“My Female Parts have Calcified”

 

Appendix testes they’re called, the remnants of fetal Müllerian ducts,
which in a female would develop into fallopian tubes and uterus.
One is now a hard little ball bearing
sitting near the top of my left testicle.

It must be the way I have been living. Why else would it calcify?
I’m sure it’s from lack of use, from frustration at being ignored,
from my female parts feeling useless or just plain rejected.

I force my masculine side to stay strong, in control, assertive,
provide security, protection; while I hide or suppress my feminine side – the urges to comfort, to hug,
to respond with love or caring or even simple kindness.

The doctor said “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not a problem”.
That could just be the mantra of modern male life right there.
I am channeled, being male, to de-sensitize myself, to be tough, to handle pain, to ignore pain, to not admit pain into my conscious world at all. “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not a problem” sums all that up so very well.

Dammit! It’s supposed to hurt! It needs to hurt. I long for it to hurt.
If it doesn’t hurt, if you can’t feel pain at all, then you’re not really alive.
You’re just a shell, a zombie almost, stumbling with glassy eyes
through this madcap precious life.

I want to be an emotional hermaphrodite.
I want to tangibly know and appreciate
both experiences: the female and the male viewpoints.
I want my female parts back and working.

Where did they go? Who decided for me that
I would only act male and not female?
Why can’t I choose which I need to be, want to be, have to be…
in every waking moment, free to respond from whatever parts of me
are most needed by the situation at hand?

It’s not about closets and “coming out”.
It’s certainly not about sex and “coming”.
It’s about wholeness, being whole,
feeling holy inside, finding a different kind of strength.
It’s about feeling it all, and in each moment then just letting it all be.

I’m glad my left appendix testis has calcified.
Now that I know, now that I have heard the warning bell,
maybe I can rebuild myself, and my really important female parts
can grow back, and start working once again.

~ Colin Winchester, A Celebration of Women™ 2012