It happened one day when I was standing in front of a mirror. After a shower, I saw myself as usual, my torso very familiar. And those little parts are so familiar as well, those odd parts for which I have no use. But there they are. They are there on every boy, every man, every big football player, every wrestler, every one of the guys in high school I showered with after PE. We are not surprised. They just come with the whole package. But why?

By now, perhaps you have guessed what I am talking about. Perhaps you have had these thoughts at least once in your life, if you are a man like me. Why are those little things, those nipples, there? If I were a girl, a woman, they would make sense. But I am not a girl or a woman. (* Clearly, I am only writing about this phenomenon from a man’s perspective, and admit I don’t know what a woman might experience.) 

Yes, you folks who took biology courses, you can explain it all to me. You can tell me what happened way back when I was an embryo, preparing to grow into a baby. You can describe what happens to those of us who become boys and men. But you cannot explain it.

Perhaps that is the reason so many men passionately despise those among us who are uncertain, “confused,” or who choose a path strange to these men. They are seriously bothered by those who think or feel like they are “really” not a man, but identify as a woman, those boys who feel like they are in the wrong kind of body, and want to become a girl, want to grow to be a woman. Oh, how some men hate them, and how they teach their sons to hate them. I have wondered what makes these men so upset, so determined to interfere in other persons’ lives. They want laws that will condemn those “weird” people who don’t know what sex they are. They want laws that prohibit doctors from helping them with surgery, or hormones, or whatever they need to make their bodies conform to their personal conception of who or what they are. Self-righteous lawmakers eagerly respond. They condemn them to be what they want them to be. They say that is the “right” solution to this “confusion.”

I wondered why these guys are so scared of people who are different. When I was standing in front of the mirror that day, it came to me. I began to understand their fury, their anger, their hate, or fear, their emotional response to those who want to be a different sex, those transgender, or who want to be transgender. What happened? I noticed those nipples! Why do I have nipples? Of course, I knew they were there. I’ve seen them every day of my life. But why are these useless little elements of female anatomy on my body? 

Of course, as I said, I know you scientific-minded folks will describe to me what happened when I was so tiny in my mother’s body. You will tell me that I was equipped for a few days back then to become either male or female. You will describe how the chromosome thing that was part of my father’s sperm could have been either an X or a Y. On that particular occasion, it evidently contained a functioning Y chromosome, and that turned me in the male direction, so certain parts began to shape themselves into the familiar male outcome. But part of the truth is that I could have become a female person. I had a chance to become a girl, to grow up as a woman!

I think that truth is subconsciously scaring the hell out of those guys who want so badly to prevent anyone who thinks they need a change from even trying that route. I suspect that those little nipples are telling a truth that they don’t want to admit. “Hey, big guy, you, too, could have become a woman.”    *

      *Since this is a difficult topic, I hope you, my reader, will overlook any language or terms you think I have misused.