#nonbinary trans guy

dad: ...am I going to have to teach you how to shave?

me: uh yeah! at some point, lol

dad: hm. well I can show you the way I prefer, with mug soap and a brush, because the aerosol cans are just no. I showed your brother my way and he likes it a lot better too...

dad: [rambles for a bit]

dad: ...it's really just another chore, you look in the mirror and go 'ugh I have to shave soon' so it's just one of those things you do every once in a while

me, externally: haha yeah, I can't wait :]

me, internally: he's talking about this like it's no big deal, it's not weird at all,,, he doesn't mind the idea of teaching me despite the fact that he never expected to be doing this with me,,,, he's my dad and he supports me even if he doesn't completely get it,,,

To keep the backstory short; I came out at 15 as a trans guy, very quickly had internal confusion over this because it felt.. complicated? I couldn't relate or fit in with cis guy peers OR online trans guy spaces (they were a bit more..toxic? At the time).

And even after I stopped trying to emulate and started accepting that it was okay to be different, that I didn't have to really fit into traditional masculinity to be a man, I still wasn't satisfied.

Cue multiple years of trying on different labels, researching, reading people's experiences. Nada. At 20/21 I had a light bulb moment. I could just be both a man AND nonbinary, instead of trying to just pick one or the other.

But then that begs the question, why? Why do I feel this way? Am I multigender? Fluid? Flux? Agender? Demiboy?...I don't know. And I probably never will be able to articulate in words how my sense of gender feels.

I can tell you that I know with 100% certainty that I'm a guy, even while I was questioning for those years I still started HRT and got my name and gender legally changed. I still went by he/him pronouns. I can tell you that I know I don't need to be masculine, because honestly I'm not really that traditionally masculine. I can tell you vaguely that I have some sense of androgyny or neutrality, but otherwise it just kind of feels like it's there lol.

And I always fear that people hearing my experiences will think they have to identify as nonbinary purely because they don't fit in with most men. Because you can be a binary man without being anything like most men.

But at the same time, I do think it's valid if one identifies as nonbinary partially because of those reasons. Gender is partially reflected by societal and cultural ideas. Not fitting into those ideas and wanting to use a different label for that reason is valid. Your gender is yours to label, and sometimes people choose a label partially because of how much they relate or don't relate to others. Like when someone who's mostly or fully binary feels more comfortable in nonbinary spaces or vice versa...or even the unknown numbers of people who aren't binary that still choose to identify as cis (*cough* my mom *cough*)

But ugh, since I've been fronting I've been feeling the dysphoria, wanting to dress up in traditionally feminine clothes more, and do my makeup.

Not that these are bad things, but having neighbors in close proximity makes that anxiety inducing when we are as stealth as we can be (not telling random old conservatives we're trans).

As the weather heats up it also poses a challenge to most of us in general, when it's hot enough, we care less about presenting as masculine and more about staying cool. Crop tops and shorter shorts are our life in the summer.

Idk what the point of this post is? A little vent? It doesn't help that me feeling like this is triggering a bit of an identity crisis, even when logically I know a lot of us are men, and the current host is a man.

I guess if things in the US get to the point we have to temporarily detransition for our safety.. Then I can host..

Part of me wonders if we should eventually come out as a genderfluid trans man or something, explain that our identity shifts around some, but to still refer to us as a man, or just compare ourselves to the gay dude influencers that put on makeup? 🥲

I've also been feeling generally depressed and I hope that's not dysphoria kicking my butt. And when I dress up I get to feel dysphoria coming from internally from other alters, lose-lose situation-

I mean, I know technically I can go back whenever I want, but with how many times I’ve been changing my frickin’ name, my family will definitely be annoyed if I change it again and then, to go even further, change it back if I decide the name Elizander isn’t right for me. I know this because they’ve gotten annoyed about me changing my name so many times in the past…