starshowers | (no subject)

So I should probably chat about this with my therapist or something, but I really need to get my thoughts out somewhere that is. definitely not plurk, mostly because I don't need to shove this in everyone else's face but if I post it here I still feel like it's sorta public/accountable even if literally no one will ever see this. I'm also very, VERY terrified of this being taken the wrong way and hurting my friends, and even if that doesn't happen I feel like this is very...not a big deal, and certainly not worth rambling about publicly since it's about gender but it's literally just cis philosophical navel-gazing and no one needs BUT WHAT ABOUT ME AND MY CIS CONFUSION crowding up their lives and timelines.

I've learned so much about gender in the last decade, and probably especially in the last five years or so, as more and more of my friends come out as trans, and that's awesome and cool and I love it!

But I've noticed, especially in the last year or so, that the more I hear about and understand the experiences of my trans and nb friends with gender (which is...the majority of my friends at this point), the more I've been having trouble working through like. I guess I can only describe it as a weird cognitive dissonance wrt my own self-perception? And it's not about my gender identity - I'm a cis girl, and if I were questioning that I would have people to talk to. As I've thought more about it, I think it's more the fact that the concept of gender identity, as I've come to understand it, has implications for what that means for me, personally, that don't feel right.

I think the only tl;dr explanation I've been able to come up with is that I've never felt like my gender has anything to do with my inherent identity, beyond how it affects society's perception of me and how that has affected my life in turn, that I've never really given a rat's ass about it one way or another, and that this understanding of myself fundamentally cannot be true in light of the very real and valid experiences of people I love.

Probably a big part of why I'm so attached to the idea that being a girl has nothing to do with being who I am probably, like EVERY OTHER THING IN MY LIFE, I'm so fucking sorry, goes back to my mom, who was a second-wave feminist and very, very much spent time wanting to shove celebrations of femininity and my growing womanhood down my throat (while also, now that I think about it, banning me from wearing makeup outside the house and getting my ears pierced until I was 16 and training me to think that anything that wasn't two sizes too big was too tight so...?????????). The best two examples I can think of are: her getting incredibly upset when I bought an American Girl book that explained breast development by splitting it into five stages and I talked to her about trying to match the stage I was at with the book because "There aren't stages, it's just ~natural~!" (also one of the many nails in the "talking with mom about my body ever" coffin, though not the final one), and her wanting to celebrate and buy me a present when I started my period. I know the latter one especially is something a lot of girls would be grateful for, but concept of being a ~woman~ and ~womanly~ and ~womanhood~ was so baked into her conversations and attitude that it ended up turning me off to the entire concept at a young age. I wanted being a girl to be...well, just a thing I happened to be because of the body I was born with, not something that was intimately part of me.

I think the problem is that, when it comes to myself, I honestly still feel that way. I don't care about being a girl. I don't care about my pronouns, I don't care about my presentation, I don't care about how people see me. I've tried to picture how I would feel if someone thought I was a guy and started using he/him for me (and I admit I look very feminine, so I have the privilege of knowing that this is incredibly unlikely), and it would be unexpected, but if it was clear that they were talking about me and it wasn't someone trying to be an asshole for some reason, I genuinely don't think I would care. When it's happened to me in large Discord servers, I've felt nothing about it. Everyone I can remember agreeing with me about this when I was much younger - like, high school age - has since come out as trans or nonbinary, which almost makes me retroactively feel like I was somehow lying to them??? because I'm not???? Even though that's nonsense, because I wasn't lying. I don't care! The real explanation for this is probably cis privilege - I'm a woman who looks traditionally feminine and therefore I don't live with the specter of being misgendered in my daily life - which is why I don't want to talk about this super openly, because my friends don't need me yelling about problems born from my privilege, and frankly I should just swallow my first world problems or air them out with someone who is paid to listen. But when I dig down and think about it, I still feel like my gender isn't part of me. I try to think of what would make feeling like a man different than feeling like a girl, and apart from societal bullshit I can't think of anything. Again, I know it's not correct! I know I'm just dumb and don't understand, and it's not anyone's responsibility to teach me, but when I try to learn I just keep winding up in the same place.

The only thing that feels true, when talking about myself, is saying that I'm a girl, because that's how a world where gender matters sees me. Beyond that, it's not me. My gender isn't part of who I am.

Except that's not true, even if I feel like it's true, so what the fuck do I do with that?

Talk to a paid professional, because other people have real problems that are actually affecting and threatening their daily lives and they don't need my bullshit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Posting here because I still feel like I would be a piece of shit if I publicly called attention to this...and yet, still posting it here because part of me does want to be heard, even if it is wrong.

I guess what it boils down to is that I feel, probably irrationally so, like I can't exist comfortably in a world where I know that I have to place myself somewhere on the spectrum of gender identity. Choosing a gender - to be cis, to be nonbinary, agender, trans - means saying this part of myself exists, and I care about whether or not you properly understand what I am and respect it. It is a declaration that you feel something about it and it matters to you. What's wrong with me that I don't have that, don't feel ANYTHING about it? I've heard people talk about cis people who have explored and tried to understand gender identity and just said "nope, I'm good with my own gender" and that's not what I have going on because there's....like. It's not like there's an identity to match to a description, or to try to understand. There's nothing there! It's not me, it's not part of me, I don't have this thing!

But it means so much, so so much to so many people I love, to have gender, to explore gender, to understand gender. My feelings, even if I feel alienated, shouldn't matter next to that.

But I guess I hate not being able to be honest about this, and...I guess it sucks that, according to what everyone else is saying, I should have this feeling that I don't. What's wrong with me that I lack this fundamental sense of self? It's just another thing where I don't fit and it makes me feel even worse about the possibility of sharing my stories, my thoughts, or my ideas, because I don't feel like I speak the same fundamental language, down to even how I see my own existence, that other people do. The only way to show respect to others, to deal with this, is to tell myself that my feelings are inherently wrong and to shut up, to always shut up.

anyway, I don't give a shit! About my gender! I don't even like gender very much, actually! I would be happy to not think about it in relation to myself ever again! But I would never call myself nonbinary or agender or ask people to use they/them or anything else for me because that in and of itself is a declaration and that's. No!! I'm saying the opposite of that!!! I. Aughhhhhh I don't know how to talk about this and I have no one to talk about it with and frankly I'm cis so I don't need that help anyway so it shouldn't matter and yet I am a person who exists and I want my existence seen and validated because that's a normal part of being human, I Guess, even when it's stupid.