Throughout my life I have always been confused about gender. I recall thinking as a child (maybe 10) being confused why girls wore skirts, and boys couldnt. At the time, I thought it must be because its physically impossible for boys to do so.
One thing I have realised recently, I never bothered to try to be masculine. But at the same time I, never tried to act feminine. I suppose at the time I didnt think it was a survivable thing to do, in the sense of not being bullied (in high school i made sure i was a invisible as possible, which succeeded). I think I was 17 when I realised that being feminine was an option for me. There was a guy in my highschool that became a “femboy” and it clicked to me thats a thing you can just do. But it would only be until 19 i started to actually try.
My life before that moment I was without gender really. I didnt perform masculunity all that much (other then the stoic not crying or sharing emotions), partly because I just couldnt and didnt know how.
Then at 19 I started playing around with feminity and that was great. I vibed with it hard. Then a whole damn 5 years later (idk y i took so long) realised I need to transition before I killed myself as my dysphoria compounded and compounded. I could no longer ignore the disgust at photos if myself, and the discomfort. There was a photo of me in a skirt and i could think of thats a man, thats me, and I dont like that I am man in a skirt. I literally cant look at it.
Now that I am transitioning it honestly feels… odd to have a gender. Like I care about being seen as a women, whereas before I could not care less if someone didnt see me as a man. It didnt mean anything to me.
I actually had this conversation with my mum, and she commented how she never had a care for gender. She tends to think (and i agree) you can just do whatever who cares. Interestingly she said she related to the idea of being “non binary”.
Oh also good news i got a hair straightner and I actually liked my hair so much i cried so thats cool.
Ok ramble over
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I remember growing up Mormon. For those who don’t know, the cult invests a MASSIVE amount of time and effort into indoctrinating girls into tradwife bullshit. The youth program is unisex until you turn 8, after which boys and girls are split into the Cub Scouts and “Achievement Days”. When you turn 12, you graduate into Young Men’s/ Boy Scouts or Young Women’s.
I remember the deep, existential rage I felt at being pushed into baking cookies, learning how to change diapers, learning how to dress modestly, and sitting through hours and hours of church lessons on pretty much nothing but the values of femininity. I hated it.
Don’t get me wrong, the women in charge of our group are still women I look up to. I still like them and respect them. They were always kind to the weird ‘girl’ who kept trying to find ways to bend the rules so ‘she’ could go sneak off and go camping with the boys. They offered alternative activities sometimes just so I’d have a reason to keep coming to the weekly meetings, and that effort to make me feel welcome was something that caught them some flak.
But deep down, every cell of my body was telling me that this was wrong. It was degrading, it was infantilizing, it was grooming on a cultural scale. And the moms who ran the young women’s group were drilling down on the same bullshit they had been indoctrinated into, straight from the lesson manuals written by old men who wanted to make sure we never questioned that our place was in the kitchen. Sure we had our secret girl talk, almost a subculture, of ways we quietly bent the rules to feel like real people. But I wanted to be me.
It didn’t even cross my mind that I could be trans, or even non-binary, until I was almost 25.
yeah this is pretty relatable. at some intellectual level i was vaguely aware of the concept of gender (mainly that i didn’t understand what the point of all these arbitrary rules were), and there were definitely aspects of femininity i was envious of (leggings my beloved) but i nonetheless internalized the fact that people would be upset if i tried to do anything differently than what i’d been taught guys were supposed to. the fact that i could just be more feminine simply never crossed my mind as a possible option for years.
tangential rambling about egg crack
my eyes were opened by some meme posted on [email protected] which mentioned the word “femboy”, and i think it took me about 10 minutes to go from searching “femboy”, finding some subreddit where i saw the acronym HRT mentioned, searching “what is hrt” and finally “how to get estrogen switzerland” lmao
to be totally honest i still have no idea what, if anything, a “gender” is supposed to be. but having now spent like a year and a half experimenting with varying degrees of feminine presentation (and having been on E for just over a year) i definitely feel like i care about not being seen as a guy (despite not being remotely sure what i mean by “guy”). beyond that i don’t really care though, i just know i’m quite a lot happier being whatever the fuck this is :) *gestures broadly at self*
Yeah I am still somewhat confused what gender is for me. I just know i vibe with feminity so much more
I feel kinda same. I’m still questioning but I’ve begun to realize that being a man is not something I really every leaned into in my life, it was just like. A label applied and I did nothing to support or deny it. It was a thing just vaguely attached to myself. Dressing myself was always practical first with no care to color or coordination (jeans, belt, and long sleeve cotton shirts is about the only thing I’ve ever worn for my entire life, farm work necessitates it) and I have like, 3 dress shirts and a single pair of black slacks total for “fancy” events.
But I went and bought a skirt and some thigh highs on a whim last month from Amazon and upon putting them on, almost immediately I find myself thinking about color coordination, accessories, ways to combine different things that accentuate my hips, and WHOOF. Suddenly I am left wondering if my not caring about gender appearance was just bottling my feelings lol.
The first amazon skirt is life changing
reall
Very relatable. The story sounds like my life, but with only have the time if being ignorant egg_irl-y
