Sometimes the littlest things that happen when you're young can have massive impact on you when you're older.
So I've been thinking a lot lately. About my childhood, mostly, trying to figure out why it is that I am the way I am.
I'm nonbianary. While I've never really felt like much of a girl, it took me until this last year to fully realize it. And even now, I'm hesitant to tell people. On here, I have no issue being who I am and proud of it. But irl, very few people know. My wife knows, obviously, and a few of our friends know too, and all of them use my preferred name, Sage, instead of my birth name. A couple other people met me after I'd come out to my wife and friends, and they know me as Sage, but not that I'm nonbianary. And no one really ever uses the right pronouns, and I'm always too afraid of upsetting everyone to correct them. I mean, my wife tries when she remembers. One of the friends I told is just bad at remembering, it was honestly a bit of a struggle to get her used to the correct name. And the other two I remember telling don't see us as much to get used to it, on top of never hearing the right ones.
No one in my family, or my wife's, knows. Her grandpa, who we live with, is older and we know wouldn't really understand it, so I never really intended to tell him. He's out on the road a lot so it's not a big deal anyway, plus as everyone's gotten used to calling me Sage, when he's home everyone seems to use that and Meg interchangeably, so he's sorta picked up on that and will call me that sometimes. My mom and my grandparents and all the rest of them still know me entirely as Meg though. And I want to tell them, I really do. They're my family, they raised me, they're honestly a tolerant bunch, especially considering the area we live in. But the idea causes me anxiety.
Just like the idea of telling anyone at all did.
Just like deciding on a new name did.
Just like the idea of telling anyone that doesn't already know.
Just like how as much as I'd like to throw a stuffed animal and pout at anyone referring to me as she or girl, instead I sit back quietly because I'm afraid of stirring up trouble or causing any upset.
But, why am I like this? My mom was my best friend, I used to tell her everything, surely I should at least be able to tell her? And if any of my siblings ever have gender identity issues, I'm sure having a sibling that understands would help them immensely. I've had these thoughts running through my head for ages, but only now am I really acknowledging them.
For as long as I can remember, I saw most things as either boy things or girl things, with very few things that both were allowed to like (silly bands being one of the few "both" things.) I thought that girls weren't allowed to like boy things, and same for boys with girl things. I thought it was an actual rule, too. I don't know how or why exactly this got started, but I'll bet it had something to do with always being taken to the girls section for toys and clothes, to the point I didn't think I could go into the others.
I repressed a lot of my likes and interests. Sure I liked Barbies and playing with them and a lot of most of my other "girl" toys, but I would've loved playing with toy cars, not that I'd have admitted it then. I liked climbing trees and getting dirty, and yes I thought those were boys activities. I wanted to play sports. I did wind up playing basketball in third grade when I found out there was a girls basketball club, and around fifth grade I did climb trees and stopped worrying so much about getting dirty after I saw girls my age playing like that. By then I'd started realizing it wasn't so clear cut.
I said I hated superheroes, despite my favorite show being Kim Possible, a superhero/spy type. And, once I discovered it, I loved Teen Titans, and my excuse for why was because there were two female heroes as part of the main characters. I adamantly denied liking any other superheroes until I was thirteen and saw Danny Phantom and Iron Man Armored Adventures. After that I finally gave up the pretenses of hating superheroes, at least to myself, and to others a few years later.
In forth grade, I found a show, Bakugon I think is what it was called, probably spelled entirely wrong, that I wound up loving and watched before school. When it stopped airing at that time though, I didn't look to find out when it did, because I was afraid of my own mother judging me for liking boyish things, even though I knew she had said stuff before about parents judging their kids for liking stuff commonly associated with the other gender being wrong and stupid. To this day, this is the first I've told anyone about this, aside from maybe mentioning it once to my wife, if that.
Over the years, I've collected a fairly big wardrobe, a few things I've gotten myself or my mom got me, most of it coming from my grandma though. And it's all highly feminine, because while I did and do like that it was expected for that to be all I liked. Some days the thought of wearing my hyper feminine wardrobe was so off putting I'd stay in my pajamas all day, because at least that didn't involve effort. Other days, I'd find some skinny jeans and hope I still had a fairly plain t-shirt to wear, because that was a pretty neutral look. Or I'd stay in my work clothes. Or I'd be feeling like looking feminine and make full use of what I did have.
The thought that I wasn't really a girl was always there. For as long as I can remember, at the back of my mind was the nagging feeling that, while I liked enough feminine things and I certainly wasn't a boy, I didn't really feel like a girl. I would cringe when people would say I was such a cute girl, such a beautiful young woman, I'd grown into such a wonderful lady. Because that's the sort of thing I'd hear from people, any compliment for some reason needing to bring up my gender, as though that was important. Why couldn't I just be called cute, say I've gotten so big or mature, a beautiful young adult? And, furthermore, why was it always pretty and beautiful used for girls and women, but handsome was reserved for the boys? Maybe sometimes I want to be called handsome, or at least feel like it's a possibility to be called that. I always preferred being referred to as a kid, my mom's child, one of the grandbabies, instead of daughter or anything like that. Niece never bothered me so much, mostly because I don't really know much of an alternative,(similarly, I'll probably be called Aunt by my siblings' children) and I could go either way with sister vs sibling, because sister sounds a touch more personal but sibling is neutral like I'd prefer, and not that impersonal sounding. And I'm sure I'll be Mommy or Mama or even just Mom to my kids because calling a parent parent sounds fucking weird, though I might go with Ma because it's not as commonly used anymore and that's among the first sounds a kid makes anyway, or make something up or maybe people will have a gender neutral set of parent tiles like Mom and Dad and the variations of those by then, I mean I can hope right. Wow this got off track but my point is I've never felt like girl was the right thing for me to be called, for as long as I can remember it's felt wrong, but up until just a few years ago I didn't know that neither boy nor girl was even an option, and until earlier this year for those thoughts to really edge their way to the front of my mind to make me confront them.
And I'm happy I've found an identity that fits me, I really am. But I'm so terrified that everyone that doesn't know would judge me if I told them because I'm supposed to be a girl, I've always been a girl, and basically those childhood thoughts my family accidentally brought forth by always taking me to the girl sections and buying me girly things and never even walking me through the boys sections until my first brother was born, when I was 10 and already deep in the mindset, those thoughts and fears just won't leave. And I can't help thinking that maybe the reason why the people who do know rarely use the right pronouns because they don't believe me, they think I'm lying or something because I still show feminine interests, I wear mostly feminine clothes because I can't afford to get rid of most of my wardrobe and buy new stuff that's more neutral and balanced like I'd like it to be, and my fear of that along with the days when I don't look feminine kicking in has lead to me wearing my wife's sweatpants and shirts a lot. And it certainly doesn't help that large boobs run in my family, and I can't even afford or know where to look for a binder to keep them down, so I rely on too small sports bras and baggy jackets and hoodies when I'm not in the mood for them. I mean I don't want them gone entirely, for when I'm wanting to look feminine, but I'd like them a lot smaller so they for one don't hurt my back, and for two they'd be easier to hide with a slightly loose fitting shirt and a sports bra that actually fit or something for when I don't want to.
Wow this got really long but like. There it is. This has been on my mind for days now.
