Writer

It seems like one of the hardest things for people to do is to call themselves a writer. (There's even a whole discussion about it on the Bransforums)

This is understandable. Saying you're a writer when you're unpublished is bound to get puzzled looks and the odd sneer. Saying you're a writer when you've only had a couple of small things published is bound to be met in the same way. To a lot of the world, you're not a writer if you aren't at the Stephenie Meyer sales level.

I like to look at it in a different way.

I look at writing like being a trannie.

A transgender is someone who identifies with the opposite gender. Gender, you see, is a state of mind; your personality. If it is dominated by predominantly masculine traits, you are said to be a boy, for example. By contrast, a transexual is someone who has had their sex — the physical bits that identify them as male v female — altered.

Sex is what you are. Gender is what you identify with.

The next time someone asks you what you do: Pause and think.

You could tell them you're a professor. But are you really a professor?

Are you a writer?