I don’t know what my gender is and I don’t care that I don’t know. I also don’t care that I have loved people of all genders.
Others do. They care very much and they make that my problem. Passerby get agitated that they can’t tell what gender I am. To the point of shouting at me, groping me, picking a fight, pulling at my clothes, following me, ogling me, chasing me, mocking me, telling me that I should kill myself. They also get agitated when I hold hands or rest my head against a loved one they perceive to be the same-sex: more faggot this and faggot that, more ogling, more following, more uttering that we should be killed.
These fuckers turn outings into minefields and even though it happens a lot less now, that it keeps happening at all makes it so I never feel safe except when with 3+ friends.
And that’s just on account of the randos. Then there’s the opportunists who notice that queer and trans people are in the crosshairs and jump on the bandwagon to boost subscriptions or votes. I end up hearing their bigotry out of the mouths of people I cross and plastered on social media. These grifters are also the reason the US and UK have joined the ranks of Russia, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia as jurisdictions I can no longer enter.
So while I don’t give a fuck about a lack of clarity in my gender, other people’s reactions makes Gender-with-a-capital-G something I do care about and have to navigate.
Coming full circle
I’m saying all of this because I had been clinging on to identities and presentation that gave me a reprieve from other’s conduct.
When I was young, that meant staying in the closet about my sexuality while I lived with my parents. That proved to be wise. When I was with my first boyfriend, that meant not holding hands in public – we’re perceived as just two guy friends then.
When I went on hrt, that meant passing off as a Binary Trans Woman Who Always Knew™. The doctor reviewing my months-long psych eval to get on them had denied gay trans people and non-binary individuals access – those who didn’t fit into the 80’s tropes she knew.
I fed everyone a palatable story about who I was, one absent of uncertainty. Without that, I wouldn’t of had access to hrt – the most consequential positive change in my life. I wouldn’t of had access to women’s spaces, a place that for all the harassment doesn’t kill me inside like being in men’s spaces does.
Unfortunately, there has been a manufactured panic exploiting uncertainty like mine to delegitimize gender diverse people and force them back into gender roles that only existed in the imagination of bigots. To my dismay, this fear mongering which has percolated my whole life has recently been given new life by conservatives and media types.
In such a climate, it’s important for living counter-examples to be visible for the eggs. My care is secure and I’m financially independent so I can do that.
I am not a butch binary trans woman; that was merely the nearest approximation with the words I knew. I used to call myself genderqueer/gender f*cked before those words fell out of favour and perhaps that was more accurate. Truthfully, I don’t know what I am and that’s okay by me. I don’t need for everything to be definite; our experiences as humans are full of in-betweens.
What I need is to be content – and I am thanks to the changes I’ve made in my life. I have been on hrt for thirteen years and use she/her. These things have been great for my mental well-being. I find joy going off-roading with my truck, watching terrible action movies, baking, girls night, mini-adventures around town, and writing. I feel good in my clothes, which trend masculine.
Conservatives paint me as a monster for living outside the rules they made up around gender. They are full of fear but I am free and happy and that’s all that matters to me – none of the folk they ensnare in their hateful ideology will prevail in my own life.
That said the success they’ve had portraying gender diversity as a threat to women and young people, one that they claim in bad faith should be gated by parents, doctors, and adulthood when they mean for it not to exist at all, makes it that much more important for me to be candid.