The Myth of Rationed Femininity

I recently had the great honor of going with a transgender friend to his first support group meeting. I was kind of terrified, because I am not transgender – just an extremely determined supporter of the people I love. I was worried that I would be seen as an interloper, or that I would make people uncomfortable.

As it happened, I didn’t need to worry about any of that. I was mostly quiet, and I listened, and I heard their stories with a great deal of thankfulness to be allowed to be included.

One story stuck with me, along with the way it was told as though it were a norm. A woman there had recently found out that a cis woman, someone she considered a friend, was something like neutral on being transgender. Not supportive. Not exactly “against.” Just…neutral. She said that it felt as though cis women in general don’t accept her, that they get defensive and say awful things like not a “real” woman, and the other women in the room nodded sadly in agreement.

MUST. DESTROY.

It matched a pattern I’ve seen. Women, in their worst stereotypical behavior, are threatened by each other. We’re told almost from birth that a mate equals both sense of self and safety, and that other women are a threat to that sense of self, and a threat to that safety. Other women who may be potential mates for our mates are enemies to be destroyed or defended against. One way this plays out is for women to behave as though their femininity, their very woman-ness, is threatened by a woman who expresses her femininity in unexpected ways – because the unexpected is very difficult to defend against.

Women behave as though femininity is a precious, limited resource that is rationed and can be stolen.

I have a complicated relationship with my femininity. Well. I used to. I refused to wear pink the entire time I was a teenager. I didn’t date much until I met my husband at 19 – and I’d wholeheartedly embraced the giant lie that told me that men’s regard and approval was what determined my validity as a woman. I mostly did not have that regard and approval, so I sort of…ignored my femininity. I told myself that I didn’t need it.

Some of the repairs that God has done to my soul over the past couple of years include healing this. They’ve included acknowledging my femininity in the first place, and understanding its affect on me. They’ve included understanding its affect on other people. And they’ve included sort of…reincorporating my femininity into my soul – understanding it as part of the fundamental pieces of who I am and allowing it to BE fundamental.

In its current much work done here state, my femininity does not depend on anyone else. It is not a cup of water pulled from a well of limited depth. Another woman – cis or trans – does not take something from me by existing in the world. She does not take something from me by existing too close to turf that I need to be safe – she does not take something from me by existing too close to my mate.

The Real Problem

The problem seems to boil down to the same single fear that everyone shares – we are all fundamentally afraid to be alone. We’ve talked about this here a few times before – but it turns out there’s an extra piece to that fear. Really…

We are all fundamentally afraid to be alone as a result of being either too much or not enough.

We are afraid that we will accidentally show someone our real souls, and that seeing us will send them screaming for the hills – and then we will be alone, yes, but even worse, we will be alone because of who we truly are.

Our gender is part of our real souls. So…it makes some sense that women are terrified of “rival” women who seem to shine a light on the ways in which they feel their femininity is “too much” or “not enough.”

They think that showing their partner, or the world, how they are too much or not enough woman is dangerous.

They think it will lead to alone, and not safe.

If they accept that a mate’s approval determines their validity, they also think that the inverse must be true – if that approval is removed, or targeted more toward another woman, it will lead to invalidity. It will lead to being not a valid woman – and since gender is part of souls, they think it will lead to being not a person.

Just Exactly Enough

It’s a fine tangle we get ourselves into with this. We allow our mates to determine if we are people. That’s…a really bad plan. There’s only one solution I know of, and I actually found it on accident.

A while ago, I asked God if he liked me as he’d made me.

And he said yes.

I am who I am because God made me to be this person. I still struggle with some parts of being this person. She is occasionally not who I wish I was. But…if God made me this way, then it isn’t possible for me to be too much or not enough. If God made me this way, I must be just exactly enough as I am.

If I know that I am just exactly enough, and that God won’t leave me and therefore I can’t be alone (which I also asked him), then…that awful tangled mess disappears.

I won’t be alone.

God will keep me safe (and in fact is the only one who can).

And God is the only one who determines my validity – as a woman or a person.