Voracious

Vo•ra•cious

Adjective

Wanting or devouring great quantities of food: he had a voracious appetite.

• Having a very eager approach to an activity: his voracious reading of literature.

English Thesaurus

Adjective

Boxer dogs have voracious appetites. INSATIABLE, unquenchable, unappeasable, prodigious, uncomfortable, uncontrolled, omnivorous, compulsive, gluttonous, greedy, rapacious.

Trans man. Trans man. Not my problem, I would think to myself. And yet, the anger I had at my person became insatiable. I was voracious with food, books, self improvement, routine, what I figured a normal person could do every day. I was subconsciously in competition with a person that called me her best friend. When I first told her I was trans and genderfluid, maybe nonbinary in 2022, I was met with doubt. I internalized this doubt.

However, this morning as I was making breakfast, and reading Pageboy by Elliot Page, I accepted and welcomed the thought of trans man. The panic attack eased with the aid of a heating pad, put in the microwave for 5 minutes. I didn’t want top surgery, now that the opportunity was presented to me. I didn’t want to become a man, as the opportunity was presented to me. The curiosity, as I leaned into it, was satiated. And the part of my brain that had answers was unlocked.

Growing up, I was told I looked like my dad. He was an example I felt ashamed to be compared to, a man I saw do things in secret that unveiled an ungodly being I was terrified of becoming. The small crinkles on his face, his reactions, his interests were inorganic to me, I felt trapped by the similarities in our behavior, my younger self trying on his rage. It was inhuman to me. I told others, I’m a man, and some complied in understanding, which startled me. I cut my hair. I tried to be friends with boys in class. The thought was comforting, I could become my own man that I needed, and still be in touch with the woman, the nonwoman, the nonman inside of me, all parts.

Feeling the man part of me, I was dullened. It wanted a voice, an acknowledgement, but I wasn’t discovering the words I had once before. They didn’t flow, the information wasn’t apparent. There was a calm, words to the pain I was experiencing, yet the pain quieted. It was easier, but I knew this wasn’t how a man felt. What had I done?

I felt comfortable with women, nonmen, or queer men that had accepted their queerness or transness. It was a quiet understanding, in heteronormative relationships we were in. But I had the chilling panic, realization, every few months, that the cis straight men I was/am involved with were technically in a queer relationship. I wasn’t a woman, I wasn’t straight, yet the queerness they are involved in seemed a touch out of place. I felt the need to comfort them, and suggest a book on the matter to ease their discomfort. I was easing my own discomfort, the feeling of isolation and othering. I realized today, that is not my problem. It was never my problem.

The part of me that was acting like a man, felt subconsciously isolated from my innate womanhood I was forced to socialize in. The socialization that I was exposed to was indifferent to who I wanted to become, and searching for it took a decade.

I have decided bisexual is a gender and I don’t give a fuck if anyone tells me I’m wrong. If lesbian is a gender, bisexual is a gender. Fuck off. Fuck gender. Fuck performativeness.