This chapter title seems like a great thing to laugh at in ten years. Like wow, look at me, I was so in denial. I would argue that I'm not in denial, and I need to think about it more.
There's a difference between being nonbinary and trans. I have long tread the path of barely trans. Just trans enough to blend in with my trans friends, not trans enough to cause any problems in my day to day life. My name is Hayley and I'm cool with everyone using she/her pronouns for me. I have short hair and average clothes. I use they/them as an honorific but think it's overused. I have a complex relationship with he/him.
Here's what happens. A few days ago, I went by he/him and asked people to call me Ethan.
It's because there was this feeling in my chest, a sad clenching whenever I existed. I was too short, my face shape was wrong, my body was too curvy...it was plain old gender dysphoria in all its intensity. Easy to recognize, easy to remedy. Just come out to people and hope it goes away.
Now obviously repression of emotions won't make them go away. But I've been genderfluid for a while, dancing around the lines of man and woman and other. I know that if I wait long enough, my gender will go back to normal. Whatever that is, whatever's more convenient for the moment.
It's very consistent with the rest of my philosophy, which leads me to wonder how much of it is projection. I have a recurring pattern of guessing what other people want me to be, and then conforming to it, without really asking them first.
And in the past, masculine pronouns and gender presentation have been very closely tied to mental illness. That is to say, I'll present masculine not out of want, but out of a feeling of alienation from my current gender. An unspoken belief that I'll never be feminine enough.
I think that issue really does permeate a lot of my gender issues. I look like the stereotype of the nonbinary person: that is, a skinny white girl with short brown hair. So I'll feel like I'm not feminine enough, or not masculine enough. The idea of binding myself to one gender is scary, and I often wish I had the ability to slide between them, to not make commitments. I know that can be achieved with makeup but I'd like to exert a little less effort and money into that external appearance.
It's not just an appearance, though. Lately I've almost come to long for the socialization of a masculine presenting person. After calling myself Ethan, I started to notice just how many Ethans there are in the world, and how many of them present strikingly male. It's incredible just how much I could never pretend to be one of them, not with the slight Rick Moranis look about my face.
Even if I had the gender I wanted, I'm certain I would still struggle with being a little too ugly, in a world of beautiful people. It's doubtful, then, whether my gender issue comes from transgender alone, or whether it is influenced by social loneliness and physical insecurity. And perhaps it suffices to say that gender is just some outlet for my great amounts of insecurity. This claim would be supported by the way that transgender feelings seem to fade around my girlfriend.
So I'm not trans. I'm horribly sad about something, almost on the verge of tears. Perhaps it's the feeling that I'm lying. Simply existing feels like a lie: saying I'm happy with how I look is a lie to myself, and yet any type of gender presentation to anyone I know is also a lie. Asking former teachers to write recommendation letters with she/her. Asking my friends to use he/they. It all feels like a great lie, like I'm hardly holding together a story, and eventually it'll all crash down.
The question still remains when I ask myself what the truth is, because I can hardly ascertain that within myself. I'm familiar with the aching feeling, and it doesn't go away no matter what I ask from people. There's a jealousy of those who can be the gender I want, there's a fear of being shunned for being wrong, and there's a guilt about lying. That's all I have.
