yo ryan, i'm r e a l l y questioning my gender, like, a lot a lot a lot. i think i'm agender, n i wanna change my name and pronouns and i want to get a binder, but i don't rlly wanna change my presentation much otherwise. i wanna wear the same clothes and keep my hair long. i want to socially transition because it's who i feel i am, but i still feel how i look is more or less who i am. it's safe for me to come out at home, but i feel i will be ridiculed at school. what do i do???
okay anon, just a quick preface - i'm not an expert, i'm not especially great at giving advice, and i can only speak from personal experience, so please remember to take everything i say with a grain of salt, and prioritize what you're comfortable with over what others say you should do. this is about your safety and comfort, and i can only tell you what's worked for me.
and this is gonna be a really long fucking post, bud, and i'm probably not going to have the energy to reread and edit it, so buckle up and i hope it ends up making some amount of sense. i'll try to insert a keep reading link when i can.
that said - i had that same feeling for a really long time, my friend. i identified as a boy / nonbinary person and wanted to socially transition and be seen as such, but didn't want to change my outward presentation all that much.
but. i had gotten it into my head that no one would accept me unless i conformed to gender stereotypes (more on that in a bit). that people would continue to misgender me if i continued to be myself, and i would be dysphoric all the time.
so i started buying almost exclusively boys' and mens' clothes, wore my binder all the time (to a point that it was painful to breathe, which was really unhealthy and borderline self-destructive), and tried to act more traditonally masculine in my day to day life, no matter who i was with.
i still got misgendered. i still didn't feel comfortable in my body. i had no idea what i was doing or even who i wanted to be - just that who i was needed to go, and i had to be this new version of myself that was based completely on people's outward expectations of me. i got more dysphoric. i doubted myself constantly and cried all the time because i felt that no matter how i acted or what persona i put on, i would have to either sacrifice my individuality or my gender identity.
this went on for about nine months.
and then, about two weeks ago, i was having a breakdown in my room, and my dad came in to talk to me. we had a conversation that completely changed how i view gender and my own identity. here's the gist of it:
gender is a construct. i know we see and hear it a lot, and it never fully sinks in, so let's elaborate some.
for the majority of the humans on this planet, there are two sexes, two types of genitalia, two types of secondary sex characteristics. and for a while, that was how we thought of gender. (except it wasn't, really, because historically, people have been idenifying with non-binary / non-assigned genders for fucking ages, for tons of different reasons) recently, we as a society have come to recognize that people are trans, and that gender is a spectrum (but less of a spectrum than a really weird mostly-formless sphere sort of thing, imho)
but the thing is? there may be two types of genitalia, but that's not even remotely related to gender. Gender is, just like money and multi-billion dollar corporations, an imaginary construct. a mass delusion that we created so we have something for our world to revolve around. think about it. paper money is some weird mix of paper and cotton and ink or some shit, which are pretty valueless things on their own, but if you mix them together and use some pictures and fancy fonts, they have meaning, right?
nope. because the meaning doesn't come from the object or the blend of paper and paper substitutes or the color - the meaning comes from our imagination. the meaning comes from the fact that we tell ourselves on a global scale that this coin, this plastic rectangle, this colorful paper has value. it means something, and it's what makes the world go 'round. except it's just a piece of material.
its meaning, its value, its worth, is completely imagined. made up. it's a fairy tale on a global scale, and we base our sense of self-worth, our confidence, our social heirarchies, our goddamn lives on it.
and - important point here - without it, who knows where we'd be? it may be imaginary, but it's absolutely neccessary to every aspect of modern life.
but that, i think, is where the currency-gender similarity (that's good, i'm coining that) comes to a screeching halt.
gender is, at its basest level, a stereotype. it's boxes we create to categorize people and better comprehend the world around us. and it can be a pretty useful concept, but it's not essential to modern human life in like money is.
so ryan, you ask, befuddled; if gender isn't related to sex and it isn't neccessary or, um, real, then why does gender matter?
we're all individuals with vastly different worldviews and experiences, and we all have different social circles, styles, thoughts, and personalities. these are what make up our concept of gender expression, presentation, identity, and gender itself. and they're not necessary!
our labels, what we identify as, can very well hold a lot of personal meaning, and if yours do(es), then that's great, friend, and i'm glad you've found something that works for you! but if you're questioning your gender, remember that labels are just quick ways of explaining gender - their meaning is imaginary, and you don't need to explain yourself to anyone in the first place! you don't owe anyone shit! your gender and what you're comfortable with are no one's business but your own!
"masculine" and "feminine" are bullshit terms! there's only what you vibe to and what you don't! you don't need to defend the things that spark joy to anyone, ever!
feelings and thoughts are almost always hard to articulate, especially ones as personal as who you are and how you'd like people to percieve you. anon, the people that are close to you and that love you know this on some level, i'm sure. they think you're fuckin rad as shit. they don't need an explanation because chances are, they love you for you, not for your label or your name, but because you exist as yourself. and that's one of the hardest things a person can do.
SO TL;DR: do what you feel, my dude. if you wanna use the label agender today, and genderqueer tomorrow, do it! if keeping your hair long and wearing a binder underneath a dress and playing football is what makes you feel like you're on top of the world, go for it! those gender stereotypes don't mean shit! don't let other people's perceptions of imaginary concepts contribute to the way you feel good. you are yourself, and you are absolutely fucking incredible.
anon, go be yourself. no one's better at that than you are.
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