[Cin]

I believed that I never had trouble accepting myself as a woman. I always felt my sensibilities lay with women. However, there was a sort of disconnect when it came to identifying with society’s definition, as well as a sense of invisibility because I could never see myself reflected in other women. Then I found butch and that felt right. The masculine male thing was a bit of a struggle, because despite a real gender incongruence in my presentation in the eyes of others, I had never really felt like I was male. I looked it. At least there was always a good deal of gender confusion from the world in general regarding if I was male or female. But I never was confused. But I do find comfort in my masculinity, it fits like my old black t-shirt. But I am never comfortable with it. I hold it suspect and watch it like it was a cranky old dog prone to biting. In the spirit of this very tiresome way I have of looking at my masculinity I thought it would be great fun to give myself a feminine name this time around. Miss Tick is a very minor character in a couple of Terry Pratchett novels. I liked that it was a kind of oronym. So I decided to try it out.

I’m having such a hard time with it. When I see it beside my words I cringe. It’s beyond being uncomfortable with it. I pretty much hate it. But I’m going to keep it. At least until the fear and loathing of a too feminine name passes or it just gets too much to look at. I am pretty surprised at myself. I didn’t think it would be this hard. But it is. It's so hard that I sometimes feel detached from my own words once they are out there authored by this Miss Tick person. I wonder what that says about me. I think it needs a touch of masculine to make it more palatable. I keep telling myself that tick is kind of male. But really what the hell does that even mean? How can a word be male? I think I'm losing it. Maybe I should just give in and change it.