Hoard Are you a hoarder? How does this affect your MOGAI identity? If you collect terms, how do you organize them?

Although nowadays I prefer to describe it with other words in place of “hoarding”, I do. It’s something I’ve done even before I was more outwardly involved in the MOGAI and adjacent communities. I organize them on my blog with specific tags, simply enough, and "non-hoard" terms I save locally and archive on a personal non-public Notion.

I very vividly remember browsing the LGBTQIA+ wikia (which was still on Fandom) for anything and everything that resonated with me, and writing it all down on a google docs page. I was completely rawdogging it, but I had a blast. I kept seeing that the terms I liked came from Tumblr but I was quite adamant to join in myself directly. I had had the “privilege” (/neg /sarc) of witnessing firsthand how MOGAI and similar where mocked relentlessly for years, and as someone who was recovering from the Kalvin Garrah era of the internet with lasting fear of how nonbinary people are / were perceived, I was …very cautious and wary. For a big chunk of my life I felt like I needed to be a “Good Nonbinary”: not be too weird or too loud, make sure my gender is easy to understand, try to avoid anything “reserved” for “Real Trans People”, all that bullshit. Such mentality unironically kept me from taking my transition as seriously as I deserved, and I mourn how far ahead I could have been if anything outside of the norm wasn’t so violently shunned.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, when I already had my silly word document unsorted list of genders and mustered up the courage to make my hoarding blog – which is technically my main, funnily enough – I was at a point in my life where I had overcome a lot of insecurities regarding myself and my identity, specially related to the topics mentioned above. I had finally taken big important steps into living a better life, slowly yet sure completing transition goals. I was at that point more than ever before following my heart and my gender euphoria, so I chose happiness. I realized if I could do all that in real life, no one was going to get me for finding terms that best encapsulate, describe or illustrate the intricacies of my identity. It is a “me thing”, sure, but why not get involved, find out more from the source itself. Turns out so many words existed for my experiences, and I would have never found them if I hadn’t pushed through my worries of engaging with xenogenders. Xenos where the gateway to a world of possibilities and I cannot thank them enough, as a whole.

I don’t like to say I “use” xenos and neos because I don’t see them as some kind of accessory, plus it feels very invalidating towards xeninity as a whole. That being said, my hoard serves an actual purpose: instead of me having to say “my gender is just like this character, but also like… the vibes and visuals of backrooms? Oh, also you know that one song? Yeah my gender is like that one”, I can summarize it as “well, I’m ENAcharic, backroomaesic and guessongic”. These replies are interchangeable, but I find it very nice and cool to find A Word for An Experience. Specially with neoumbrellas which encompass many concepts at once, as I’m able to paint a really good picture of one of the many corners of my gender by just saying “I’m a technan” or “my gender is kenic” or “my presentation is Mall Rat”. My hoard is a gallery of windows that allow you to peek into my self and see if it makes any sense. To me, it completely does.

I’ll leave this here, as I was a bit stuck on this prompt plus being busy IRL. As always, I’m always open to talk about these topic so feel free to ask anything !

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 !!!