includes girls-like-us, have always known how to empower others by helping them to feel loved, cared for and valuable. It is my femininity that empowers me with a sensuousness that is too often denied to men and is, at least in my case, part of the wonderfulness of being a woman.

However, I never submit to any others simply to please them. Only fear could make me do that. I insist that my submission will pleasure and empower me as a woman. I am no slave. I give myself in every relationship of whatever kind as a mature and empowered woman whose primary aim in life is to get pleasure for me – by giving pleasure to others. Men can think and act this way too but their male energy is, and is delightfully expressed, as male energy – which is different! If we can ever save even a strangers life, let it be only because we value life and are moved to save life, perhaps by putting our own on the line, for the satisfaction doing so gives us.

Submitting to please others without first demanding that we be ourselves fully and safely pleased is not healthy. This is usually what happens when we rent ourselves out for sex or in partnerships with people we would never give ourselves to were it not for the money or the hoped-for security. Some encounters of this kind, whether given for money or as a way of grasping at a sense of self-worth, may give us some pleasure and even nurture in our souls a sense of worth, but most do not.

Darling, if we are going to be the women we long to be let us be whole and happy women. Let no one ever, especially an insensitive man, treat us with anything less than complete respect as an equal. Love, whether for a lover (of whatever sex), a friend, a relative or even a stranger, is only true love if it is a heartfelt recognition of our own self-worth expressed in our desire to give happiness to the object of our love.

There is help and companionship all over the place – with no strings attached. If I can help you to find it, to find what you want, that will give me great personal pleasure. Yes I'm like that! I encourage girls-like-us to get together, as we sometimes do, to talk about things, to listen to each other (being listened to can often be all we need), just as girls do. We need to learn to relate as women and it is women, both genetic and non-genetic who can help us best.

I do not know "all the answers" – especially your answers, but I can help you, if you wish to find your own way and to get safe, competent help, both professional and "peer" from other girls-like-us. Although I am a trained and experienced counsellor I do not believe that what we girls mostly need is professional counselling, valuable as that can be when we really do need it. What we vitally need is cyber, phone and, above all, face-to-face contact with other girls-like-us who understand because they have been-there-done-that. Their stories will not be your story but their stories and their love and caring for you can inspire you to create your own unique and truly happy story.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.