Intersex Are you intersex or questioning? How has it affected your identity?

My chances of being intersex are very very very little but not exactly 0 and I avoid sex-focused doctors like the plague so the jury is still out. Either way, I consider myself perisex / non-intersex until completely proven wrong without a shadow of a doubt.

That being said, I have a lot of compassion for intersex folk and find myself very touched by their experiences. I’m fairly non-conforming gender-wise, but even bodily I’ve been PASIC since childhood. Too hairy, not hairy enough, too tall, not tall enough, voice too high for this but too low for that, too curvy but not curvy enough, and so forth. Part of why my mom was so adamant on enforcing my AGAB onto me was to protect me from such scrutiny even as a child, because even then she could tell I was perceived as “wrong”. I’ve been subjected to intersexism throughout my life despite not being on the intersex spectrum, always seen as not manly nor womanly enough in one way or another.

Whether it be my primary-school bullies trying to “prove” if I’m a boy or a girl (to the point of physically grabbing me and even trying to peek under my clothes or touch me) like it’s some kind of game, or as a teenager and young adult having people be interested in me because they think I’m “the best of both”, settling for me because I’m “girl/dude enough”, trying to get with me to “find out” what I “really” am. The list goes on. I’m very private about my sex as a whole and I’ve always been, and that has only complicated things. I NEVER EVER intended nor intend to make people believe I’m intersex, but it is something others have assumed of me one too many times. Even when I would crack and tell people what my body is like, I’ve been met with disbelief or further scrutiny for virtually no valid reason whatsoever, so I can assure you – general you – I’m not actively doing all this for some kind of validation. I’ve always liked my own body, so I was always sad no one else did. It is not good. I grew up believing I was inherently, biologically, down-to-my-DNA ugly and wrong, AND I’M NOT EVEN ACTUALLY INTERSEX.

It’s so incredibly disheartening because nowadays everything I was criticized for growing up are physical characteristics I find very comforting, validating, euphoric and even affirming. It seems one can’t live ambiguously nor androgynously without one’s body being under a magnifying glass (whether it be cis or trans spaces), and I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like for actual intersex individuals if I had to live my life this way.

Much love to my intersex comrades. You’re wonderful and there is nothing at all wrong with you, never forget.

Gender What's your experience with gender? How do you understand it?

My experience with gender has always been one of discovery and experimentation.

When I was little I wouldn’t question it because I could still be me within the confines of my AGAB thanks to how I was raised. I was a [AGAB child term] because that’s what I was told I was and everyone reminded me I was, but as I grew up and was able to find the words that best describe me, I realized that neither of the two big boxes were for me. That’s mainly why despite considering myself to have always been nonbinary, I don’t relate to most non-cis experiences of underlying discomfort or the usual troubles of growing up with dysphoria… I just. Didn’t Know “not being a girl nor boy but secret third thing” (/silly) had a name. I didn’t mind my AGAB until I learnt that it was not only too “constrained” for myself but that it simply wasn’t me; I knew who I was before finding out what I was.

Funnily enough, even when I already knew I was under the enbrella, I gave being a girl a try. Like, an honest, good-faith try. This is something I do not regret not even the slightest, because it made me connect with my femininity, which is intrinsic to who I am today. I realized then I am feminine in my own way, completely detached from gyninity. And yes, I did give being a boy a try as well. That experience, in turn, made me realize I’m a gay man, just not a man on itself. My manhood exists strictly through the lens of being MLM. Having covered my binary bases, I was able to feel more confident in my identity as a whole. Not because I needed to prove anything, but because I had never thought about gender hard enough (a big foreshadowing tbh…). I wanted to explore my options genuinely, which ended up being the best thing for me.

Of course that didn’t stop there. Despite being nonbinary, I’m very gendered, and as the definition of genderplasmic goes my gender is one that “does not change from one gender to another-  it’s the same gender, shifting and moving within itself”. This whole time I’ve been me, no matter what terminology I use to explain my identity. Just because I’ve been able to find and connect to new labels and terms and more specific wording as the time’s gone by doesn’t mean most if not all of my gender wasn’t that way before. I just didn’t know there could be a name for X or Y experience or Z and Q ways of conceptualizing gender. It goes without saying my identity has indeed evolved either way throughout the years, and it’s “grown” with me. But - to me - gender labels are just that, labels. They serve us, not the other way around. They exist to put a name to experiences. I’ve always considered myself androgynous but only kind of recently picked up Androgyne for myself. As I paid more attention to my own xeninity, I realized it’s always been there. I used to call myself “agenderflux” when genderflux itself does it just fine. The examples go on and on.

