#tgncproblems

"Hey, I heard you know all about this LGBT stuff. Can you educate me?"

Mild panic. Intense Anger. Guilt. Confusion. Weirdness. Deep breaths. 

"I'm not an expert on anything, but I have a list of resources for people who want to learn more about topics that are generally labeled LGBTQIIAAA somewhere in my inbox." 

Oh honey, don't look so puzzled. 

"What do all those letters mean?"

The mechanical beat of an ink cartridge metronome kept me from exploding. I offered over-simplified definitions for words that used to define me while printing the list that sits in my email for moments when my queerness gets unexpectedly detected.   

He grabbed the paper I held out to him, producing a sound that seemed as loud and aggressive as I wanted to be in that moment.  

"Why do you have this list? How do you know all the PC terminology?"

Silence. Construction of a truth that is not the answer to the question.

"At my last job, it was really important for me to try to learn about all the different kinds of marginalization that folks might feel. It's kind of what I studied in undergrad, too, and something I'll spend my whole life trying to wrap my head around.  It's not about 'political correctness' for me. The words I use are not popular, polite, or sanctioned by any authority. I try my best to figure out how to show respect with my language without sounding too pretentious or using too many words. I fail a lot, but trying is important to me. " 

I said it all way too quickly with an attempt at nonchalance and humility, leg twitching and wishing for sounds other than my own voice. 

He nodded, made some generalizing comment about people who study at the historically all-womyn's college that I attended, thanked me for the list, and then walked away from my desk. 

Fuck Meg, you just talked about queerness and passed as heteronormative.  

___________

Figuring out when to "come out" or "pass" about all the non-normativity sucks. Thinking about how to feel safe and honest simultaneously is exhausting.  I feel like I have to do it all fucking time. I am really over it.  

I will stop trying to create a safe space to explain my personal/political perspective on social justice, kyriarchy, intersectionality, and how these things effect every single action I take from "how I order toner" to "how I avoid defining myself."

I have yet to encounter a truly safe and intersectional space that affirms all the marginalized experiences anywhere in the world.

And I know for sure that it cannot be created by me. 

And I can't decide if it's because I'm self-sabotaging my personal growth since I'm not ready to be an adult. 

Or if she's just so ignorant of everything related to queer and tgnc and social justice stuff that everything about our interactions makes me feel oppressed, even though she is super thoughtful and well-intentioned. 

The first thing that comes to my mind when some one says "binder" is not a thing that holds papers. 

I will not ask anyone else to teach me to love myself. 

I will stop clinging to the people who make me feel good about myself because it is unfair to them and it drives them away. 

I will allow myself to take as much time as I need to figure out what I love about myself. 

I will accept that other people might love me more, less, or the same amount that I love myself. 

I will stop trying to change how much people love or do not love me. 

I will stop trying to quantify and measure love.  

I will remember that radical love, whether self-love or otherwise, is not something that everyone is interested in. 

I will find a balance between keeping this process inside of me and outside of me. 

I will not let this process make me inconsiderate, hurtful, or unaware of other people. 

I will mess up, fuck up, and break the above rules.

-received email from friend 

-read paragraph about love life and got excited about the use of gender neutral pronouns

-had all the thoughts and feels about why i was excited that aforementioned friend had another genderqueer character in friend's life 

-realized that my gender neutralizing app was on

-turned app off

-re-read email with pronouns as author had intended it  

-felt weird and sad and angry and disappointed in myself and confused about the world and gender and everything

-came to tumblr because that whole experience makes me want to explode 

Reading emails should not be hard for me. I'm great at reading. I love hearing about other people's lives. I love writing thoughtful responses. 

It feels really important, but also really complicated. 

If I had a dollar for every time something felt complicated I would be the richest. 

I would also have all the guilt for being complicit in capitalist society.  

I feel "sorry I'm not sorry" about my gender drama. Trangsty kinda gets at that. 

But if some one else ever told me I was being trangsty I would feel really hurt and offended.