Blood and belonging

Sometimes, being a trans pagan sucks.

I belong to a group in Second Life that holds rituals for the eight sabbats and sometimes for Esbat (full moon). Thursday night into Friday was Beltane, the beginning of May, the start of the agricultural summer. The group conducted several rituals so people could fit at least one into their schedule. On Friday night, I participated in one of the fairly standard ones, which follows a script. As usual, it was engaging and uplifting for me, which is why I participate when I can.

Last night, the ritual was different. It took place in a secret cave, and it was more spontaneous. Many of us shared prose or poetry about sexual awakening or how our horizons have been broadened. Even though the symbolism of Beltane is about procreation and thus is strongly heteronormative, the leaders of this group have striven to adapt to the modern, overpopulated world by stressing sex and sexuality as being about social bonding and personal connections.

A female participant shared something that always catches me off guard. Wicca has a strong feminine component, and part of that is an emphasis on the moon and lunar time. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something about women and blood, a reference to the menstrual cycle.

I wrote about this once before, when I was reading Neil Gaiman's A Game of You, in which there is a scene where Wanda, a trans woman, is not allowed to go with the other women to see the Goddess because she has no menstrual blood to contribute to the required potion. For someone like me, that hits pretty hard. As part of the visualization I do every night, in which I see my own fully formed female body, I ask the Goddess to accept me into the sisterhood even though I was not born into it. Not infrequently, that leaves me in tears. I see my own inadequacy.

You might think this is silly. I realize that symbols have power only if we let them. I realize that many women-born-female-bodied do not menstruate and perhaps have never menstruated. Among them are women with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who have a 46,XY karyotype as I do. The ancient symbols are locked into old ideas of gender. I am not bound by them.

It got me thinking, however, about the feminizing genitoplasty I will have. In that operation, the surgeon will remove my testicles, remove the erectile tissue from the shaft of the penis, use the head of the penis to construct a clitoris, invert the rest of the penis into a vaginal canal, and form labia from scrotal skin. I've seen pictures of the result, and it's amazing. That operation will finally give me what my brain map says ought to be between my legs, and if all goes really well, it will function sexually.

What I get for my troubles, however, is to a large extent about appearance, with a certain amount hidden inside. Genital surgery will never give me ovaries and fallopian tubes. It will never give me a uterus or a cervix. Even if I were younger, I will never conceive a child or give birth. I will never bleed.

Governments don't care. They are concerned with the removal of male genitalia, not the construction of female genitalia, let alone the internal sexual characteristics of a woman. After the operation, I will be able to change my birth certificate, passports, all my documentation to say that I am female. Legally, there will be no difference between me and any other woman.

But fully a woman from this particular operation? That's what some people think. In fact, it seems to be what many if not most people think. Genitoplasty, the construction of a vagina, as some kind of magical procedure. "She emerged from the operating room a woman."

I don't buy it. To go with penis equals male and vagina equals female is to conform to ancient misconceptions, government obtuseness, and the simplistic thinking that got us incorrectly sexed in the first place. It sinks lower than the idea, rightly rejected, that a woman is nothing but a baby maker. It says that a woman is nothing but a sex organ. I reject that too. A woman is so much more. Shouldn't any real woman know that?

I still need the operation, for all kinds of reasons. I think it will be a significant step for me, maybe even a huge step. But changing my sex? Only in the eyes of the state. Confirming my gender? Give me a break. My gender was confirmed the moment I realized I had to transition and took the first steps to do so. It is reconfirmed every time I swallow my pills and every time I walk out the door. It is confirmed by my entire life going forward. If I lived in poverty, if I had a condition that prevented surgery, even if I made a choice that surgery was not for me, I would be no less Véronique, a woman, all woman.

People can be harsh, dogmatic, and unyielding. The Goddess is loving and compassionate. She knows my essence. I believe she welcomes me, despite my handicap, no less than she welcomes CAIS women and women in need of hormone replacement, no less than she welcomes any women who have never menstruated or had the possibility of conceiving and bearing children. I did not barge through the gate. I wait, I learn, and I ask humbly. The Lady smiles and beckons.