2 was my first thought too, but maybe its better that I didnt had my egg cracking while I was still living with my parents (the funny thing is, that I still had my egg cracking while staying at my parents place between semesters) and going to school.
My egg cracked at 11, but enbys were almost entirely unknown in Texas back then so I masked so hard that I was basically living in denial. My 18yo self wouldn’t need gender validation, it’ll find kindred spirits for that in college, but “Colorado, not California” might push up my transition date by a decade, 'cuz my first attempt to escape Texas didn’t go well.
The big revelation i had in recent years is that although i may not know what i am, i know what I’m not.
I wasted decades living like a fish who was tricked into thinking its life’s purpose was to climb trees.
I could have spared myself a great deal of inconvenience and confusion if i had realized sooner that I’m asexual and genderless because divesting of those labels has drastically reduced the discomfort of my existence in that i no longer feel bizarre self-inflicted pressure to fulfill archetypical roles toward which i never related and which I never understood in the first place.
A lot of social issues i had came from externalization of internal dysphoria. The deep, overwhelming disgust and discomfort I felt when merely even conceptualizing masculinity that purports to be ‘mine’, let alone any actual participation in such an identity. Being in “boy” spaces, being present for “boy” events, every stereotype and statistically emergent pattern associated with maleness, all of it–ALL OF IT–made my skin crawl.
The utter revulsion that overwhelmed me regarding masculinity spilled over into how I treated others, and that absolutely sucked. It’s not their fault they had an intrinsic understanding of themselves that felt intuitive and made sense to them…
…
And also even though I don’t particularly feel interested in pretending to be a girl either i know i definitely would be more comfortable in a more androgynous body. I even want bottom surgery, not for anyone else’s sake but because it feels less wrong conceptually.
(Not holding my breath though)
I just sometimes think back to the 90s and wonder if i could’ve had more room in my head for more useful considerations if I hadn’t been preoccupied with an intrinsic inability to embody societal expectations and roles that, it turns out, had nothing to do with me. If i didn’t waste so much effort trying to care about something that i hated and turned out to not matter at all, goodness, i could’ve known myself so much better, been at least somewhat more comfortable in my own head if not in my own skin.
If future me had conveyed the message convincingly in just those three words that no good would come from struggling to participate with that miserable dead-end charade… maybe i could have better focused on things that did matter.
Your sex is not an identity (inherently, at least- people can make it part of their identity).
There’s different contexts for the word (chromosomal, phenotypical, etc), but generally speaking the average of all of them is what you are described as in a biological sense, gender aside.
I’m still running into new identities, expressions, and interpretations, but so far everything I’m aware of holds at least that much in common.
first choice:
PURSUE NUCLEAR ENGINEERING
runner up:
YOU AIN’T MALE
third place:
ATTENTION DEFICIT: REAL
With you on 1 and 3, not so much 2…
When I was 18 ADHD was something kids had and you outgrew it. I probably couldn’t have been evaluated then. So nuclear engineering it is.
2 was my first thought too, but maybe its better that I didnt had my egg cracking while I was still living with my parents (the funny thing is, that I still had my egg cracking while staying at my parents place between semesters) and going to school.
My egg cracked at 11, but enbys were almost entirely unknown in Texas back then so I masked so hard that I was basically living in denial. My 18yo self wouldn’t need gender validation, it’ll find kindred spirits for that in college, but “Colorado, not California” might push up my transition date by a decade, 'cuz my first attempt to escape Texas didn’t go well.
Maybe you could say “you’re a woman”, but you’re still male, unless you’ve had major work done.
Oh I’m not a girl either.
I’m an it: a THING. :3
The big revelation i had in recent years is that although i may not know what i am, i know what I’m not.
I wasted decades living like a fish who was tricked into thinking its life’s purpose was to climb trees.
I could have spared myself a great deal of inconvenience and confusion if i had realized sooner that I’m asexual and genderless because divesting of those labels has drastically reduced the discomfort of my existence in that i no longer feel bizarre self-inflicted pressure to fulfill archetypical roles toward which i never related and which I never understood in the first place.
A lot of social issues i had came from externalization of internal dysphoria. The deep, overwhelming disgust and discomfort I felt when merely even conceptualizing masculinity that purports to be ‘mine’, let alone any actual participation in such an identity. Being in “boy” spaces, being present for “boy” events, every stereotype and statistically emergent pattern associated with maleness, all of it–ALL OF IT–made my skin crawl.
The utter revulsion that overwhelmed me regarding masculinity spilled over into how I treated others, and that absolutely sucked. It’s not their fault they had an intrinsic understanding of themselves that felt intuitive and made sense to them…
…
And also even though I don’t particularly feel interested in pretending to be a girl either i know i definitely would be more comfortable in a more androgynous body. I even want bottom surgery, not for anyone else’s sake but because it feels less wrong conceptually.
(Not holding my breath though)
I just sometimes think back to the 90s and wonder if i could’ve had more room in my head for more useful considerations if I hadn’t been preoccupied with an intrinsic inability to embody societal expectations and roles that, it turns out, had nothing to do with me. If i didn’t waste so much effort trying to care about something that i hated and turned out to not matter at all, goodness, i could’ve known myself so much better, been at least somewhat more comfortable in my own head if not in my own skin.
If future me had conveyed the message convincingly in just those three words that no good would come from struggling to participate with that miserable dead-end charade… maybe i could have better focused on things that did matter.
Your sex is not an identity (inherently, at least- people can make it part of their identity).
There’s different contexts for the word (chromosomal, phenotypical, etc), but generally speaking the average of all of them is what you are described as in a biological sense, gender aside.
I’m still running into new identities, expressions, and interpretations, but so far everything I’m aware of holds at least that much in common.
Am I missing something? Genuine question.