How Does One Feel One’s Gender?

I don’t know what it means to feel “masculine.”

Ever since I discovered that I’m nonbinary, I’ve been reflecting on what gender is supposed to be, and I’m just ending up confused. Some people talk about feeling “masculine” or “feminine” but I don’t really know what it means, other than acting in accordance with the way that society decides that “men” and “women” should act.

People are born with a certain set of genitals, on the basis of this, society says “male” or “female.” This is already problematic. If you think that the biological sex binary is a given, I invite you to listen to this TED talk:

https://youtu.be/stUl_OapUso?si=DizHKNWPUynGjMZ_

I already knew that the biological basis for the binary is on shaky ground. However, there is nothing like someone speaking from actual lived experience to sharpen your understanding.

I’ve mentioned above that on top of biological sex, society imposes a series of behavioral conventions that define what men and women are. Men should act this way. Women should act that way. This is the gender binary. When a man acts in the way a woman should, it is deemed unnatural. Same when a woman acts in the way a man should.

I used to think that if I declared myself nonbinary, it was from an ideological standpoint more than anything else, but I don’t think this is the case. I’m just puzzled when people talk about feeling their gender, because this is something I don’t experience, or that I experience only faintly.

The gender binary is a complete fabrication from society. It is mere convention. It is not nature itself that compels those we call men to be competitive, or to be the provider in a couple, but society. It used to be that women couldn’t get credit without their husband’s approval. It is not nature that dictated this, but society. This restriction disappeared, not because of any change in nature, but because of changes in how society sees the gender binary.

Thus, it is that when I talk about my nonbinary nature, I talk about behavior. This is only because society itself distinguishes one side of the binary from the other in terms of behavior. It happens from time to time that someone interjects that gender identity is not the same as gender expression. Yes, this is true, but it has no bearing on what I am saying.

Let me make this clear. I’m not the gender police. You absolutely can be a feminine man, or a masculine woman, or any other variation. I won’t get on your case for it, and may even give you romantic love. However, as far as I am concerned, when it comes to evaluating whether I am man, woman, or nonbinary, my behavior is a critical component of the analysis.

So society, just like it has made me think that I was neurotypical by treating me like a neurotypical person, has also made me think that I am a man by treating me like a man. This is where gender dysphoria sets in. Yes, I am well versed in looking the part. Yes, I’ve been encultured in manhood, and, usually, I role-play a man. However, there are some behaviors that are required of me, as a man, that I don’t want to engage in. Hence, the gender dysphoria that occurs when I’m pushed to engage in those behaviors.

Still, I don’t feel the male gender in my life. I don’t feel special enjoyment when I do manly things. The notion of whether an act is manly or not does not figure in my decisions. For instance, my relationship with sports has been quite tepid. I used to watch racing, and that was it, as far as sports were concerned. I don’t anymore. I don’t think I’m missing anything important. I’m not pining after sports. It is not somehow missing from my life as a man.

It is only because society insisted that I am a man, and I believed society, that I thought that I was a man. Since I do not feel my gender, where does this lead me, but to the conclusion that I am in fact nonbinary?

#AutisticWriters #behavior #enby #gender #GenderBinary #GenderDysphoria #GenderExpression #GenderIdentity #nonbinary #SocialConvention #YourAutisticLife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/2024/07/08/how-does-one-feel-ones-gender/

I’ve been thinking about gender again. Someone happened to include “If you want to be a [gender], you can just be a [gender]” in an article earlier, which planted the seed of tonight’s thoughts. I was also thinking about my wonderfully close friendship with my best friend. A week ago, she confessed that she couldn’t quite think of me as a woman. I immediately responded, “You think of me however you want to think of me.”

So tonight, as these thoughts ran together, I started thinking that I’m a pretty great guy who also happens to be a pretty awesome woman. 

Before the advent of highlighters or enhancing copy-pasted text, the way to call attention to something particularly important in a written work was to write the abbreviation for “nota bene,” a Latin phrase that means “Hey! Pay attention to this!” Of course, margin notes are always abbreviated, so it’s written as NB.

Getting back to the point, tonight I’m paying attention to that margin note in my own personal gender identity textbook. NB. 

In December, I was starting to think of myself as a non-binary trans woman. Then came my Christmas lunch with the production crew at work. Thirty guys–and me. Not another woman in the group. I felt so awkward and out of place, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When I got home that evening, I stripped the enby symbol from my moniker on Mastodon and deleted my they/them pronouns. There was no way I could think of myself as even partially male if I practically ran away from lunch with the guys because I was squirming so badly.

