I want to share my experience with gender, as someone who is a girl, a boy and a non binary person, both because it may help some other multigender person out there and because I want people who feel differently from me to be able to hear about my experience. So that maybe, the community can get a little more inclusive towards us.
For starters, Im perisex. Im not transfemmasc because of experiences like being seen and raised as different genders. With that disclaimer here, since there are many different experiences that someone could label with what others consider to be 'contradictory' labels and knowing that Im only talking about my personal experience, we can go on.
So, hi! Im Soul, Im an enby boygirl. Why? I couldnt tell you, as much as no one can really say 'why' they're a certain gender, but Ill explain to the best of my ability why I label myself that way.
There's nothing that being a boy, a girl, an enby stops me or allows me to do. It's fundementally the way others see me that makes me use these labels. I feel uncomfortable with being perceived and seen as solely a boy or solely a girl. It just feels off, and Ive described it before as feeling "cut in half", like people are only perceiving a part of me and discarding all the rest. It doesn't bring me joy to be seen as a monogender binary person, it feels kind of "wrong" as in inaccurate, on some level.
I dont feel included or seen when Im treated as a just a boy nor when Im treated as just a girl. It's something I cant help, even if I stopped labeling myself this way, the feeling would persist.
Non binary describes how with the feeling of being a boy and a girl, there's an additional side of neutrality or 'other'. Yes, I am both a girl and a boy, but these two binary genders by themselves can't accurately describe how I feel. Im both, but in a way that's also tied intrinsically with being outside of this binary, and to be treated as solely binary would also bring me as much discomfort. Non binary is part of my identity.
I dont want to "pass" as any gender. I spent my whole life being seen in half; what I want is to be seen fully, as whole, and there is no way for what others consider to be the norm to account for who I am. I cannot be seen as myself if Im not seen as trans, if I dont loudly declare myself as trans. I dont want to be seen as a boy if I'm not also seen as a girl and an enby. I dont want to be seen as a girl if Im not also seen as a boy and an enby. I dont want to be seen as an enby, if Im not also seen as a boy and a girl. So to me, my gender is inherently trans, in all its facets. Im not a "cis boy and trans girl" or "cis girl and trans boy". You cant untie my genders from each other, they're one thing, they're my gender.
I want to be loudly trans because otherwise Ill stay hidden in whatever perception others have of me, and Im tired of that, I want to be seen. I want to say, hey! You keep forgetting I exist, but Im still here! Sometimes I see people complain about how anyone could want to be trans because they just wish they had been cis, and I get it, I don't blame them. For me though, I would never not want to be trans, because to be trans is to be me. And I wouldnt want to be anyone else.
Im transfemmasc, I state it loud and clear here so that I dont have to "come out" to anyone. If you're on my blog, then you probably already know how I identify. Masculinity nor femininity have ever really been mine. Ive always gone through life in the most, "it's whatever" mindset possible. I wore comfortable, blank, unicolour clothing, kind of blend in with everyone else, nothing that was really remarkedly nor intentionally "masculine" or "feminine". The guys at my school have pink pants and the girls dress in suits at formal events, so it's not like there was a barrier of any kind. I suppose, before, I was mostly neutral about my gender, because I didnt feel it was mine. The things I did, sports I practiced, were never really 'gendered'. Come to think of it, gender was never into play at all, if not for one thing. Others. The words they used, the groups they put me in, the way they treated me, it was all others and their perception of how I was. And I felt, feel often even now, powerless to change that perception, like I just need to resign to it. To me gender was an imposition that others had collectively decided, nothing that was actually related to who I was.
That is, until I discovered I could have a say in it. Until I realized I had a choice on what to call myself- especially here, especially online, where no one can assume before I tell them, suddenly I could be the one to define who I am, and not others. I found that out when for the first time in my life, someone asked the simple question "are you a boy or a girl?". It left me floored, and even though, as I couldnt come out, I had to reply with my assigned gender, there was still the weirdest feeling in my chest. Pure giddiness, euphoria, joy jumping up and down as if to say "see!! See! There's a choice, we have a choice! It's us, we can be us!"
