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