February 2023 Social

[virgosplaining]

It's finally here! Let's hang out, chat, and be merry all through this weekend. :) You're welcome to use this as an introduction & friending post!

Something I personally think about a lot is the "I always knew I was trans" vs "I had a sudden realization at some point later in life" experiences of gender journeying. Some of us already covered that in the last round, but it's simply a suggested topic to share & chat about. ♥

Comments

[virgosplaining]

Of course, there is no one way to be trans or to come about self-knowledge of it. For myself, I always say it was a mixture of the two experiences -- I always knew I was different, and there's... several reasons for that (undiagnosed ADHD+autism, yay), but I never felt a connection to either of the two gender options I was presented as a child. I was uncomfortable being seen as a girl/young woman, so I would aggressively dress tomboyish and even experienced what I now realize was gender euphoria when someone would ask if I was a boy or a girl. I was obsessed with planning cosplays that involved cross-dressing (re: Edward Elric, L, Link, etc) and to this day remember an episode of Star Trek TNG that stayed in my head "for some reason" despite only watching it once when I was very young.

These are just some things that come to mind when I think of my early Gender Feelings. I really didn't know for sure that's what they were. I grew up in a very sheltered, conservative home -- I had some notion of queerness, but not that it could apply to me. I very much externalized those feelings because of the household I was in. So it wasn't until I had total and complete freedom the first time I lived on my own (a few months before I turned 17) that I began to have the space for my thoughts and feelings to breathe and realize those things about myself. A huge catalyst was when I was 20 and, for the first time ever, saw the word "genderqueer". It was on a facebook "answer these questions about yourself" type meme. I didn't even have to google it (though I did); I was electrified as I thought, "that's it, it's me. that's what I am. there's a word for it."

From there, I have just been on all kinds of journeys accepting things about myself. As far as transition goes, my ultimate dream would be top surgery (or a massive reduction, I go back and forth on this). Unfortunately, I don't have the time or funds for that now. Sometimes I get frustrated because what I would truly want to look and be perceived like... isn't something that really exists. But I've decided "hot muscle dyke" is a close enough second. Just... gotta work on the muscle part. ;)

[senmut]

I... see myself, some, in this. Though my aggressive TomBoy phase (that never ended) was so much a part of my identity that I didn't get to question gender until my early 30s. Spent a lot of damn time wishing I'd been born a boy, though.

[virgosplaining]

Ah yeah, I get that. Sometimes when I would talk about gender things, I would have some of my friends be like "...are you sure you're not a boy?" -- but I really never had that desire or wish. I just didn't want to be Perceived As A Girl. The twisty paths we take...

[rielism]

Reading these comments from both of you has me ticking a lot of boxes in my head. I can definitely relate to the overarching theme of being aware of the presence of some kind of feeling of “otherness”- but not having the knowledge or vocabulary to have a proper grasp on it- for both undiagnosed neurodiversity AND unidentified Gender/Queerness Feels. Also, absolutely with you on wanting to be born a boy but never really regarding it as something exceptional (like hold on, that’s not typical of every afab person? whaaa?) because of the option of Tomboyishness and the extent to which young girls’ gender expression can be mutable while still not ringing any alarm bells. It’s sort of funny to be able to look back on it all and be able to tell exactly what was going on.

[virgosplaining]

My mother also grew up pretty tomboy-ish and to this day is not super effeminate, so it was never weird for me to be that way too, lol. Something I'm pretty grateful of, tbh

Checking in

[ng_moonmoth]

On the "always knew" vs. "came to me later" axis, the best way to put it is that I have been able to look back on my experiences growing up and my poor fit for my cisnormative gender and say, "yeah, seems I was always that way, but hiding the stuff that didn't fit left me with enough stuff that did fit to get by." And, now that I've given myself permission to be myself, I'm much the better for it.

I'm out as myself in the various fiber arts communities I am active in. Saturday afternoon is my weekly get-together with a local group of knitting friends. Getting out of the house is a great excuse to put on something nice -- which puts me somewhat askew from those in the group who are working, and relish the opportunity to go more casual -- but it's fun for me that way. And in two weekends, there will be a weekend fiber arts show with lots of designers, vendors, and teachers to keep us attendees amused. I will be going for all four days, taking a class each morning, and bringing along outfits to show off things I've made. All under my out name, which it looks like I can actually put on my badge this year. Should be a blast.

Re: Checking in

[rielism]

That’s so lovely that you have that space that you can openly be yourself in!! I hope you have a great time at the show :)

Re: Checking in

[ng_moonmoth]

Closer to how I feel than "you have that space that you can openly be yourself in" is "a space I enjoy being in is a place where I can openly be myself." As in, I'm not in a queer fiber arts community, but that I observed that the fiber arts community as a whole appeared to be queer-friendly, and took that as an invitation to have it be a space where I could be myself. That is indeed lovely. Things continue to go very well.

