People who have bodies that match their gender identity take their bodies for granted in their process of gender formation. Transgender people don't have that luxury. We have to approach identity from another angle. We come to understand and accept our masculinity and femininity and its relationship to our female and maleness, but it's the body that gives us problems—it's the body that we have to deal with in order to express our deepest sense of self.
I had thought my masculinity was the problem for my female body, and came to understand that it was my female body that had been the problem for my masculinity. I realized consciously that it isn't that one sex or one gender is better or more civilized or moral than another, but that a person's relationship with her or his own body is what counts, because being true to oneself creates the integrity and self-respect we need to have if we are to extend that respect to others.
— Jamison, 56
Being a man is a gestalt,
a wholeness of mind and body.
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