Imposter Syndrome

Naomi gets personal about her struggles

Just a heads up: This one is personal stuff. It also talks about gender and sexuality so consider this a content warning. I won’t say mature, because I will never be convinced that something so important should be too taboo to speak of to someone of any age. But others, maybe you, might think it is perverse or too much information.

If you don’t want to read it, I won’t be mad. At any point, you can just close the tab.

I’m just going to open up here and get it all down and out in the open. Some of this I’ve never told anyone before. Some of it those among you who really know me might know well.

I have imposter syndrome: bad. What’s worse is that I’m really good at it.

I remember on our annual road trip to Gen Con with my dad back when it was in Milwaukee—before it became something else and left its home—he told me how impressed he was that I could carry on a conversation about literally any topic, even things I knew nothing about. It was also on one of these trips that I came out to him as transgender (even though at the time I didn’t know it and I wouldn’t figure it out for another 30 years) but his response set that back for a long, long time—but that’s another story for another day. My wife has said the same about me: our daughter can ask me anything about any topic and I will have a response that answers the question and accurately, even when I don’t know the answer myself.

It’s a weird talent. It was really helpful in school and work and socializing with others. It’s probably the reason I didn’t realize I was neurodivergent, socially-anxious, an introvert, and many more things far sooner, though others saw it in me.

In school and the workplace

In case I lose my job for writing this.

One of the first places this manifested was working overnights at the Despot. A person I worked with asked me if I’d been in his graduating class in the late 70s. I wasn’t born until the early 80s, but I think I put on an air of maturity and gravitas that made me seem far older to others.

Years later a manager at Starbucks complimented me on always staying calm and relaxed in stressful situations. A precious friend dubbed me “the Keeper of Sanity,” for maintaining a balance of rationality in insane circumstances. This was at a time when I personally was suicidal (held back only by a promise to a girl who had rejected me and actively antagonized me after I told her my feelings) and actively engaging in self-harm nightly, in part from my crippling anxiety, inability to handle my life as it was then, and untreated severe major depression.

In High School cross-country (where there was no question I was a completely incompetent athlete) I won an award from my coaches for leadership because I’d taken the freshmen under my wings and helped them feel welcome and part of the team—when I myself was slacking off in workouts and cutting corners on training. Around the same time I was Outstanding Marcher of the Year in marching band—my name is still on a plaque on the wall in my high school (for both those, actually)—even though I never memorized the music and just pretended to play; though I did nail the core-style marching part.

I always have been able to put on a good show.

Even now, I feel grossly incompetent at my job: I’m a cloud architect of all things with less than five years of professional experience and only two more of academic training. I’m not going to get too deeply into that: I think I’m doing a decent job of it—but I also feel deeply inadequate to receive the trust placed in me.

I’m a fraud.

In my gender and sexuality

I honestly believed I was a boy for 41 years. I also thought I was gay multiple times, even though I was almost solely attracted to women: there were like two, maybe three outliers.

Every night before bed I drew pictures of boys transforming into girls, girls turning into boys, people turning into all kinds of animals, plants, minerals, goop. I read and reread my copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses until the covers fell off—my favorites being Ocyrhoe, Actaeon, Iphis, and Callisto. Werewolves, polymorph, curses, the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, all that stuff—I read as much of it as I could every night when I wasn’t drawing, and it was in doing so that I discovered sexuality.

Nothing weird going on here!

But I was a man! I loved playing sports (I could never manage to pretend I liked watching them), I liked cars! I dated a bunch of girls (mostly only for one date). But at the same time I was uncomfortable around men and vastly preferred spending time with groups of girls. I had myself convinced until my mid-30s at least that this could all work at the same time.

So manly!

In 2010 I met a trans girl for the first time, or at least one who had been outed to me. I was so impressed with her bravery, and her mother’s endless support. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I told myself I wanted to be a cosplayer, I just wasn’t brave enough, and it was female cosplays I dreamed of doing.

A totally normal self-portrait a cis-man would draw

In 2022 I made a meeting background to show my support for Ukraine but added a trans flag a short time later—not a pride flag: specifically a trans flag—to show my support for the most victimized class of people in the world.

But I wasn’t trans myself: I couldn’t be. But then I was. And it was the youtuber Himenii (his channel is really cool), who isn’t even a trans girl, who finally convinced me of what I always knew I was. I was in love with him for being confident enough to speak in his male voice while passing as a cute Japanese high-school girl (he was in his mid 20s—he’s amazing). But I still couldn’t say it out loud. It was almost three months later I started watching more of his videos: I couldn’t stop thinking about them. And then, one night, driving home from my dad’s house we stopped at a red light, and I came out to my wife. “So you like men?” she asked. “No. I think I’m a lesbian.” And I don’t think she really understood what I meant until I started HRT six-months later, and even then it was only when the changes started to be visible that she finally knew what she’d signed on for. She’s a champ. But she doesn’t know how badly I want bottom surgery, right now.

And even after all of that, I was watching all the youtube videos unsure if I was trans enough. Maybe I was just fetishizing it. Maybe I just wanted to be a woman—I wasn’t actually a woman. I didn’t have body dysphoria. My male parts weren’t a problem for me like they were for other trans girls. I didn’t mind using the men’s room, or being misgendered, or dead-named.

Again, I was a fraud.

I think I deserve a coffee after all that truth

And then at some point I wasn’t

I don’t feel like a fraud anymore. Not really. At least in some things.

Sure I’m writing a book even though I’m not a real writer;
I’m an advocate for a bunch of companies whose software I never (or barely) use;
I’m a father, even though I’m a girl;
I’m an responsible adult, even though I know I’m still a child.
I’m independent, even though I’m hopelessly lost when there’s no one paying attention to me.
I’m a poet, even though I write silly metered poems that rhyme.
I’m more mentally stable than ever before, though I hurt inside all the time and ache for something I can’t find.
I’m Naomi, even though all my official documents say otherwise.
I’m out and open and confident about my gender, except at work and the airport and any time I don’t feel safe or around my daughters friends

I just stopped caring whether I was a fraud or not. And I kind of realized everyone else was just faking it too.