Hi :) I thanked you a few days ago for posting that someone else's ask about how-do-you-know-if-you're-nonbinary.... I have a follow up question. Sometimes I worry that I'm conflating "female" and "feminine", so when I say I dont identify as female, I worry I actually dont identify as feminine. Also, I worry that sometimes that the reason I don't identify as female is a reaction to some me-too stuff in my past. I dont always feel safe as female, and maybe this is a reaction to that. Any advice?
That can certainly be difficult!
First of all, I just want to be sure you know that past trauma influencing your current gender (or orientation) doesn’t invalidate it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek help if you feel that what happened is still emotionally/psychologically having a negative effect on you, but there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging how trauma affected you and changing what label(s) you use to fit that. And there’s also nothing wrong with moving back to whatever label(s) you used before or even another new set if you end up getting help and feeling like that caused another change. If it describes your experience, regardless of why you’re having that experience, you can use the term. So you not feeling safe as female as a reaction to trauma doesn’t invalidate that you don’t feel female.
But as for the conflating “female” and “feminine,” that can be different for everyone. Not identifying as feminine can be part of not identifying as female, or can be felt in conjunction with not being female. But, of course, that isn’t always the case. I’ve found that playing around with my gender expression while also trying out different pronoun sets or different labels for my gender really helped me out with all of that. You can try presenting as masculine as possible or as is safe and then asking yourself if you’re female. That way, you can possibly parse out how you feel about your gender separate from any possible conflation with feminine presentation.
