“I know I’m not a man…and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman, either…The trouble is, we are living in a world that insists we be one or the other.”

These words were written by author Kate Bornstein at the beginning of her landmark bestselling book entitled Gender Outlaw.

Recently I wrote a blog post for Open Salon entitled Boy/Girl, Both, or Neither. In that blog I wrote about the gender conflicts I have been dealing with recently. What Kate Bornstein said in thirty-six words above took me twelve paragraphs and almost a thousand words to elucidate.

I can clearly remember a time when I “knew” I was a girl, and no one could say anything that could change my mind. I remember the adults in my world referring to me as a boy, but I knew better. It’s not that I thought my parents were wrong, or that I was being lied to. It was more like I knew that someday something would happen and they would come to me with the glorious news that yes, I am now officially a girl. But it never did happen.

I wasn’t quiet about what I knew. I told virtually every girl and boy in my world, which wasn’t that many, to be sure, but to us as preschoolers, ice cream was a big deal. Whether you were a boy or girl was not. Oh sure, as I started to school, and particularly in the first grade, I remember the boys deciding the girls had “cooties.” I loudly proclaimed that I had cooties, too, and was harassed by the boys for taking sides against them. The girls and I knew who really had the cooties!

There came a time when a dear girlfriend would show me why I wasn’t a girl, and that was the single most devastating awareness of my entire childhood. I cried for several days after that. My parents demanded to know why I was crying, but I refused to say. Then, in the first grade, I intentionally crossed the threshold of gender dysphoria and began to live as a boy. I didn’t want to, but it was clear that I had no choice.

I was no more a boy than Humphrey Bogart was Rick Blaine. Bogart played that character in the film Casablanca but he always knew he was not Rick. He knew he was always Humphrey, even though he could play a very convincing Rick. Likewise I have always known I was not a man, but I played the role of one for fifty years because I believed I had to in order to survive.

Today I am not a man, and I am sure of that. But I am not fully a woman either, even though I had GRS (genital reassignment surgery), and even though I now have an undetectable level of testosterone, but a normal level of estrogen for a healthy adult female. For one thing, my DNA and chromosomes are still male (okay, that’s two things). Hormones and surgery cannot change chromosomes and DNA. For another, I never had a uterus, Fallopian tubes, or ovaries, and I never will.

This brings us to Kate’s conclusion that we live in a world that insists that everyone be one gender or the other. Open Salon has a diverse array of writers, to be sure. But those who spend a good bit of time on OS soon realize that it is heavily weighted with liberals (thanks be to the Gods), and there is a fair lesbian and gay representation among the bloggers as well. When I posted my Boy/Girl blog, I was amazed at how few people of the folks on OS could accept that I am not a man or a woman, but rather a blending of both, or I may be some gender that is altogether unique, and for which we have no widely accepted name. Yet. Even very open-minded people have trouble when dealing with those who are not comfortable within the "gender binary."

I like the term “gender outlaw,” and just may start calling myself that when asked, and especially when I am required to fill in the little boxes on forms. I believe I am outside the “law” of society that insists that I be one gender or the other. I identify as mostly female in my thoughts, interests, and emotional makeup, but I no longer have gender dysphoria.

Surgery gave me the genitalia that I believe was rightfully mine all along. A multitude of people have come to accept me as simply Elena. Kate Bornstein gave me the mantra that clearly and simply describes the true gender essence of Elena. Thank you Kate! And thank you OS!