Watching women's bodies

A couple of days ago, I wrote on a Discord server:

"I SEE women now. The way I think many men do. The way society talks about men doing, at least. And it's both affirming and terrifying:

I don't really see women (strangers) as PEOPLE anymore. 😬 Not until we start actually interacting. When watching strangers at a shopping mall or on a street, I don't see the women as people... I see them as bodyparts. 😬 A nice pair of legs there, a slim waist there, a really impressive cleavage over there.

I used to think (back before egg crack) that I wasn't even sexually attracted to women. Now... Now it's DIFFERENT.

And like I said: Both affirming and terrifying. Terrifying because seeing people as anything other than people, is wrong. Really, really wrong. 😬 That's not something I want."

The other trans people there quickly pointed out that this didn't quite make sense

" merely the ability to notice body features is [not] inherently dehumanizing. But it's a nice way to stigmatize it, or in this case make you feel bad for seeing it even though your beliefs don't confirm at all that you wouldn't see women as people."

And damn, that hit a nerve. I've never felt bad for being attracted to men... But men are.. Simple. Safe. Easy. I've started to wonder if a lot of that "attraction" was really gender envy, but frankly I'm unable to untangle those two. 

Women to me are not... Safe. Not simple. Not easy. 

There's so mamy feelings tangled up in this. Back before egg crack, women were my pattern, my blueprint for how I should be... And I always fell short. So I looked up to them, and also felt infinity inferior to them. There was also a lot of bullying when I was a kid, the worst coming from girls. So there's trauma there as well.. 

Then there's the fear of men. Of mysogynists. Rapists. Especially after #metoo, but I was well aware before that too. Because #yesallmen can be a threat to women, and women have no way of knowing which are the good guys. I don't want to add to that. I don't want to objectify, be leering or creepy, or make someone uncomfortable or afraid. I don't want to do something that could be unwanted. 

Because there's also a fear of rejection... If women are so much better than I am (because they were able to be acceptable women and I failed), then why would they want to have anything to do with me? I'm so much less than they are.. And yes, this is absolutely internalized transphobia (and misgendering), but knowing what it is doesn't make it go away. 

There's also been a shift in these past few months.. When I see women now, sometimes they aren't put in the same "mental box" as me. Instead of thinking “there’s someone like me/ who I’m supposed to be like/ who shares the woman category with me” I just think “ah, a woman”. This isn't consistently true, as I still misgender myself a lot in my head.. But it's started to happen more and more. 

And I think that's when it happens.. (Towards strangers specifically.. Perhaps BECAUSE they aren't in that same "box" as me anymore.) I notice attractive body parts. I don't even get as far as "I want to have sex with this person", just "damn, those legs look nice" . 

And that thought somehow makes me.. What? Afraid? Shameful? Obviously judging myself something fierce. So what is this? Is it something Ive internalize from an early age? That being sexually attracted to women is somehow Wrong? 

Because I AM, undeniably, sexually attracted to women. I admitted this, firmly, when my egg cracked. At what point do I stop getting surprised by it? I've accepted it intellectually, but I think I'm still quite far from accepting it emotionally.. 

Every little realization feels like a huge epiphany, but if i keep repeating it maybe I'll be able to accept it: I like women. I'm attracted to women. I want to kiss women, fuck women, touch them, eat them out, make them squirm and moan.

They terrify me (cis- and cis-passing women especially) .. They make me shameful and dysphoric.. But I still feel attracted to them. I can't change that. 

Trying (and failing) to fit in

I cracked when I had the mental and emotional capacity to do so.

From my diary, I see signs back when I was 11-12. I was fascinated by lgbt- issues, and deviations from expected gender roles especially. However, I didn't have the vocabulary then. Trans only meant trans women.. Playing with gender was something only other people could do. Not someone like me.

I got to know a trans man when I was around 16, but I... Cared too much. Too much a stickler for the rules. Cared too much what others thought or what they saw as Right. I wanted to fit in. And knew I didn't. 

I MIGHT have cracked at... 20-25 ish. I was super fascinated by crossdressers and trans people. Knew several of them through the kink scene. But I was too caught up in performative femininity then. Again, I just wanted to fit in. To be accepted. 

So I tried harder and harder. Knowing I was "flawed" because others saw me as weird. Flawed because I could tell I wasn't fitting in. Because I really, really wasn't comfortable with femininity at all, but felt I had to be. Failing at all of it, but seeing this as a personal failure. Not as a sign of anything else.

By 35 I had a fairly stable life, a job, kids starting to sleep through the night etc. I had time to think again. To feel. And by 35 I'd started to give fewer fucks about it all. Didn't try to follow the Rules quite as much. Realized that it was POSSIBLE to choose something other than what society expected of you. 

That's when I cracked. 

It's really sad, in many ways. I wonder what my life would have been like, if I'd cracked earlier.