Amalgamation

My version of a female has incorporated everything about me because gender does not dictate what one should want to do. Thus I needed to marry my entire history into one person and Joanna is a fleshed out amalgamation of everything I am and always have been.  She used to be what I had then surmised and hoped was at most an expressive outlet which did not ultimately work.

In retrospect I realize that I was born to have certain instincts and suppressed them to the point that I believed they weren't truly me. Eventually accepting that they were natural and organic simply let them speak for themselves only that it took a very long while for me to buy into it.

Accepting our nature necessitates removing preconceived ideas of what a man or woman are supposed to do. Otherwise we fall into stereotypes which can be tempting. When we live for the occasional outing we want to fit all the femininity we can when we get the chance. Wearing a skirt and heels used to be almost mandatory whereas today it depends on what I am doing.

The work of a transgender person is overwhelmingly mental and the physical trappings which sell our gender presentation to the world become secondary. The more entrenched in identity we become, the more they lose importance.

Ultimately people believe in who we are because we do.