Gender isn't supposed to be therapized, right? Like, I mean, I know people go to therapy to help figure it out, and like, get approval for gender reassignment surgery. But... I just????
I had this friend who told me once, when I was still in the very beginning of figuring things out, that "It made sense [I] was genderfluid because of [my] childhood."
Contextually: the only sibling close to me in age is an older sister who when we played pretend always made me play the boy. On top of this, my dad would always teasingly say "Yes, Sir!" when either of us scolded him. (Getting into my mom's cakes or pies before they were ready, sneaking around into chocolates when he couldn't have them, pretending to hide toys behind his back when we were super small, doing something wrong, making up silly parodies on the fly) I got called sir a lot. I was a child that scolded a lot.
But at the same time, those moments with my dad were irregular. I found myself alone a lot, regularly ignored and forgotten. Lots of siblings, have always had the sister from before and two or three more living with us at a time. When I was very young, we lived in my grandmother's house. And she... did not like me. I don't really know why.
She wanted a girly-girl for a granddaughter, and treated my sister like one. My sister, who preferred being a tomboy, being outside, getting dirty, HATED dresses. I was in every way her opposite. Loved pretty dresses, playing inside with dolls, looking pretty. Ironic that she always wanted me to play the boy then, isn't it? At that point in time, my dad was a trucker, so he was hardly home, and when he was it was clear who his favorite daughter was because she would eagerly do things he wanted to and I would drag my feet or cry on camping trips or car rides or, later, going out to the shooting range. He ended up getting a job after he quit trucking that led to me seeing him for only a few hours a couple days a week; my sister and I would go to school while he was still sleeping, and he'd go to work a couple hours before we got out, and wouldn't get home until we were getting into bed. He had a similar sleep schedule on his days off.
This is to say, he wasn't around home to mediate anything that happened regarding his mother, my grandmother. I was relegated to a second thought, a requirement that didn't need anything to be half as good as my sister's but still done so my dad didn't hear about it. And this... wasn't just from my grandmother. This was from my older brothers, too. The youngest of them 11 years older than me, and none of them willing to play dolls or dress up but encouraging my sister when she wanted to skateboard or play rough.
Disallowed from experiencing those things, I ended up pushing all ideas of femineity away for a long time, up into high school. Avoided dresses, never learned how to do my makeup or hair, wore simple, comfortable things. Told myself it was because it was what I wanted. I wanted to be invisible, I wanted people to ignore me, I wanted to plain, ugly clothes because pretty things were so uncomfortable, because they were more useful, because I was fat already and none of the pretty things were going to fit me anyway so why bother trying to hunt for it? The only remotely feminine thing about me was long hair, but it was always messy because I treated curls like my hair was straight. (spoiler: nothing about me is straight) But I pushed away anything and everything that made me... a girl. I existed in a vat of nothingness.
At least, that's what I was told.
I was told "It made sense [I] was genderfluid because of [my] childhood." without that friend blinking, because of those reasons. She knew all of that, had been there for a good chunk. She went off on a long rant, as well, pointing out all the above points, rehashing my life for me. Therapizing my identity. But that's... not how it works, is it? Gender isn't... a trauma response.
I lived under a religious rock, so I learned about nonbinary people in late high school. And I started questioning. I discovered I like being called "Sir" more than I like being called "Ma'am." I embraced freeing myself of "girl" or "woman" and found joy in skirts and dresses and nail polish and lipstick and fucking pink. But mostly when I think about gender, it's not a clear, immediate answer. It usually comes to the conclusion of "eh" because I don't... know? Or maybe I just don't care. Haven't... figured that part out yet.
I'm done trauma dumping now. Guess that's that for this week's "What the fuck's up with my gender?"
