So. I have written many times about my confusion over my gender identity. It’s never been that I feel like a man, though I have wished to be male many times in my childhood. It wasn’t because I felt like a boy, but because I hated being a girl so much. It was so limiting and frustrating. I had to wear dresses. I couldn’t run, scream, or climb trees. I had to sit with my legs crossed and giggle demurely rather than throw my head back and guffaw boisterously. I mean, I did all those things, anyway, but I got so much shit for it from the aunties in the Taiwanese church.
I felt there was something wrong with me, for so many reasons, but not fitting my gender was a big one. When I was in college (so in my early twenties), I realized that I didn’t want kids. I don’t remember exactly how, but it just came to me while I was talking to my then-boyfriend. More to the point, I realized I didn’t have to have them. That sounds silly, but it as so ingrained in me from two societies (American and Taiwanese) that I HAD to have them, that I was merely a breeding cow (how I honestly felt) with no ability to make my own decision. It was the main purpose of my life, I was told by my mother, both overtly and covertly. So the realization that a) I didn’t want them and b) I didn’t have to have them blew my mind. The second I realized the latter, a feeling of intense relief washed over me. I can’t tell you how elated I feel. It was as if a weight was lifted from me and I could fly.
I have never felt that at peace about a decision in my life and it’s still the smartest realization I’ve had about myself up until this point. It’s funny because I’ve had people tell me that I would have been a good mother or hurry to tell me I’m wrong when I said I would have been a terrible mother. Whether I was right or wrong (I was right, by the way) isn’t really the point. The point is that I felt that way, so why try to push me to do something I thought I would be shit at and that I clearly did not want to do? But, no. People couldn’t accept that or the fact that I didn’t want to be a mother–and that it was not a judgment on their choices. Let me be painfully clear–it was women. Men didn’t ask or care, but women were all up in my repo business.
I was so fucking naive at the time. I thought I could make this decision and not have it be a big deal. After all, who did it affect except me? Wrong. I cannot tell you how much shit I got for that decision. I promise you I was not running around saying, “Thank god I’ll never whelp me any brats!” I never brought it up unless someone asked me when I was having children (not if, mind you. When). I’d just say I wasn’t having them and assume that was that.