#older queer

we were just figuring things out the best way we knew with the tools and language we had available to us at the time

I am a millennial and autistic. I grew up on the internet. The early days in chatrooms, talking to people i probably shouldn’t have been talking to. To having a place for fat folx to hang out on tumblr and tinychat. To the social media era, where i just felt lost, but it was numbing enough to make it feel like i was apart of something.

Now, returning back to tumblr after a decade feels like I’m in my square, shouting, but no one can even hear me.

Well, I’m not 24601. Obviously queer though.

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately. Who am I? Do I really have dysphoria? Is my therapist full of shit?

I go back and forth daily. Hourly.

I’m reading books on gender, watching videos on gender, doing the work to dismantle 50 years of socialization telling me I can only buy deodorant or shampoo or lotion from these aisles and goddamit THESE aisles ONLY.

Flowers are for girls; wood is for boys. We are divided in nature.

But what is a forest if not both? I’m like both. “Both” has been a part of my anxiety for decades. I wish the answers were more definitive for me; they never have been.

I, personally, want a label. I want a flag. I want to be able to express who I am in the alphabet, the community. Most of all want acceptance which has never come easy; not from the straights and not from my queer community. Yes, I need to accept myself first.

I live in the middle. I dance in the gray.

Am I trans? Am I non-binary? Am I genderqueer?

What does it truly mean to be any of these?

I'm still figuring myself out, but currently I'm listing this so I can keep track of my self awareness journey, and so I can let you young'uns* know that self discovery is a lifelong thing. It's okay to know right away who you are, what kind of human you identify as being, but if you're still learning that's okay too. I'm 38, and just admitting today to myself (and by extension, Tumblr) that I am a panromantic genderqueer demisexual. (That's more flags, fuck yea colours!)

I filled out a form today to apply for help in getting a part time job that'll fit my personality and skillset, and it was literally the first time in my life that I had a form ask my name along with Preferred Name, and for gender... With the choices being Male, Female, Trans, & Other- please specify. I wrote in GenderNeutral because I was unsure if Queer would make the reader uncomfortable (& also I had never been given the opportunity to write it anywhere so I was sort of in a blank spot lol) but once I did, I had SUCH a profound sense of relief!

As I'm really starting to take better care of myself, this journey of self discovery is taking me places that I didn't know I'd be, and I'm becoming more and more comfortable with being who I really am; forget being who I think others want me to be.