Inspired by this dorky exchange I had, thank u BountifulEggnog.
I want to know what your gender means to you, how you define it, what it means for you to "be" that gender and how you define it. Don't fuss about 'correct definitions' or anything, this is about your experience, I want to know what it means to you. How you relate to that gender, perceive it.
Genders have a social construction aspect and is very subjective, so I think people's subjective, personal views of their own are both important and interesting. Inquiring mind wants to know!
I'll share some of mine I guess.
I was a trans woman until the contradictions sharpened to a razor's edge after reading Gender Outlaw and The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto. My brain got cracked in half. I have always hated the effects testosterone would have on my body, so estrogen was a given, but while I do identify with certain things that are commonly associated with being a woman... if nothing is inherently gendered, what even is a gender? I had a whole little episode about it in the megathread once.
As I went on from there, I realised that while I like certain things about "being a woman", equally I found I'd been sort of stifled by trying to fit into the social role. The women I have always related to most are the cis autistic women who basically yeet presentation in favour of dressing for sensory comfort. Almost kinda non binary, in a way... The more I interrogated binary gender in relation to myself, the more I dug up stuff like this. Also I didn't really like that "woman" is associated with cis people a lot, I really like the trans part of my identity, feel a lot of love for it. I've felt freer and mentally clearer and truer to myself as a Non Binary Transfem, it's cool and funny. What does it mean to me? It represents my goofy sometimes-androgynous presentation, my lack of cissie gender, how being neurodiverse influences my view, being a funny noody goblin. Share yours =)
Sorry if this is a faux pas to comment on an older thread, but I somehow missed this and @[email protected]'s comments really hit close to home for me and I really appreciated hearing them and just wanted to show some gratitude. I'm a spectrum-y enby too, but am more on the dysphoric trans femme side of it, but everything you had to say about gender agnosticism and discomfort with patriarchal gender norms rang extremely true to my own experience.
I've always been a queer lil' weirdo since I was a kid before I really had a conception of what that meant, but being AMAB and being pressured away from "feminine" friendships with girls and being pressured to act more masculine than I am or wanted to be or could convincingly fake was really distressing for me. Being kinda slow to grasp social norms and cues, the slow and awkward divergence of my friend groups as a kid into "boys" and "girls" around the start of middle school age was really alienating as someone who didn't really get what "normal" kids were feeling starting puberty and discovering their orientations and getting crushes and starting to want to go on dates and stuff.
Realizing in my early teens that the frostiness towards me I felt from some of my girl friends that I didn't understand was because I was now being perceived as "a guy" instead of "another kid that I'm friends with" because girls of that age have to sort of develop a form of hypervigilance about (perceived) boys because of how manipulative and duplicitous straight cis teen boys can get to try seduce girls. It took me awhile to figure it out, but looking back, that social dissonance I felt from being basically softly excommunicated from "kid (feminine)" to "teen (gendered male, possible threat to teen girls)" was so jarring that it really ended up solidifying my internal concept of gender down the road.
By broad standards, I've always been kinda non-binary in terms of affect and interests growing up, but that really clarified how gender works for "normal people" to a degree where I went from "I mean, I'm a boy, right? That's what I'm supposed to be like according to everyone I guess even though I feel like I kinda suck at boy-ness compared to the other boys" to "okay yeah, idk wtf I actually am or if there's a term for whatever I am or if there's other people like me out there, but I'm damn well sure I'm Not A Guy™️."
Exploring my own feelings about that helped me alleviate some of my hangups about gender and made me understand and be more comfortable with my own gender identity and understand now that part of that discomfort I couldn't place or nail down growing up was dysphoria, but what you described about your own experiences really opened up a lot of shit I'd kinda buried mentally. In a post-gendernorm society, I'd probably be comfortable being a trans femme enby that's like, 7/10ths femme, 3/10ths masc in a kinda fruity way, but in the world we live in now, the most salient point of my gender identity is Not A Guy™️ and being clear to cis men and women, and people that aren't cishet men understanding that I'm in their camp.
Ahhh! How did I not get a notification about this comment (or how did I miss it)??
Thanks for sharing your story with me. One day we'll abolish enforced gender norms and you'll get to be 7/10ths femme, 3/10ths masc, and 10/10ths mind your damn business - I'm just doing my thing. That's a world worth fighting for.
And thanks for the reality check. The last thing I was expecting was for my contribution to resonate with anyone since I don't have it anywhere near sorted out in myself. I'm going to think on this a lot because obviously I'm operating under a false paradigm with the way that I value my own contributions. Your comment has inspired a precious opportunity for my personal growth, and I'm super grateful for your reply!
Aww, thank you!
I forgot about making the comment too, so rereading this all kinda helped me mentally get my footing with some recent uncomfortable stuff with some family relationships.