the gender episode

16/1/2024

its a new year! i guess i should've made this blog post something more based around that, but i've been wanting to make a post talking about gender and my relationship with it for a minute so. that's what i'm going to do instead lmao

for a while i've been telling people i'm "probably nonbinary" but that i just don't care enough to do anything about it. like, when it comes down to it i don't really care what pronouns i'm addressed with, i don't care enough to state that either, so i may as well be a cis girl. and while i do believe that's true to an extent, i've never truly taken the time to do a deep dive into how i view myself in relation to gender and what my indifference really means.

i think i've had this preconceived idea that gender introspection, at least in my case, is something that only matters for pronoun purposes. i'm not sure how much of this is my own fault for not thinking seriously about gender until now and how much of it is wrapped up in how prevelant discussions surrounding pronouns are currently, but either way, i realize its a pretty stupid line of thinking LOL. my gender expression does not and SHOULD not end with how other people refer to me, and there are so many other important ways to play with and experience gender beyond it. and i do feel that that idea has been stopping me from investigating and playing more than anything.

that's all to say very little about what my actual experience has been. a few years ago, a high school friend of mine posted on instagram with the caption "the trans experience is running as far away from your birth gender as possible and then slowly walking back to it" [sic] and something about that really resonated with me, despite not being trans myself. when i was a child, i ran as far away from feminine as i possibly could. i was really swept up with this idea of being a tomboy, and anything feminine i did like i felt shame over, i couldn't tell anyone. i never wanted to become a boy, but it's difficult to say that i wanted to be a girl either.

walking back from that was difficult. when i started my teen years and wanted to start wearing dresses i was embarrassed and almost ashamed about it. i can remember my mom wishing i would wear dresses and stuff, and me secretly wanting to very much, but still having some weird mental block and embarrassment. but then i got into ultra-feminine styles like lolita and yume kawaii and started running the other way. in some ways i felt like i had something to make up for for all the years i shunned my feminine self? in any case, i was walking it back, but i never really lingered on what all that meant for my sense of self. like, did i have to kill the tomboy to become a "real" girl, whatever that is?

i think in terms of how i dress, and how gender expression manifests there, it'd be very difficult for me to ever reach a point of androgyny again. my form is really feminine, i have no intentions of changing that despite my love-hate feelings towards it, and ultimately i do perfer feminine clothing styles. so i think that facet of gender is pretty hardlocked for me now. and i guess when there isn't much you can do in the physical realm all that's left is words.

so, how do i like to be referred to? it's weird. the best way i can describe is that different terms feel more like "home" to me. i think

bizarre love triangle '94 - new order