Movement and rootedness
I feel my gender transition is inextricably bound to my history of migration.
I was born in Argentina but moved to the US as a toddler, picking up English as a second mother tongue, and came back to Argentina at age 8. I don’t remember moving to the US, but I do vividly recall coming back against my will (though my parents were thrilled about coming home). Thus followed a long process of geographic identity formation which kind of mirrors my gender evolution.
It took me ten years to start feeling Argentinean. At first I felt closer to US culture –English had been my main language for years–; then I felt in-between –some call us third-culture or trans-culture kids–; and now I finally feel that Argentina and Latin America are my home. Similarly, I didn’t want to stop being a girl but I kind of had to; then I moved into an in-between gender category; and now, though I don’t really feel like a man, I am living as one.
I wonder if I’ll follow that final (final?) step towards a male identity, and if it’ll look anything like my coming into an Argentinean identity. After all, one of the main reasons I don’t relate with men is that we don’t share a common gendered history (I feel very rooted in having been a girl); but that’s the same reason I thought I’d never feel Argentinean. Yet there came a point in my life when, numerically, I’d lived longer here than abroad, so my US experience lost its relative weight; and at some point, I’ll also have lived longer as male than as female. I don’t know if things will work out that way: can identity formation be so linear and predicable?
Comparing my gender with my geographic rootedness also makes me realize that identifying as male doesn’t mean denying my differently-gendered past, or the unique point of view I can bring to the table. After all, I don’t feel any less Argentinean now due to having been raised abroad, nor due to the fact that I still think in English half of the time. And my accent when speaking in Spanish is comparable to the feminine “accent” I bring to my masculinity, not because I have a “female essence” but because I’ve embraced some of the mannerisms I was taught in the past.
Many people speak of gender and transition in terms of place, of movement, of language, of space. Though the analogy isn’t perfect, it’s a useful way for me to think about the different parts of my life as a whole (no one’s life can be split into pieces). And it’s comforting to know that I can survive in liminal (in-between) places –that it’s ok if I can’t speak any language without an accent, or if I’m never entirely confident in any gender role– because those places are seeming to be the ones that most feel like home.
