The fun/weird thing about being a sorta-minorly-transmasc nonbinary person, at least in my experience, is how it relates to attraction.
If I like a girl, because I know I’m perceived as a girl and I have some small attachment to the gender I pretended to be for years, it feels gay. I’m pretty sure that some of the people in my life view me as essentially a bi girl with they/them pronouns. Hell, to the family I’m half-closeted to I seem like a bi girl (which nothing against bi girls but for me it feels wrong because I know I’m not one).
If I like a guy, because I feel a little more along the masc lines, it’s gay. I don’t know exactly why, and that detail alone makes me wonder if I’m a Trans Guy In Denial (TGID).
And of course, being nonbinary, if I like a nonbinary person that’s technically same gender attraction, which is literally gay.
So either way it’s queer and I guess that’s the best way to explain it. None of my love or attraction has ever been straight, it’s always a queer love and I don’t even know if that makes sense out of my head.
It doesn’t help that I’m also sorta genderfluid I think, and I know that my gender vibes are mildly influenced by attraction (including aesthetic alone).
But even with friends it’s this way to a degree.
With girls, I’m aware of how I’m viewed, and how I just don’t relate to their experience of gender. And those experiences leak into conversation in a lot of different ways, but in a group of girls, especially cishet ones, I just feel like an impostor. Because I look like them but I don’t understand their world and their culture.
With guys, still aware of how I’m viewed, because it can affect my safety in a space. Whether out or not, I’ve had guys I thought were friends who were really just trying to get with me. And being careful is a necessity. But I kinda wanna feel like one of the guys, and I think that’s part of why videogaming with my school friend lately has been so fun. I like that I feel affirmed in my gender identity somehow because I’m bonding with a guy friend in a traditionally masculine way. Or maybe the game itself has nothing to do with it but the vibes do. I’m unsure.
With nonbinary people, it’s generally pretty chill. Sometimes our gendervibes are similar and other times it’s not. Sometimes all I know about them are their pronouns but it just helps somehow. To know that someone else gets it I guess.
I don’t talk much about my gender lately. It shows. I don’t hear my name often during the summer, so my club meetings and game sessions affirm me in a way that home life only sometimes does. My mom has my pronoun-shuffle down in a way that seems natural, but she alternates names too. It’s fine, but it feels like two different identities and I’ve wondered for a few years now if my name discomfort might be trauma related.
In any event, I fuck up my own pronouns lately and stuff. It’s weird because it feels wrong every time but it still happens. I struggle with which name to use and it’s uncomfortable. Kinda dysphoric lately but in a quiet way. Little bits of discomfort that I don’t realize until I reflect on the day.
Earlier today, a friend misgendered me and I caught it the first time. He caught and corrected it the second time. I said it was alright because it is, long-term, but every time I remember it, inevitably part of me wants to laugh while the other part just feels uncomfortable.
The friend meant no harm. I’m just having these issues lately.