But even then, I didn’t remove all semblance of masculinity from my identity. I was, for all practical purposes, a man for half a century, even if I didn’t like it. That goes way back. I remember an instance when, after expressing my distaste for my outward appearance, my first wife told me that I was a very good-looking man. I had a conflicted reaction to that compliment. On the one hand, it was confidence boosting to have someone compliment my appearance. On the other hand, I didn’t quite believe her; I thought she was partly just boosting my mood. On the other hand, my strongest mental reaction was to the word “man,” and it was a negative reaction. That really struck me–even more than apparently having three hands. That was about twenty years before I hatched. Yeah, it was a very long river. 

Back to the near-present. I ran away from that manly lunch, and more recently–actually, just tonight–I’ve realized that I’ve been running away from masculinity in general. I hate destructive hypermasculinity. I always have, even when I lived as a man. In a highly blue-collar, male-exclusive group like my crew at work, guys tend to be, well, guys, even if they might be a little less ‘testosterony’ when they’re with the women they know. 

I know other men, of course, and most of them aren’t poster boys for male toxicity. They’re people who do their best to treat everyone the same, and overall, try to be good men. I get along with them just fine in conversation with no awkwardness–although I’m still more animated and effervescent if there are other women in the group.

During my hatching week, I gave my existential uncertainty a persona. I called him Mr. Doubt. I needed him to be there, to express any uncertainty about the road I had just turned onto. This was the most significant life change I had ever embarked on, so if I had any doubts, I could not squash them or evict them from my mind. I had to face them head-on and examine every one of them in detail, just in case I might be wrong about the fundamental shift in my gender identity, which up to that point I had referred to as “pretty much male.” Even before hatching, I was embracing my femininity. I thought of myself as a feminine man who wanted desperately to be accepted as one of the girls–even if I still didn’t like the word “man.”

I know. That wasn’t just a sign. It was an illuminated billboard with flashing blue, pink, and white lights all around it. 

Back to Mr. Doubt. Every question he brought up, every physical attribute he pointed to, every modicum of doubt fell on close examination. He still lives with me, somewhere in the back of my mind. He doesn’t speak up very often, but when he does, I need to pay attention. 

After running, screaming, away from the masculine side of nonbinary, I still didn’t eliminate it from my personality. I thought of myself as semi-genderfluid, justifying it because I would always retain some masculine attributes. I was never cis-normative as a man (ugh, there’s that word again), and I would never be cis-normative as a woman. I would continue to develop my own unique gender identity, along with my own unique brand of sheer hotness. 

Then, two weeks ago, “You think of me however you want to think of me.” I didn’t think about that response. It just came, as naturally as my smile. A week later, my son brought up the fact that he already had two people he called Mom, so having a third might be a little confusing. I told him he could call me whatever he wanted. He still calls me Dad, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I’m even keeping my old name (which I don’t think of as a deadname) as one of my middle names. 

Halfway through my hatching week, way back, six months ago, I told a very awesome person that my interpretation of my version of the last comic in Mae Dean’s hatching series was that both halves of me would merge, creating a perfect balance. It was several days after that when my existential panic resolved with the realization that I don’t have two halves; I’m the same person I’ve always been; I simply know myself better now, and can express myself more authentically. 

Genderfluid. Nonbinary. Trans-feminine. The last term describes me the best, but the other two definitely have their place in my identity. Male or female. Male and female. No. Masculine and feminine–well, in my case, more like FEMININE and (masculine). 

And neutral. There are a lot of aspects of anyone’s personality that don’t have to be gendered. Strength. Integrity. Kindness and compassion. They’re not somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of gender attributes; they’re not related to that dipole at all. 

Damn the binary! I’m more feminine than masculine, but I’m really not a hundred percent man or woman. Well, I’m a lot closer to woman than man, mainly because I want more feminine attributes. Testosterone? I’m happy it’s gone. Estrogen? I want more! As I see my face becoming more feminine, and as others comment on it, I feel a happiness I never knew before my transition started. There are a couple of “pain points” that I can’t stop touching, stimulating more pain, because of what that pain foreshadows. But there’s another point I frequently bring up because I don’t want it going anywhere. 

“If you want to be a [gender], you can just be a [gender].” Or, if you don’t want to be a [gender], you don’t have to be one. 

I’m a chaotic, genderfluid lioness. I spend most of my time near one pole, simply because I love those attributes. But, as I told my best friend several months ago, I got tired of squeezing myself into other people’s boxes, so I decided to make my own. 

I am Violet.

I say that frequently. It’s my username on a number of online spaces, and of course it’s the name of this blog. It’s my identity, more so than any conventional term. My pronouns are she/her. But how I express myself on any given day… Well, you’ll have to wait and find out when I decide!

https://iamviolet.ca/2024/02/19/if-you-want-to-be-or-not-to-be/