#then again i dont really talk abt my identity that much (irl or online) but thats more just bc it's not a huge Thing for me

[s0dabeach]

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[sporesgalaxy]

philosophytube coming out as trans made me curious so i scrolled thru some old talkpost tags and apparently I realized I was some variety of nonbinary abt 5 years ago in late 2015 :) I was 16 at the time

I am now going to talk about my gender experiences bc I appreciate seeing others share their gender experiences so much. Hope this can help someone like me feel seen and affirmed the way these things make me feel.

I have memory issues so I couldnt tell you how long I had an inkling I might be before I decided, but I made it look like I googled some stuff, read the definition of bigender, and pretty much immediately changed the pronouns in my bio. I was very gung ho about it because I felt I finally had a word for an experience I'd been silently living my whole life. I dont vibe as much with that label anymore but I absolutely still identify my variety of nonbinary-ness as an equal mixture of masculinity and femininity.

I did a lot of agonizing behind the scenes-- though, memory issues again-- I very well might have publicly complained about it some, I was very stressed and desperate to feel seen and commiserated and accepted at 16. But I definitely agonized MORE than I admitted I did. For many of my teen years after finding out about nonbinary identities, I still felt like being A Girl was somehow inescapable. I had a silent, dark sense of certainty that I would always be percieved as a girl unless I did something drastic to my body, but I also knew I didn't want to do anything drastic to my body, so I was terrified that by process of elimination, that meant I was "stuck" being A Girl. I have always really liked masculine titles (mister, sir), but I would downplay this, downplay my pronoun preferences extending beyond she/her, downplay my desire to look gender nonconforming even when I was in complete control of my appearance via art. I don't look like that, I would tell myself, I look like A Girl, and I have to be honest about that.

I repeatedly made the conscious decision to play into being more feminine, more like A Girl in ways I didn't want to be, because despite knowing about and deeply connecting with Nonbinary experiences, I had this misplaced conviction about being "honest" and "realistic" about how *exclusively* feminine I felt I was doomed to be.

I am doing much better these days. I wear more form-fitting clothes, more shorts, more jewlery than I ever have before in my life. Not all the time, but far more often. And they don't make me feel like A Girl. I don't draw myself like A Girl because I don't want to.

Growing past being a teen makes it better. The physiology of the teen brain just naturally makes everything more excruciating. Continuing to be able to casually discuss being queer w my irl friendgroup makes a world difference, even back when i WAS still a teen. Maybe especially then. It's had a huge impact on me to have ppl who see me irl often for years and years who I can trust won't have a reductive view of my identity based on appearances & my being comfortable with she/her pronouns. Living with ppl I can trust like that rather than family I'm nervous to come out to has given me a lot of confidence as well.

Living long enough to see more queer people out existing in the world, online and irl, has also had a huge impact on my confidence and my comfort with myself and my identity. Living long enough to come to a better understanding of the ways I want to express my gender has been incredible! And I look forward to continuing to figure myself out and becoming an even happier more authentic version of myself in years to come. I love trans people and I love being trans :) anyways have a good one