Ugliness is Protection and if I'm not Beautiful I'm Dead

I was talking to my brother a few days ago about being an Intimidating Woman. As a trans man, my brother was describing the differences in the way he is treated now as a man, compared to how he was treated when he was an Intimidating Woman. Apparently everyone is nice to men and everyone is scared of women. 

I am currently an Intimidating Woman and I used to hate it. I felt like Frankenstein’s monster, lurching and groaning through the world wondering why everyone is running away scared when all I want is to be universally adored. Disclaimer: I have not read Frankenstein in about a decade so I don’t really remember if wanting to be loved was the monster’s thing. I’m currently struggling to re-read it because I have become severe in my old age and find the Romantic writers a bit insufferable. Anyways, I used to hate being described as intimidating because ultimately it made me feel misunderstood.

I’ve since changed my mind on this. I think being intimidating, especially an Intimidating Woman, is actually a gift. After all, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with the power to freeze men in their tracks after she was raped by Poseidon and I’m supposed to believe that was a punishment? Only a man (Ovid) would write a story about a rape victim that was given the ability to kill pillaging thieves with a single glance and think that was a bad thing. Nowadays I don’t mind being intimidating because I believe the easiest way to win a fight is to never have to get into one in the first place because you don’t seem worth the trouble. 

Before I go on, let’s just say the hard, embarrassing thing out loud: I like men. Being a woman who likes men is like being surrounded by enemy soldiers pointing their spears at you and sucking in your stomach while you wait for the inevitable strike. It feels like running headlong into a brick wall and repeatedly getting up and running at the wall over and over again. I am trying to make sense of my unwillingness to waste time on men who are oftentimes a nuisance and often enough a danger which is in direct conflict with the humiliating amount of love I have to give.

I like men and I am also a woman (thank GOD) which presents complications because I have never met a man that didn’t eventually show me in one way or another that he doesn’t think I’m really a person. I’m not a person, I’m a sexual idol that must be desecrated. Or worse yet I’m a mother figure, which means I have no needs that can’t be brushed aside and no opinions that can’t be talked over.

I had my first therapy session as an adult a few months ago. I like to think of myself as a brave person but I spent the 10 minutes before the session started in a semi-panic, trying to come up with excuses to cancel. I was tired, I wasn’t ready, no one could make me do anything I didn’t want to do! I went anyway. My therapist asked me why I decided to come to her. I told her that I have become jaded. I am a naturally hopeful person but I fear I’m losing that. I assume the worst in men, but in order to do that I must deny them their complexity - in other words, their humanity. And denying another person’s humanity also in some way must degrade my own. I cried almost the whole hour and most of the rest of the day. About nothing in particular. I felt that a wall I had spent my whole life building had cracked and now I had no choice but to step back and let it crumble. 

Sometimes things happen in such a poetic way, as if it was written in a story: beginning, middle, and a lesson at the end.

The night after that first therapy session, I went to the gym. I wore shorts and a fitted shirt that just grazed my hips. I normally wear extra long, extra baggy shirts that shroud most of my shape but I decided to wear what I wanted instead. I got sweaty and talked to no one. The gym is as much a mental exercise as a physical one. How long can I go without taking a break? Can I carry more weight than last time? The physical changes ground me in reality but setting mental boundaries for myself and proving I can pass them is even better.

After the gym, the sun had set and I walked to a bodega. I wanted to get a cold drink and smoke a cigarette or 2 or 5 and sit with my thoughts alone. I went to my usual shop and inspected the drink options. I felt eyes on me and glanced toward the front door. A man was standing in the doorway staring at me. A familiar burning in my chest. Mostly anger, only a little fear. I walked out hoping to convey with my determined stomp that I was not to be messed with. I heard him trying to get my attention but I walked away without acknowledging him. That usually discourages them. I went to a smoke shop down the block and looked into the reflection in the line of refrigerator doors, watching to see if he had followed me. He had. I chose a drink at random and went to the counter, as he walked into the store. 

I resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn’t be ignored so I took out my headphones and turned to face him. His eyes were glassy and he had brown spittle dried around his lips. 

“Are you going to follow me all night?”

”I’m not following you”

”Yes, you are. This is the second shop you’ve followed me into.”

I turned away from him and paid for my drink and politely answered “okay” and “have a good night” to his constant stream of mostly incoherent words. I find the easiest way to soothe men is to give them what they want - a little sweetness and respect. I looked up at the cashier. He was glaring at the belligerent man who was backing out of the store as he yelled at me.

“Have fun in your bed alone tonight. You must be Korean,

I can tell by that nasty attitude you must be Korean.”

That almost made me laugh. He was a messy drunk but he somehow could still clock that I’m Korean. I pointed that out to the cashier when the man left but he didn’t seem to think it was as funny as I did. Instead he smiled sadly at me.

“Which way are you going home? I can see in the cameras which way he walked.”

”I live that way.”

”Okay, walk this way and pass through the laundromat to the back street. He went the other way.”

I thanked him and smiled. 

I walked out of the smoke shop, glancing over my shoulder in the direction the man left. I passed quickly through the laundromat tugging at my T-shirt, trying to cover myself. I stood in the back street and the tears came. 

This is what I mean when I say life is poetic. There are so many men who make their loneliness your problem, but hope can still be found in the sad face of a cashier at a smoke shop who helps you get home safe.