Throwback Thursday: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 15:00:55 on the VerboseTerse instance, yadda yadda yadda. Notable that this was for the write31days challenge for that year; I decided to write about my non-binary gender experience. This is from the third day, about my doubts before coming out.

So far, this is the hardest entry I have to write.

I am going to be 30 years old relatively soon. And only two years ago I’ve come to terms with not being a binary gender. Late to the party– better late than never– but I still feel some type of way about it.

Fuck High School

My initial, knee-jerk response to “What the hell took you so long?!” is to cite the lack of information and representation I was able to get my hands on. I keep saying that… but I have a print out of this page still and it is largely unchanged. So I can only use that excuse for so long.

5% was bigoted asshattery.

My high school was a tiny dangerously-close-to-fern thing in the middle of central Not Progressive Ha Ha. We ran out the only decent Spanish teacher because he was a city slicker. Out of the grand total of two gay young men we managed to run off one of them within a month. And of course, kids being kids with slurs in their mouth.

You do the math.

85% was just pure denial.

Some of it can be attributed to my poor grasp of gender, even with the info laid out to me. The gist was I was still working off the binary system with the faintest understanding of transgender (and that’s being kind). Furthermore, I was still under the illusion that bi/pansexuality was merely a phase and I was going to grow out of it eventually. Nevermind that to this day I associate a Sugarcult song with my First Serious Crush on A Girl. And my favorite movie wa, and still is, But I’m A Cheerleader.

10% was fear.

Like any teen, I wanted to fit in. Just a smidge. Just enough. I also didn’t want (what I felt was at the time) the eventual heartbreak and isolation if I pursued these thoughts. So I forced contentment of something I was much more familiar with- unrequited love and alienation on my terms (and the first term was “that weird kid that walked in the rain and kicked trees”- conveniently not too alienating, just weird as fuck).

This fear was also borne of not letting down my parents. They were cool with me through my Wiccan phase and was alright with me taking my best friend to the prom, but the possibility that I was probably trans squicked my father, at least.

Moral of this story is being a teen sucked and trust no one that says otherwise.

No Longer a Teenage Dirtbag

But enough about that. Fast forward to a) finally dealing with my pansexuality and came out in college b) just ended a relationship that was another failed statistic in the mono/poly configuration, 1.5 years post college (I was the poly). So, in one of my brooding moments, I got to sitting around thinking about my gender.

Like, really think about it. In a space where I wouldn’t get shit for not shaving my sideburns and not be called somethin’ gendered every 10 minutes, even in jest. And in a place where I’m certainly more knowledgeable about Stuff. And Things. And learnin’ all the time.

I had so many doubts. Two of my entries from a particular meltdown were titled “I may not be trans enough.” And I was just a worrywart.

• Was this just borne of frustration of being feminine-read/patriarchy?
• Do I need hormones? / Am I still validated without needing surgery?
• Was this because of my parents?
• Am I trans? If I am cis, do I still get to be genderqueer?
• Can I be genderqueer? Am I trendergrender or something?
• Am I ready?
• Am I sure?

The majority of these questions was when there were so many different variations of the definition of cis floating around. Not to mention the truscum gatekeepers got me fucked up- I assure you, I’ll talk about them later.

And I was finally, finally shedding the last of the fear and truly Stopped Giving Much Less of a Fuck.

So.

Yea.

I’m pretty fucking sure.

After a solid year of second guessing, and a life of little cascaded moments.