Transgender: The bravery of Christine Jorgensen

I was non-gender binary, or as my wife Laura and I like to call it, in-the-middle, way before it was a thing. I mean before it was socialized.  It took some time to feel comfortable in my own mind around these seemingly simple conventions. And I was always struggling to present in a way that felt true to my feelings and vision of myself.

To minimize my truly F characteristics, as well to feel comfortable with myself, I overcompensated toward M appearance. My most troubling attribute consistently was my breasts.  Long before I even realized it, I longed for a flat chest.  I would look at men's chests and feel so cheated, so tortured and disadvantaged.   Not that I ever had an amazing set, but it still felt like I was wearing a sign on my chest that said "Treat me as less-than". "I can breastfeed - so I am the weaker gender".   No disrespect to mothers, but I knew that wasn't me.  It was like starting a race wearing a weight vest.  And let's talk sports! Sports bras, or any bras for that matter -pure torture devices.  I especially gravitated to those that minimized my chest, the tighter (hence more uncomfortable) the better.  I would have loved to whip off my T-shirt after getting sweaty, or my swimsuit top (or have no top!) after a dip in the ocean, and be DRY! But no, must keep the girls covered - or get arrested.  

To reduce the prominence of their breasts many women practice binding; that is, wearing an Ace wrap or a garment designed to compress (squish) the breasts  to make them as small and unnoticeable as is possible.  Talk about uncomfortable! Fine if you are a 22 year old with an A-cup.  Not so great for most of us.  Unpleasant but tolerated, for years by many, just to help our outside look like how we felt inside.   So much energy spent on appearance. Is it self-indulgent? 
Obsessive? I KNEW when I was very young that I was not meant to be a girl. So how to live in our society, especially when women are treated as "less-than"?  Transgender....hmmmmm.

The concept of transgender is not new by any means; surgery to make it happen is a 20th century phenomenon.  It has become more and more socialized since a very brave person made their life public.  According to Wikipedia: "The most famous American transgender person of the time was Christine Jorgensen, who in 1952 became the first widely publicized person to have undergone sex reassignment surgery, (in this case, male to female), creating a worldwide sensation". But there is evidence of transgender people in the US dating back to the 1600s. The non-gender-binary existed in many societies dating back to ancient times in Greece, Egypt, Uganda, Asia, as well as among the North American Natives.  Many American Indian tribes had 3 genders, and celebrated this in culture and dance.   In the 20th and 21st centuries, advances in sex reassignment surgery as well as transgender activism have influenced transgender life and the popular(meaning held by many - not necessarily embraced) perception of transgender people in the United States.