I’ve been so gender autonomous for the entirety of my life that Gender itself is fascinating to me. I view it entirely in an anthropologic way. I want to put it in a petri dish and study it. That being said, I consider it of equal importance than any other things that make me Me. It’s part of my identity the same way my favorite music is, or my zodiac sign or my choice of attire. Gender on itself isn’t important to me on my daily life; everything else surrounding it may be, but as I find myself disregarded as “Other” in our binary world, I feel a distinctive sense of freedom in comparison to my men and women peers. To them it looks like I care way too much about gender, without realizing they allow theirs to completely control anything and everything they do. Needless to say I am not stupid and I know why it happens, “get a load of this society” moment, but it fills me with questions. It’s an experience I only got to live briefly when I was still finding myself or when dysphoria beats my ass.

I could say way more, as gender is “meshed” and “fused” with everything else about me, but I’m going to pause here for now. I may pick up the topic again some other time. If anyone is interested in any specifics about my gender, feel free to ask !! I love getting into it !!!

Family, Friends What's your relationship with the concepts of friendship and family? Are you out to your family and friends, if you have them?

Attention ! This post is exceedingly long, I'm sorry ! Because of this, I've decided to put most of it under the read-more. Thank you for understanding.

I LOVE FRIENDSHIP !!!!!!!!!!!! I consider my closest friends loved ones, they’re more than family and I owe them my life, I am not exaggerating not even a little bit. I would have never achieved anything in life if it wasn’t for the existence of my friends, even more than my own blood relatives. Even when I had literally nothing not even myself, they were always there, and I would do the same for every single one of them. Not even as a thank you, not even because they did it for me. I do it because I love them. I love them so intensely and deeply. Platonic love is the best kind of love I’ve ever felt and I treasure it within my own soul. There is nothing I love more in this world than my friends, nothing at all. I’m actually pretty happy family and friends are mentioned together in this prompt because I don’t have a hierarchy for the people I love; I only “sort them” by what kind of love or kind of relationship we have. Level wise? I love my best friend the same AMOUNT as I love my own brother or my dad. One is platonic, the others familial, that’s all. To me that’s the only difference.

Setting my raging platonicity aside, I consider myself extremely lucky when it comes to family. Of course they’re not perfect, they’re human beings, but to me they’re awesome. I have a very close relationship with my father’s side of the family, as my mother’s is in another country.

Expression How do you express your identity? What's your ideal expression/presentation?

I try my best to express it visually as much as possible. Even if it may not seem obvious to others, it always is to me.

For starters, I think of my appearance the same way you’d make a Sim with a lot of CC or dress up an Everskies avatar. In fact, if I’m being entirely honest, I think about it the same way I think about character design: The palette, the shapes, the layering. I pick a concept I want to embody that day and work around it. “Concept” can be anything, of course. Sometimes an aesthetic, sometimes a certain character or trope, sometimes even a Literal Concept. This includes my kins as well as other aspects of my identity, but gender isn’t really at the forefront and never really was.

While yes, my presentation is very tied to my gender, it’s not as straightforward as you may assume. See, I don’t aim to pass in one way or another. I want to confuse, always. My goal is to make others wonder what I am, while I get to do whatever I want with my looks. Androgyny is instrumental to every aspect of my identity, and something I always do is try to “balance” my masculinity and femininity. It isn’t just dressing masc but wearing make-up or wearing a dress with sneakers and a baseball cap, it’s more intricate than that. Let’s say I want to wear jeans and a plain shirt. A few options are : if my hair is long, go for baggy-on-baggy skaterboy fit, but with many accessories. With shorter hair I would gravitate more towards little-shirt-big-pant. If it gets cold, humongous jacket for option 1 and cropped Adidas hoodie for option 2. Other idea, sleeveless + shorts. I can aim for a mcbling twink with the thinnest tightest tank top you can imagine or classic wife-pleaser with big chunky cargos (shout out butches). And what about formal attire? The options are endless. Do I want to give Victorian bishoujo vampire? Do I channel my inner office siren? Do I become the mafia boss of every fanfic? It’s a lot of fun, especially if you consider I can mix and match to my heart’s content.

That’s based on the “standard” “masc-fem scale”, which isn’t my priority and just something I enjoy to play with every day. What I pay closest attention to is channeling The Vibe. On my most grimine days, I put on the ol’ reliable. When I want to be more dogboyish, I pull out my several bone and paw-shaped trinkets and accessories. I love chrome and stars on days I want to channel my core aesthetics, and I can’t help but try my best to mirror the feeling or style or literally, once again, vibe of the music I’m listening to that particular day. Hell, I even consider the weather, but I’m not even talking about the temperature. Just literally “it’s sunny so let’s channel sunny-day vibes”. On top of all that, I always hold my interests close and do my best to include even a little something about them in my every day appearance.

