#Or was that person wrong and I should just say girlflux to not be called trans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justmelookingbackatme · 2 years

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I have spent my life trying, and largely failing, to fit in with a gender. Any gender. Any group of people around me, I have tried to be one of them, one of their gender. And I've failed.

When I was very young, I didn't fit in with boys because they were boys. And I was a girl. I didn't understand what that meant, not really, but I knew it was supposed to be very important. So I was fine with that. I didn't need to be one of the boys! I could make friends with all the girls!

I could not make friends with all the girls.

I tried to pretend I was no different from them, but that didn't go so well. It wasn't even because I was too masculine. I was just too weird. I didn't know when I should talk and when I should be quiet, I depended on rules and structure far too much for any classmate to tolerate me, my interests were stupid, I didn't know social rules that everyone else had apparently been taught.

So, the girls of my childhood never really considered me to be one of them, but that wasn't for my lack of trying. I tried so damn hard. They liked dresses, so I liked dresses. Dressing like them was the closest I could come to being like them. I would lie and say I understood what everyone else was talking about, even when I didn't. My sort-of-friends, those who didn't mind me quite so much, would suggest raiding our mothers' makeup and trying it on, and I would go with it.

And then I stopped trying, because I found a new gender expression where I fit. The Girls Who Weren't Feminine. The other weirdos, the undiagnosed neurodivergent kids, the girls who liked sports too much to be "girly." I was one of them. I was just like them. I belonged.

Sort of. Except for the part where my interests were made fun of, or they threatened to stop being my friend because I said the wrong thing, or I spent my recess running back and forth to resolve a petty argument my friends were having.

It was the best option I had.

And then we hit middle school, and The Girls Who Weren't Feminine grew out of their "not like other girls" phase. They liked social media. (I didn't have a phone.) They liked makeup. (The one time I wore it for real, not painted sloppily by a seven year old, I was told I looked like a completely different person. I did look like a completely different person. I didn't like that.) They liked boys. (I was slowly, slowly realizing that I did not like boys.)

It wasn't just my friend group that I felt I no longer belonged in. I felt that way around all my female peers. They wanted bigger boobs and I wished mine would disappear. They wanted their body to look like an hourglass, and I felt sick every time I saw my own curves. They were eagerly awaiting when they might get their period, and mine was my own personal hell.

And locker rooms. Girls' fucking locker rooms. I felt like an outsider to womanhood more than I ever had before when changing for PE. I could never shake the thought that I was an intruder, that I was invading their space. And if the girls there knew what I knew, that I was attracted to girls, they would see me as a creep.

No, I didn't fit in with girls very well when I was in middle school.

When my best friend came out as nonbinary, it slowly led to my realization that I might not be cis either. As I dipped my toe into the waters of gender experimentation, I tried to categorize myself as nonbinary.

I didn't consider that I might be a boy. I thought I had to have always known. I thought I couldn't be a boy if I sometimes, sort of, wanted to stay a girl too.

So I tried to be feminine-aligned nonbinary, demigirl, girlflux, and none of them worked. I knew I couldn't be a cis girl, that my gender couldn't be confined to that, but nonbinary was an incredibly uncomfortable identity for me. I hated they/them pronouns. I hated calling myself a term like "enby." I hated placing myself outside of male and female entirely, or proclaiming myself genderless.

I still tried, because I knew I wasn't a girl, and I didn't think I was a boy, so I must be nonbinary. Even if I didn't use the term. I tried genderqueer, a term so vague it was easy to fit, but I didn't understand myself and no one else understood me. I wasn't like my other nonbinary friends; I didn't change my name to something neutral, I didn't use they/them, I didn't bind, I didn't dye my hair or "dress nonbinary," whatever that meant.

They were the closest thing I had to a home, but that wasn't very close.

Even as I've explored a masculine gender, I've never felt like I fit in with men. Even trans men. I don't think they see me as one of them; how can I be a man if I use he and she pronouns? They think I am less of a man than them, if they think of me as a man at all.

I enter a men's bathroom, and I think; I've gotten lucky so far, but is this going to be the time my luck runs out and I get clocked? I enter a woman's bathroom, and I think; Can they tell I'm not a woman like them? Am I going to get yelled at for invading their space? I walk the halls to the single unisex bathroom, and I think; Only the weirdos have to walk the length of the entire school just to use the bathroom in relative safety. There's nowhere for me to feel normal.

