A letter to my 16 year old self

I have been thinking lately of what advice I would give my 16 year old self, that scared, painfully shy ‘girl’ hiding away from the world believing she was a freak because of this non-normative body, a freak for being attracted to girls and most defiantly a freak for harbouring the secrete desire of wanting a cock of her own.

I would tell her YES you can have sex! Just because when you google ‘Cerebral Palsy and sex’ late at night and find nothing does not mean that bodies like yours aren’t having beautiful, hot, raunchy times right now somewhere in the world!  

I would tell her the reason why women who ‘look like lesbians’ make you so very uncomfortable, make you tense, make you squirm, your breath come faster, your hands go clammy is not because they are odd and you can’t understand them. It’s because you really want to kiss them, find out how they live, (where they find their clothes to dress like that!), how they love and how they fuck.

I would tell her this is what attraction feels like. Follow it, don’t be scared of it. Women will find you beautiful, just as you are. They will take you on journeys to some of the most transformative moments of your life! They will show you desire. They will break your heart, and you will find them so exhilarating that you’ll go through it over and over again.

I would whisper the word genderqueer in her ear. Tell her/him/me that it’s ok to not ‘feel like a girl’, to have ambiguous junk; that some people will love your body, find it fascinating.

I would tell her to find a way to buy your first vibrator. Sneak it into your bed and learn your body. Know your body, what you like and don’t like, what fantasies turn you on.

Be opened to change, to experimenting. Sex is fun, approach it with desire filled fingers, humour, a sense of adventure! You are beautiful, and strange and odd, just as you are. Embrace it. Find what brings you joy, your/our body holds so much joy. Expand. Breathe into it.