Being entirely honest, I’m too aldernic to have one single ideal presentation of my truest self. If could look outwardly however I desired, I wouldn’t even be able to choose one form. That’s partly why I believe I connect with so many different things in so many different ways. My ideal expression is truly impossible to achieve, but that does not sadden me, as I do the active effort to allow my perceivable form to channel, embody and showcase even if just a tiny bit of what it could be. Humanly speaking, I never really had a fixed “goal” appearance. I’ve always been very confustransitional and I’m always moving the goalpost. That being said, I look in the mirror and look exactly how I want to present to the world as: Myself.

Ps: I tried to link references as much as I could to better illustrate what i was talking about at any given point, but for a full (ever growing) list of presentation terms i like and/or connect with, feel free to check this tag.

Spanish is heavily grammatically gendered. Neutral language had to literally be invented and appended to regular grammar in a way that is cohesive and easy to use. Feminine words end with A, masculine words with O, and what do we do when something isn't either? we use E, which can be pronounced out loud, or X, which is mostly if not always used in text form.

Latina is fem form, ei "a Latina woman". Latino is masc form, ie "a Latino man". LATINE is NEUTRAL / NON-GENDERED form, ie "a LATINE person", ie "my Latine friend uses elle pronouns in Spanish" ie "mi hermane nació en Colombia, asi que es Latine"

Disconnect Are you disconnected with any particular aspect of your identity?

I know nothing about disconnect <- the disconnected-from-reality-in-several-levels guy.

Jokes aside, this is actually a tricky question for me. I’ll try to answer it in a few parts.

I have a hard time connecting with my transness, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. I see it in a way I’ve never seen other people fully grasp or consider, despite discussing this with other queer folks of different identities. So, to put it simply: I am trans because I am nonbinary. I’m not transgender as an identity on itself, as a standalone. I’m nonbinary first, and consider myself trans because I’m cisn’t. I wasn’t born who I am right now so I’ve transitioned, but I’m ME first and foremost. Not being cis is deeply important to me and being part of the trans umbrella is something I revindicate every day of my life. I however have a hard time considering myself Just Trans. Several parts of my identity are not trans nor cis, are technically cis, or don’t fit usual modalities. To me, the way I’m trans is more important over being trans. Therefore, I’ve always had conflicting feelings about it.

I feel a certain disconnect with my amorous identity as well. I’m Ambiamorous, yet I’ve never been in any configuration of a poly relationship. I know for a fact I’d be happy and content in one, and I’ve discussed it with my mono partners before, but it’s just hasn’t come to fruition. And that’s fine of course ! I’m in a closed mono alterous relationship as of the writing of this post, and I’m not actively interested in dating* other people aside from my boyfriend**. Sometimes I feel like I should though, like we should open the relationship or find other people we could date at the same time simply because it’s something I would like. But I don’t… I don’t feel like it right now, simple as that. We had talked at length about these topics with him, and I can assure you he’s completely alright with the idea; we’re both open to, well, opening or expanding the relationship anytime. He, however, isn’t interested either. No one is forcing anyone to do anything and YET I feel like I’m a fraud for not having a high enough polystic drive to consider myself part of the non-monogamous umbrella. I wish I could talk to more poly folk about this but I don’t know many if any… It’s pretty isolating…

To end on a less confusing and sad-tinted note, I’ve been reevaluating my xeninity. I’ve felt disconnected from my xenogender identity for a long time, to the point it feels like I’m fully opening my heart to it this past year. When I was younger I could not for the life of me understand xenogenders yet I never bashed them nor hated them publicly ever, and funnily enough they were instrumental in my journey of self-discovery. My connection to xeninity has always oscillated, but it feels like no matter what I do or how far I am in my transition I’m always deeply drawn to it. I’m aware a big part of it – my wariness and uncertainty approaching this part of me – stems from internalized xenicphobia / antixeninity, but I’m slowly yet surely bridging the gap, extending an olive branch to myself. That’s what matters the most I think.

* I use “date” to refer to any other kind of Serious Relationship, but it can be any kind of any type of attraction, like a QPR for example /info

** he’s ace, bisexual, and we’re T4T, he’s NOTTTT a cishet man and if you assumed otherwise I’m judging you /hj /lh