the thing is. being nonbinary means acknowledging that even people who want to be gender affirming--people who do all the right things, who care about others, who believe in your humanity--are still likely to never see you as anything except the binary gender you most closely resemble.
it's a bias. it's a thing society has wired into their brains, and they don't have enough exposure-based repetition to meaningfully undo the years of societal conditioning. chances are, even you feel this way about yourself and others, despite how hard you try not to.
and that's not me saying you should stop trying; you should still keep up that effort. it's better than nothing, and maybe it'll culminate in something bigger than all of us.
but there is a certain solemn reality check many of us have. & I think many trans people who realize they will likely never pass have this moment of recognition as well. and not from dysphoria-induced brain worms pre/early-hrt, but from being years on various interventions & coming to a point of acceptance about the reality of the cards you've been dealt & finding a way of living happily in spite of that
I just find that there are many many trans people, especially binary trans people, who can't wrap their head around anything except a very "toxic positivity" version of being trans & our experiences. at some level, most nonbinary people eventually recognize that how we view ourselves is not likely to ever be fully reflected by others.
we persist onwards, regardless. we still live our lives because we have to. and it is that coming to face with our own mortality of sorts that I think causes many of the rifts in the trans community. it's a type of maturity that not everyone gets to, even many nonbinary people, but for those of us who do and are able to integrate that and accept that we should still keep trying anyways... idk, you look at discourse a lot differently.
being gendered correctly by strangers isn't as dire to me because that dysphoria has been so thoroughly exhausted that I've had to make a conscious decision to stop paying attention to it for my own mental health's sake, because there's literally nothing I can do to change that. that doesn't mean I don't care. it means I've taken a realistic look at the situation and decided to focus on what I can tangibly impact instead. because I'd be dead if I didn't do that.
I think many of the heavily mocked "femme presenting nonbinary theyfabs who don't take hrt and look and act like a cis woman" out there are in a similar position. I don't think these people don't care. I think it's that they know nobody will change no matter what they do & they've reached a point of acceptance with it, so they see little point in doing anything about it.
it's a place of apathy & source of heartache for more people than I think some people ridiculing them realize. that's why they react so strongly to people basically bullying them online.
because most of those people are just trying to exist in a way that they find fun or aesthetically pleasing, because they realize that there's nothing else they can do. so they distract themselves with makeup and clothes and "girly" things that appeal to their eyes because they are small happinesses that society only genders because cisheteromasculinity prides itself on being devoid of beauty and joy more often than not, and if you're stuck in a prison of biology's making you might as well choose the presentation that lets you paint your nails and look at pretty things and pretty colors with less overt pushback (i.e. fitting the status quo, not necessarily that femininity isn't routinely degraded, it just receives less immediate threats to your safety to do the things society expects of you).
it is a strategic choice that they do not even want to be making in the first place, because it inherently relies on their misgendering.
...but it's what makes the most sense to a lot of people. that's why it's so common. and when you ridicule that, you poke and prod at all of those wounds that you're unaware even exist, because you assume they don't exist.
meanwhile they may have faced more suffering and agony at this positionality than you have. but it's an invisible suffering. so it's easy to poke fun at. you don't live in their head, though. you make assumptions upon assumptions about people, failing to recognize that sometimes there's no "good" solution & you've just gotta do what you can to survive in the least miserable way you possibly can, and that being in that position itself (inside a society that you know will probably never accept anything even close to you, at least not in your lifetime) is a type of trauma that changes you on a fundamental level. it fucks with your head. that's why these people act this way.
and while I'm somebody who has medically transitioned, I fucking get it.
germansingergirl
discoholicmusic
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
