the artist formerly known as gyrl...

(the interview)

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Is there any part of your Psyche that you still consider (no matter how vaguely) to be female?

I can be totally honest and say yes, but I can also be totally honest and say no. I have to go through life as a Schizophrenic really. Or at least a "split personality", if you like.

By this I mean that I often come into contact with people who knew me as a child, family and friends of yesteryear, who have never accepted this "change" in what they call "my lifestyle." To them that is all it is. Something I chose to do and which could quite easily be undone if I handed the problem "over to the Lord"! When I am amongst these members of my family, they treat me as that "little girl" they knew way back when. It becomes embarrassing for everyone concerned, so recently I stopped attending family gatherings.

Yet there are times when they are unavoidable - like funerals and weddings. I missed two because of it. At one very recent funeral, for example, someone who had not seen me in years and was suddenly confronted with me in a suit, actually shook my hand and said "Pleased to meet you!" And then she turned to my sister and asked where I (birth name) was! To save us all embarrassment, I walked away. My sister later told me she just said "Somewhere around!"

When I say "No" I mean that I don't in any way consider myself as female anymore - I don't think I ever really did. I always felt very uncomfortable doing or dressing in even the most remotely feminine way. Even while at school, I used to go to school wearing jeans, and then changing into school uniform at school. In another instance I had my brother write a letter to the PE teacher saying I'm not allowed to participate in anything strenuous for some or other physical illness! Even now it is difficult writing this and even admitting that I at any time wore female clothing!

When I think about making love to a woman, I think about it as doing it in the way a man would. But obviously, when it comes down to the physical act itself, there is no way I can, unless I make use of artificial measures like strap-ons and dildos. I never have, because that seems too contrived for me. So I make use of what I have.

This has been the most difficult part of not being physically male. While I am fully clothed I can and do actually forget that I don't have a penis. It always comes as a great shock when I undress and find there's nothing dangling there. And I don't mean to be melodramatic or crude about it, it's just the way it is!

I find this all very interesting and it also makes me feel incredibly fortunate to have always felt fairly comfortable in the body I was born with. It seems that a lot of issues arising are actually other people's - the way they have a hard time even knowing how to perceive you. I get an impression of you busily processing all the transformations necessary and then being intermittently being jolted out of your own reality by being confronted with someone else's. Must be tough being constantly asked to define yourself and explain yourself. Perhaps even being confronted by your own 'alien' body seems invasive?

The 'contrived' perception of using artificial sex toys is also rather sad. I mean, there's a certain stage in many relationships when toys are just plain exciting. I am speaking from a lesbian point of view here though, but hey, straight people use toys too!

It's interesting that your 'former identity' if you will is represented by the parenthetical (birth name). As if there's no love at all for that other Charl. I had the same hassle with a therapist trying to get me to be kind to my inner child.

It is easy to accept and treat you as male if that's the way one first met you I guess. If there's no baggage and history and personal projection. At the end of the day, the people we choose to inhabit our 'inner circle' are mirrors of ourselves in certain ways. And if we're uncomfortable with our own identity, it's easy to challenge someone else's and take exception to it.

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