As far as having a great time at the show, I am hoping that my greater comfort and self-assurance at being Out In Public will improve my interactions with other attendees beyond how it was last year, when I was much more tentative; and I am racing the show with a pair of socks I'm hoping to finish in time to wear them there.

Re: Checking in

[virgosplaining]

That's awesome about your fiber community! That sounds both fun and affirming, and I hope the show goes well for you ♥

I'm working on being more out in more places. I was selected to be on a DEI&B committee at one of my jobs and introduced myself with my real pronouns. The little steps just get us right along :)

Re: Checking in

[ng_moonmoth]

I always enjoy hearing that other people have ways out that are not binary either "completely closeted" or "out everywhere, all; the time". Sounds like your path, as mine, shows up as being out in different degrees in different places -- and improving the scope and degree as circumstances permit. Those "little steps" that "get you right along" are worth celebrating, not only as they reduce the amount of time I spend hiding myself, but also as they move me closer to mostly not having to hide myself at all. Cishet drag can still be useful when I don't feel up to being myself in a challenging environment.

I cringe just a bit when I see things like "real pronouns", similar to how I feel when I see "identify as". Your pronouns are your pronouns; of course they are real. And that shouldn't need the "real" part. Someone not using your pronouns is misgendering you just as much as if they wrongly categorized you as "man" or "woman". And saying they can't change is on them, not on you. It shouldn't be any harder than tracking things when a woman changes her last name to that of her spouse, and most people seem to manage reasonably well there. (Some of spouse's and my family use the same surname for both of us, despite our having been very clear about our feelings that we had no intention of following that antiquated custom. But that's such an ingrained assumption for so many people, and we aren't interested in picking a fight over it.)

Re: Checking in

[virgosplaining]

Yes, it's honestly something I wish more people understood. Where I live, it can sometimes be a matter of safety, if not simple comfort. Of course, with the way things have been proceeding in this country, I find myself wanting more and more to be not only visibly queer (something I've apparently already achieved), but visibly not-cis as well. I find cishet drag most useful when getting through family events or similar things, but I'm far more invested in having moments of connection with other queer folk in my day to day. Just little moments of solidarity, for both of us to know we aren't alone.

True, perhaps that was phrased badly. It just felt freeing to introduce myself using they/them pronouns and not having to pretend :) It really is contrarian bs -- one of my best friend's mom apparently uses a convoluted mind trick to remember to use the right pronouns for me, but that's the thing: she made the effort, and she uses the correct pronouns for me. And just in general, people use 'they/them/theirs' in the singular constantly, they just excuse it as ~too weird~ grammatically when it's someone's personal pronoun when really that's exactly what they're saying: they just don't want to change and/or they are being dishonest with everyone and themselves about their own transphobia.

new game

[virgosplaining]

My answer? Divided by zero. What's yours?

Re: new game

[fleetsparrow]

OOH! Um, because the universe is ever expanding and ever shrinking in on itself at once and we are but motes of space dust, cosmically speaking!

New Gender Just Dropped

[fleetsparrow]

Kind of like a Beyoncé album dropping out of nowhere, that's kind of how my trans realization was. Like, oh, look at that. That would explain a few things. Huh.

Hindsight really is 20/20, isn't it? Because I can go back through the things I loved as a kid and be like, "Ah, yes, I see it all now" when really, I could never have told anyone why I preferred being a Beatle to being a Beatle's Girlfriend (please don't ask about my juvenile "LARPing before I knew the word for it", it's too embarrassing) back then.

It also explains why me + titties have always been mortal enemies from, like, day one. But I digress.

Probably the one thing that solidified that this was A Thing I Could Do was meeting my newly-transitioned cousin when I was 13 and being instantly both cool with her and also amazed like, "You can DO that???"

Alternatively, I could title the look back on my youth as a series of failures: failure to understand neurotypical thought-patterns, failure to understand gender roles, failure to conform to gender roles, failure to find sex appealing, etc. But then, that seems like a bleak and negative way of looking at difference, too invested in the status quo's ideal of how people should be (alternatively alternatively, I could see every past failure as me having overcome these problems, but that gets into thornier issues than these).

All of these ramblings are just to say, hoo boy, gender feelings are complicated, and I still am like *shrug emoji* when asked what my gender is.

Anyway, I'm Fleet and I'm still coming around to the "agender" label (which, being asexual, you'd think I'd love, but I'm still feeling "genderless" as a better option for me *insert The More You Know rainbow here*).

This is probably why I'm so fond of queer, because both its definitions fit me, lololol.

Re: New Gender Just Dropped

[virgosplaining]

This is probably why I'm so fond of queer, because both its definitions fit me, lololol.

God, huge same. I also feel the same about genderless vs agender, and I also like genderqueer a smidge more than non-binary. I just feel blessed that we have and continue to create all this beautiful language for ourselves ♥