Feeling normal has started mattering less, as I've found people who don't need me to be like them in order for them to like me. I don't understand my friends who are girls, as they discuss femininity like it's a foreign language, but I'm grateful to have them. I may not relate to all of their experiences, but I'm happy to talk to my friends who are boys. My nonbinary friends and I have very different genders, but we'll support one another.

It's not the worst thing in the world, to never completely fit in with a group of people. But I do sometimes wish I could find a gender to call my home.

#11 pm gender thoughts word vomit

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e-the-village-cryptid · 3 years

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if you could help me... because we might be similar idk... what does it mean to be more or less "girl-ish" ?? that is how I want to call myself, but then when I think on it i feel too much like I'm putting expectations on what "girl" even means, like between stereotypes and just the average girl, which shouldn't define it. But then when I get rid of those, unless I make it about body or enough estrogen or something, I've got nothing. It means nothing. So????? how can i figure out what it means

Hey anon, thanks for asking! First of all, I want to say that there is no wrong way to gender. What I mean by that is that there are no criteria for you to call yourself a girl, or a demigirl, or girlflux, or genderqueer, or agender, or non-binary, or whatever label you want to use. You don’t have the check any boxes, you don’t have to worry about why you want that label, the only thing that matters is that that label feels comfortable for you. You don’t even have to have a label if you don’t want one.

I had a super similar experience with being worried that the reason I didn’t quite feel fully female was just because I didn’t fit the stereotype of what the “average girl” should be. I thought that I only didn’t feel female because the world had narrowed my view of what femininity should be. I had enough guilt and doubt about it that I tried to ignore it for two and a half years and just recently started letting myself look more closely at my gender again. Ultimately, I realized what I said in the first paragraph— I don’t have to justify to myself why I feel a certain way or want a certain label, all that matters is that it feels comfortable to me.

Here’s a bit about my experience, as an example, but keep in mind that experiences with gender are very individual and this is by no means a good representation of every “girl-ish” person out there:

I feel more comfortable when I’m presenting somewhat androgynously. I like sweatpants and t-shirts for casual wear, and would prefer dress pants and a polo or button-down shirt for fancy clothes. I really don’t like dresses. Long skirts are.. ok, but I don’t prefer them. I have some dysphoria about my chest and greatly prefer clothes that make it look flat.

I’m perfectly fine with the terms “sister,” “daughter,” “girlfriend,” etc. being used for me. (I’m also ok with their gender-neutral counterparts.) I like my birth name even though it is feminine. I am cool with both she/her and they/them pronouns. (I recommend the pronoun dressing room to see what name and pronouns feel comfortable for you!)

For me, my experience with gender is a very personal thing. I haven’t come out in real life and I don’t feel like I need to. Most of the things I do to affirm my gender are things that I don’t need help from anyone else to do— my clothes, how I cut/dye my hair, and hopefully getting a binder soon. I don’t care enough about people using she/they for me to constantly bug people in real life to use my they/them pronouns, too, so I don’t. Some people do care a lot, and that’s ok too! That’s their personal experience and they deserve to have their pronouns respected.

For me, I identify as somewhere between female and agender (no gender at all). Other “girl-ish” people may identify as somewhere between female and male, as sort-of female and sort-of non-binary, or really anywhere on the gender spectrum that includes some girl-ness. There’s no wrong way to be “girl-ish.”

Remember: It is not your responsibility to get rid of stereotypes or change how the world sees what it means to be a girl. You are not harming anyone by being not quite a girl. It is not your responsibility to clearly define the boundaries of what it means to be a girl or not a girl. (I doubt even professional gender scholars could do that!) All that matters is that the way you identify feels comfortable to you. You don’t even have to label it if you don’t want to, but if you do, there are some possible labels up in the first paragraph that you can google or ask me more about.

PS: Your presentation, your pronouns, and your gender identity don’t all have to match! Your gender and how you present it is for you, not anyone else, and all that matters is that you feel good about it.

#ask tag #lgbtq #lgbtq+#lgbtqa #lgbtqia #lgbtqia+#lgbtqa+#an e original

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