#sikhi

i feel very nervous about writing this but i am also tired of struggling to answer my questions by myself. so, here it goes - hi, i am a young transmasc nonbinary person who was raised as a sikh. i say raised as because while i do appreciate the values of sikhi, i am not religious. i never have been. i feel it is important to also mention that i am mixed (the other half is white european). my relationship with being culturally sikh has always been rocky, but it got more intense as i started to accommodate my needs of alleviating intense gender dysphoria. i’m pretty fair-skinned and generally pass as white. my hair is cut short because wearing it long triggered suicidal feelings from said dysphoria. to put it simply, i do not “look like a singh” anymore, and i have a sickening amount of guilt about it. there is so much pressure to hold strong to sikhi, especially with the history of oppression and scarce representation, that i feel like i’m doing something wrong when i cannot fully grasp the spirit of it. my existence feels wrong. i do not know if it is okay for me to even call myself a sikh anymore. i don’t feel at home with myself or my circumstances. i don’t even know if it’s okay for me to try and continue wearing a kara as someone with shorn hair. everything feels so wrong. i cannot talk to my punjabi parent about any of this. he’s very close-minded and i don’t know how he feels about queer folks. he’s already abrasive when i try asking simple questions about punjabi culture or religion. my chosen name is so different from my legal name, even the thought of trying to get my family to abide by it someday makes me cringe. strangers think it’s cool but i know they’re just going to laugh about it. i feel like i am abandoning everything i should be, just by trying to be more comfortable in my own skin. i don’t know where sikhi fits within my transition goals, and it feels like a heavy burden.