Anonymous OP 20h

Yeah I’m non binary but like to present masculine with my AGAB cause it saves me a lot of energy in my day to day. When I go out I love to get more dressy and showy but, it still feels like I’m not queer enough? Or I get clocked as just like a gay guy? Or some people think I’m just like exploring being transfem

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Anonymous OP 20h

Then in an odd way, it’s like yes, these are my people but I’m still spending social energy around my gender where it just feels… off. Like I belong, but I feel out of place. Like I’m an enthusiastically welcome guest in trans spaces, but still a guest nonetheless

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Anonymous #2 19h

for sure, being interpreted as “just exploring” can feel so patronizing even when I know it’s 100% not intended that way cause like, I’m not new to being trans & this is not me in a chrysalis stage, my “point A to point B” trajectory just isn’t the classic binary type. I’m actively choosing androgyny for myself in the long term, consistently, not just going through an awkward phase on my path to Becoming A Normative Guy™️

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Anonymous #3 19h

most of the time it’s not so sensational or even negative, but there’s always a minute lack of understanding of my experience in those spaces, even if it’s innocent. it’s why I surround myself with people who Get It

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Anonymous #2 19h

you’re literally me 😭 I only “dress up” when I go to see friends or during hangouts, and even then I’ll sometimes be lax and just dress masc. it’s rough because I have a hard time seeing *myself* as “looking enough like” my gender when I’m not consistent with presentation :/

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Anonymous #3 19h

exactly!! cause yeah, it’s ultimately an uncommon occurrence that anyone within the broader community is actively rude to me about my gender or presentation or anything like that, tbc. and when it comes to close friendships I definitely still mostly gravitate towards other people who are non-binary and/or have unconventional relationships to gender

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Anonymous #3 19h

a couple times now I’ve framed an aspect of my own mindset as if it were likely near-universal for other trans people, or made some sort of “transmascs be like” in-group quip, and then immediately been hit with the information that I was off the mark 💀 which, that’s earnestly my bad for making assumptions and casually generalizing! but the act of generalizing itself wasn’t the problem, the problem was a broadly-Unrelatable generalization. just something I gotta be cognizant of

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Anonymous #3 19h

uggggh the imposter syndrome 🥲 privately I have to be so deliberate about converting my sense of illegitimacy into some kind of impishly campy “I’m only a ‘fake boy’ in the sense that gender is a performance in the first place. I’m playing with some Judith Butler type shit ok. and anyway I’m more like a cat than I am like a person with a human gender identity” bit

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Anonymous OP 19h

your experiences & the way you describe them are really compelling me to try being friends with you 😭 my current & past bsfs were both also “more like a cat than [they] were like a person with a human gender identity” so maybe that’s part of it lol

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Anonymous #3 19h

I also just love the complexity of the human experience, so listening to people with gender experiences as/more complex than mine makes me feel really excited lmao. unironically I love our diversity of identity

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Anonymous #3 19h

i feel this so hard 😭 i was convinced i was a transman for years before realizing it wasn’t for me and that i’m nonbinary/bigender. i’ve rediscovered that one of my genders is still fem but i only dress fem to go out because i feel almost like i’m not allowed to at other times now. like i’m not allowed in fem spaces since i don’t have boobs and i have a deep voice now. i know it’s my own imposter syndrome bc i don’t see other people that way :’)

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Anonymous #3 18h

aw thank you!! that’s really nice to hear. tbqh I’m bad at socializing (for disability reasons, but also: typical feline folly 🙂‍↕️) and the format of YY doesn’t mesh well with the way I go about making friends, but just being able to chat openly about this kind of thing in an anonymous fashion with likeminded folks whose vibes I appreciate is legitimately so fulfilling

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Anonymous #4 18h

I remember pre-transition when I followed genderfluid creators who could present & pass as a man/woman/androgynous, and I felt a strange dissonance of both desperately craving and dreading that. because, deep down, I just wanted to look like me. but “looking like me” has gotten muddled with the desire to present as my gender, so I feel like an impostor either way. especially since I still don’t know what I even *want* to look like yet, since nothing has that specific “rightness.”

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Anonymous #3 18h

re: diversity of identity!! fr fr 💖 I meant to mention this earlier, but I’m pretty sure if I had total individual willpower-driven autonomy over my own gender I would still choose to be bigender. like, the sense of alienation I mentioned is massively overshadowed by how happy I am that I get to move through the world this way and share a sense of real kinship with so many cool interesting and lovable people

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Anonymous OP 18h

exactly, it’s why I’m drawn to anonymous open forums like this. I’m normally awful maintaining online friendships because of my own stuff, but I adore open forums. it’s a space where I can fully express my love of people while also being able to stop when my shitty social battery peters out lol. I’m also a big sharer of things close to my heart (e.g. identity), and not having to fear to misinterpretation or having it used against me is addicting. vulnerability without consequence ftw

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Anonymous #3 18h

ofc I love my friends since really *knowing* people takes time. since you mentioned it, I recently had an epiphany on the whole “I’m more like a cat than a person” thing by having friends express that over time. maybe it’s the catharsis from struggling with empathy bc of my autism, but it’s so, so thrilling to understand an uncommon experience like that on a deep level when I don’t have an analogy from my own life. and, of course, it makes them feel a lot more comfortable expressing it lol

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Anonymous #3 18h

excuse the hyper yap, I get way too excited about people 😭

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