Settling in to my feminine power as a trans-woman

In the world of the pro-Domme which I orbit, many have taken on empowerment monikers, words of affirmation, titles, honorifics.  They speak to them.  Some are Goddesses.  Some are Mistress.  Some are Queen.  Even Princess.  Miss is another one.  And some just have their name.  There is a wonderfully affirming aspect to this which exists well beyond the kink, and so it is again that kink can instruct us about life more broadly.

This kind of titling will likely be the same in the lifestyle world.  I don’t know.  I plan to find out.  My commitment to myself is to begin to socialise in the world of kink and see what happens.

In my life, working this out is of critical importance.  My lawyer said to me, “don’t marry what you are divorcing.  That’s what all of my clients do.  They marry the same thing.  So disappointing.  You deserve better.”

And she is right, and I just assumed it would be the case, but there I was talking to my bestie and telling her that I was attracted to a woman who was not overtly dominant and that I could just see myself being with her, and she was like, “oh no you’re not.  There is no way you are marrying or shacking up with a woman who is not kinky!  This is who you are.  Stop hiding it or burying it.  Its what you need.  You deserve it.”

A much-needed wakeup call.

When I first sat with Ex-Mistress I asked her what she liked to be called, and she said “Mistress,” and then there was a pause, a nice long pause, “or Mommy,” she said with a flash and sparkle.  I expressed that the word had dissonance for me, with its connotation of “kept woman” and that it might feel silly to say that.  It didn’t take long for me to get used to it and find it completely natural.

What that process was about was recognising and respecting the nature of the power she put out, whoever “she” might be.  It is understood that a domme chooses her honorific because she likes the sound of it, how it makes her feel, how it shows respect in the way that she wants it, perhaps even needs it.  Aligning oneself with that energy is one of the juiciest aspects of submission. It is a way to lose oneself. ‘Mistress’ felt awkward, even silly, but in a way, finding comfort in using it was the first step towards letting go of shame. Once you step into that, using such a word comes easy.  It feels completely natural.

In society at large, how we refer to each other is very important to our respective identities.  That is particularly true for people who are denied power, who are marginalised, who are discriminated against.  The right to self-name is one of the most fundamental of all.  The burial of a woman’s birth name is a symbolic act of subjugation and terror which has to stop.  It is no fairy-tale.  That the institution of marriage carried the erasure and subjugation of a woman is a cardinal sin.  After all, what’s in a name?  Everything.

It may seem strange, but one of the aspects I cherish most about being trans, being out, is to find that I might be discriminated against. It creates a feeling of deserved solidarity with my trans brothers and sisters, but also with other marginalised people. I wrote a long time ago now about how black women in particular looked at me and treated me with such softness. It is a measure of their own experience.

Coming out as a trans person, the most gracious people are the ones who ask me after saying how gobsmacked they are, “what are your pronouns?” and this is usually followed by “have you thought about taking a new name?”  God bless the enlightened ones.

I was out recently with a lovely new group of people (I am just meeting so many new people—the most potent aspect of just being myself) and the effortlessness they had navigating pronouns, and how they made it possible to follow conversation about multiple “they’s” who were not present was a lesson for me, for all of us.  Inspiring.

My answer to these questions has been “they/them” and that I will be keeping my name.  After all, “A Boy Named Sue,” was always one of my favourite songs.  The book “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling, about an Indian urchin boy who becomes a spy was one of my favourites largely for the mix of him being a scamp, a rough-and-tumble boy (something which I was too), but also seeming to embody gender conflict in the name Kim (the name of the prettiest girl in my class at the time), is excuse enough.

But the truth is, our names are powerful.  If my name were David, I would wear it proudly as a trans woman.  I read recently that the Stonewall organisation is campaigning to have all sex identifiers removed from legal documents.  The person writing about it was horrified.  It sounds like a great idea to me.  Surely we can be identified without reference to our biological sex!  How vulgar.

In other words, we come to inhabit our names.  We wear them.  They are us.  For many trans people, rejecting that name, making it a dead name, is a critical part of the transition process.  It is a potent symbol, and very important to them that this come to pass.  I feel that truth very strongly.

My path is and will be different.  I will keep my name.  And yes, I regard myself as always having inhabited a third gender.  My name was always a part of that.  It is too much a part of me, and I will carry what I was into what I become.  I will be one.

The Divine Feminine

My Akashic reader said, “there is no such thing as the divine feminine.  It just is.  It is divine energy.  In it there are aspects which are feminine and aspects which are masculine.  Divine energy is complete.  What you will say is what you need to feel complete.  What you need to cultivate.  What anyone needs to cultivate.”

As a trans woman experiencing second puberty, the words of my “big sister” speak to me most clearly…”you are feeling things, having to deal with things, are experiencing emotions that all of us have had a long time to get used to, to learn about.  But you are feeling the things we are meant to feel in our teens, only you are feeling them as an adult.  You are just having to learn fast.”  Indeed, at times I feel a bit like those racing cars that kids play with, the ones that careen around a plastic track at impossible speed and fly off the track at most corners.  You’d think that they could make cars that wouldn’t fly off so easily, but that is just the point.  In order to not be bored, one needs to develop the skill to slow the car down to just the right speed before accelerating again.  Control.  It is the same as emotional self-control.  I am needing to learn self-mastery in a wholly new way.

Feeling and embracing female energy in me, as it courses around me, through me, inspires me, accepts me, I am wishing to note its passing, to identify, to be more conscious about feeling it, to be open to it, to hear it, to let it drive.  And this takes practice, focus, concentration.

Even if my Akashic reader doesn’t make the distinction, I do, and I am happily in search of and discovering the divine feminine.  And if this is the energy of receiving, then it would explain many things to me.  

And here is my thought.  I am not a Queen.  I can’t be.  The baggage in that word for an ex-man is too symbolic.  How did the ultimate symbol of female monarchic power become such a touch-word for a certain type of gay man?  So, no, I am not a Queen.

And Princess, another beautiful honorific, has so many negative connotations around being precious, high maintenance.  No, I am not a Princess either.

Perhaps Miss would be nice.  I should like that.  In the meantime, how about Empress?  Not as a right, but as an aspiration.  How must one be in order to be felt an Empress?  When authority is given not taken?  I posed this question to my favourite therapist.  About being an Empress, of living up to that.  And the most beautiful thing happened (I’ve stopped calling these things weird because they are no longer isolated occurrences but simply the way)—her deck of tarot cards fell from her desk (which is the exact same set that I have and draw from—another random thing) and one card bounced face up.  

“You won’t believe what just happened,” she said and then tilted her phone down to the floor where the cards were lying at her feet.  One had flipped over.  Yes, you guessed it.  The Empress.  Read upright.  If you are interested, here is a link to a site that explains the meaning of the card.

I shall attempt to live up to that kind of energy.  Can one be said to deserve to be an Empress?  Why not.  And I ask myself how do I need to be to be worthy of that moniker?  I intend to find out.