And at the time, I didnt really know who I was. I thought to myself, surely, that doesn't mean Im trans. Because a trans person, they would want the answer to that question to either be A or B no? But I, I was happy about the question, about the fact that I was asked. It's not that I hoped them to see as the 'opposite' gender, I didnt want to give either answer for them to then see me as just that gender, but it was the fact that they had to ask, that they couldnt establish their perception over me, that in that brief moment between when they saw me and when I had to reply, they saw me as me. They saw me.
I cant tell you why Im like this, as much as I think you cant say why either on your gender. So I hope anyone reading this understands; the answer to the question "how can you be a boy and a girl?" Is "I dont know, it's just me". I dont think it's a useful question, as much as asking a monogender binary trans person why they're a certain gender and not another. And thing is, you kinda have to trust and support a trans person's perception of their gender because no one else can say what they feel. So I think, it's a bit about trusting another person. Because you can choose not to believe a trans person when they say their gender, and to choose to believe them is to put your trust in their words. We all understand how idiotic the idea of "better having a dead son/daughter than a trans daughter/son", we understand that non trans people need to believe a trans person, on their gender, on nothing but their word (anything else falls into transmedicalist rethoric/making transness an illness), yet I dont often see that understanding offered to non binary people, xenogender people, multigender people.
I feel like it's often met with a level of distrust, where others dont actually believe what we say about our gender- it's accepted largely, that we're non binary, but it's scrutinized, we're often not afforded the same grace monogender and/or binary trans people may get from allies. There's a level of what I can only describe as "narrowing eyes" at us, kind of like others try to decide if to believe us or not, there's a reluctance in embracing our identities as valid. There's the feeling of needing to justify your identity, even amongst allies and other trans people, the lingering question of "how is that possible?" that no one can really answer but that no one really wants to let go of.
"wouldn't it be easier if you were just a monogender binary person?" Maybe. Possibly probably, as I usually say. "Wouldnt it be better?" Fuck no, because then, I wouldnt be me. And I cannot, I cannot stress enough how much I love to me. How much pure joy it brings me, to exist as I am, to not have to hide how I feel, to use all the words that I resonate with without fear. To make myself visible!! I would do it immediately if it werent for the fear of bigotry around people I dont know. (And truthfully, even around the people I do know, even if they are trans allies. Because I cant just be, Id have to explain, explain why Im like this)
I hope this helps monogender people understand why I label myself the way I do, how this is just one experience amongst infinite ones! Im not here trying to steal words away from anyone, Im just existing as me and trying to be part of the community and be myself. And it hurts, when people treat my identity as if it doesnt exist, even in the trans community. It hurts to see people say that "boys shouldn't be here, this space needs to be devoid of them" when I am a boy. It hurts to see people talk about how "you need to listen to girls, stop speaking over them" when I am a girl. It hurts to hear people talk about how "if you're a girl or a boy then you're not non binary" when I am non binary. It hurts to find the place that should accept you and then see people ignore your existence just as everyone else did your whole life, or actively consider you a threat to them based on what they perceive you as. To be caged in others' perceptions of you even in a place that is supposed to be past that, that is supposed to understand. It makes me want to scream. It puts this idea of "nobody will understand because you're too weird even for the weird community" and "accepting you undermines them, they cant accept everything because words need to mean something. They draw the line at your identity, because actually, it's bad to be 'too accepting/accepting of everything'".
There's this feeling of "if you would just take the place of whichever perception of you they have, then they'd accept you. You just need to pick one, but not you. Please, pick a more palatable and easily understandable version, even if it isnt really you". That's why I wrote this post. Because I want you to see me, as I see me, and I want you to accept me as me, as I am, to not consider me a liability, a burden, to not look down on my identity as 'too much' or 'too weird', to not take away my words and my joy. I am here, no matter what anyone think, and I am part of this community.
