#indentiy

℮ an album by ECCO2K

I am trans and also neurodivergent, so to me it was always a struggle to comprehend what "identity" means.

Everyone just talks about circular terms ("a man is a person who identifies as a man" ok, what is to identify? "Identity is a collection of beliefs, experiences and attributes" ok but how do you know which ones go where? "Its a feeling?")

and the uncertainty always made me go insane but I think I managed to hit a "tangible" sense of what identity is by using the most basic structure I could think of.

Perspective.

First person perspective, second person perspective and third person perspective.

To identify something as in "part of you" it needs to be something that you can imagine or experience in the first person perspective.

This made me feel more assured with my gender as a trans man because I always felt it as just "feeling like a normal person" and i never understood why or how did this came to be until I thought of this.

I liked being a girl when I was a little girl, not because I felt like a girl, i quite remember explicitly not feeling as such, but just because of the role in itself.

I never imagined myself in first person, not really, it was always kinda in the second person, like if I was watching a mirror, I knew that was me, but I never could live my life outside of this superficial perception of myself. I could never really "classify myself" because I never felt "myself for myself".

Not that I waited or liked the perception of others to identify me as a girl, i disliked that too, but i liked the consequences, the fact that other people would treat me nicely and do things for me, the fact that I could enjoy cartoons however I desired to and do whatever I desired no matter what (i think that one was more because I was a kid more than because I was girl, but I meant it in the way of how men are policed into how they talk and move and walk and-).

But then I started to think about my existence, my experiences, my own opinions, not based on "being right" or "being wrong" like I was obsessed on (I loved science, my identity was "smart"), not based on something that matters. On just enjoying my existence with myself, to know me as a person.

And then I noticed there was nothing. Because I never felt as myself in the first person. Outside of perception of others or outside of my own performative perception. Just as myself not being able to see my face and just feel my flesh.

I remember the first time I felt "myself" in it's more pure emotion, i had a blue short and underneath i put on a bunch of socks to simulate a packer, I remember looking outside the window when I layed down on my bed couch , the sun on my skin, the slowness of everything, the stillness, the quiet, the sounds of birds in the distance, green leaves falling when my front yard tree was still alive.

I felt alive in a sense I never had, I felt "myself" I "identified" with this body. Even if it was for a moment where I stood perfectly still.

This was "mine", this was "part of me". And I am willing to fight for it. It's the first time that the word "i am" made sense in my head.

It was peaceful.

I dont really know where I was heading with this hahahhs

Uhh