I would categorize myself as someone who is “post-transition” – as in, I’ve been on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for almost 3 years come September, have had one gender reassignment surgery procedure and have been out publicly for three years. Yet even with this privilege, I still find myself surprised anytime any stranger or even friend refers to me as the correct pronouns (he/him) or the correct name (James). Whenever I hear the name James come from the mouth of a stranger, I think of myself first instead of some other guy even. But then I still jump to attention, like a dog with ears perked up, when I hear “Shelley”.

What a strange thing to have two selves. To know what it’s like to be two genders. To have two names like two different labels on two duplicate boxes that contain all the imagery necessary to summarize my smile, my eyes, my sense of humor, my past and my future and my intricacies. The boxes are inside one another though, aren’t they? Because I’m the same person.

Do you know what it’s like to walk both sides of the gender spectrum? You might not have any idea what it’s like to have two names that are so diametrically opposed but really consist the same qualities. I don’t think about it as much as I used to. Ever since I accomplished several personal transition goals, I hold these considerations in my mind like topics of conversation I would bring to an intellectual discussion like you would hold in a classroom. Maybe something to post about in a #tbt post. It’s no longer a novelty, something I thought would ever be real. Now it’s something that I can stand back from and examine the entire wall of art.

And yet. A voice far, far back in the corner of my mind still beams like the sun on a spring day much like today when the waiter says, “Did he need another minute to look at the menu?” or when a friend forgets that I know what it’s like to have a menstrual cycle. When the bartender calls me “boss”.

That’s why it hurts when someone slips up. Or when someone doesn’t include me in their assessment of “normal men”. Isn’t that ridiculous? I want people to know I’m one of the good ones, that I know exactly what complex expectations a woman bears. But I also want you to think, “You grew up enduring the pressures of a man.” I wish I had. I’m proud of my background and of my past. I want to tell you that I don’t want to be anyone else but myself. But the darker part of me, the part that I don’t let out unless under intense moments of emotion instigated by late nights or too quiet moments, says that I wish I had been born a man. Wishes that I didn’t know what it was like to be regarded as a woman and be forced to wear heels for special occasions and to feel small in the eyes of a male boss that thinks I’m lesser because I can’t lift more than 25 pounds.

What does it really mean to be a woman? To be a man? What does it really mean to have experienced both? To be neither? To be one and then both? I just ask that you consider the possible gymnastics that trans people go through on their day-to-day. The tension that weighs on their shoulders, the exhaustion that clings to the edges of their eyes, the darkness that colors their words. I want to reassure you that I’m happy and that I’m proud of my journey, thankful for my found family, my salary and my shelter. But it’s okay to sit back and flip through the complicated feelings almost like flipping through the records in a dive bar jukebox. You don’t really know what genre you’re feeling until you land on the right song, mildly drunk and consumed with insecurity about whether or not you’ve picked the right song for the mood.