Does your past matter? Or is everything about the present?
>>[[Of course it matters, the is what makes the present and builds into the future.]]
>>[[The past doesn’t matter. What matters is who you are now.]]
Age 7, you are a girl. *Act like it*.
You’re only seven, you don’t have an understanding of the concept of gender or what gender roles are. But you know that you aren’t “normal”. The boys don’t want to play with you because “you’re a girl”, and the other girls don’t want to play with you because “you aren’t girly enough”. [[You’re being told the way you *dress* isn’t normal for a little girl, your *haircut*, your *interests*.]] All you can do is wonder “why??”.But who ARE you now? As of late, you've been experimenting with different pronouns, different names you can be called.
You don't always feel like a girl, but you also rarely feel like a boy. Usually you're something...in between? But it still fluctuates. And as you explore who you are, you wonder if the people around you will get tired of it one day. If at some point they'll get sick of you "feeling like a boy" and wanting he/they pronouns one day, but then explicitly wanting to be referred to as "she/her" the next because [["Suddenly, I think today it feels wrong to be anything else."->you push it away]] Age 15, you ~~ARE~~ a girl. *Remember it.*
Recently, you went on vacation with your family to Vegas. There wasn’t really anything special about it. You didn’t get to do much really. But you did see a few drag queens. And while you had previously only encountered the queer community online, you were excited to see that they could exist in the phsycial realm as well.
You noticed your mom glaring at them.
“Ugh, why would they do that? Isn’t that weird, don’t they know they’re men? They look so foolish” you heard her mutter. It reminds you of when you were seven and you felt like you didn’t fit it, how you [[still feel like you don’t fit in]].
The way she talks about them makes you feel weird, as if she was talking to you, about you, about how you couldn't just *be* a normal girl. Quietly, you store away this memory.
Age 17, you are a ~~GIRL~~. *Stop pretending you aren’t.*
The hair salon, a place you’ve avoided because you’ve never felt like you had any control over how you’d look after. There are too many opinions you never asked for and at the end of the day, they always ask your mom if she likes it, as if it’s her hair and not yours. But today you came on your own, you booked your own appointment. After seeing different content creators talk about the gender euphoria they feel making a big physical change, you finally decide that maybe the little voice that's been telling you that you aren't exactly a girl is right. You decide that maybe you'll "indulge" the little voice and see where it takes you.
And even though you had to book under a "woman's" cut it's okay. There’s nobody here besides a few staff members, you can cut your hair how you want.
“What are you looking to get done today, *miss*?”
“Uhm, I wanted to cut it short, maybe something like this?” You show the hairdresser a picture of a man with short fluffy hair.
“Oh! That’s a pretty big change, you have long hair right now. Are you sure?”
>>[[“Yeah, this is what I want.”]]
>>[[“Oh! Uh, actually nevermind, I think I’ll just get a trim sorry.”]]
“Okay then, just sit in the chair here and we’ll get started right away!”
You set your glasses aside and take a seat. As you get your haircut, you think about how people might react, the hairdresser was right, this IS a big change. Are you really ready for it? Why did you even want to cut your hair [[so short anyways?]] Why did you have to open your eyes to new possibilities, was pretending to be a girl really that hard for you?
“Ah okay then, just sit in the chair and we’ll get started right away!”
You set your glasses aside and take a seat. As you get your haircut, you think about what the hairdresser said, how the cut you showed would’ve been a big change. She’s right, what on Earth possessed you to have wanted that? You brush the thoughts away as you finish up your appointment.
“We’re done! What do you think?”
It’s just a trim, nothing drastic and one could argue that barely anything even changed. Why is that upsetting? Why can you just be you.
“I think it’s fine, thank you.”
You pay and leave, quietly [[storing these feelings away]].
Before you can think further, your thoughts are interrupted by the stylist.
“We’re done! What do you think?”
It’s not nearly as short as you wanted it, in fact this could pass as an outgrown pixie cut.
Should you say something about it?
>>[[Well you are paying for it, you may as well get your money’s worth right?]]
>>[[Asking for a short haircut was already hard enough, and this is already a lot shorter than before, maybe you should just leave it as is for now. Besides, does it really matter? You don’t even know why you want such short hair anyways.]]
“Would it be okay if it was a bit shorter?” you asked.
“Mmmm, I think this is short enough, any shorter and you’ll end up looking like a boy and we wouldn’t want that would we?”
“Right…”
You pay and leave. Something about that interaction made you feel weird, you obviously showed a picture of a man with short hair and the stylist agreed. So why would it matter if you looked like a boy? It’s not like you want to look like a boy but you’ve also never really wanted to look like a girl either.
On your way home, you bump into a friend.
“Oh my- Your hair is so short! You look so gay now haha!”
“I mean, I am gay though? Kind of…” you replied. What does that mean anyways, you think to yourself.
“Yeah but now you look gay y'know. Like I could mistake you for a little boy haha”
>>[[“Mmm I guess so? Uh anyways I gotta go.”]]
>>[[“What do you mean?”]]
You thank the stylist before paying and leaving. You're not sure what to do the opposition you feel at every step of trying to look *less feminine*.
On your way home, you bump into a friend.
“Oh my- Your hair is so short! You look so gay now haha!”
“I mean, I am gay though? Kind of…” you replied. What does that mean anyways, you think to yourself.
“Yeah but now you look gay y'know. Like I could mistake you for a little boy haha”
>>[[“Mmm I guess so? Uh anyways I gotta go.”]]
>>[[“What do you mean?”]] What did she mean by “you look so gay now” was that a bad thing? I mean it’s not a secret you’re pansexual. It’s kind of weird and complex in a way that people brush off with jokes because they’re not exactly sure what it means and you’re not exactly sure how to explain it. But you’ve never really been told you look gay. Is it a bad thing? You hope not. But maybe you shouldn't have made such a drastic change, maybe you should've started off small and changed your mind while you had the chance. All you want is to step out of the box you were put in and to feel at [[home]] in your body. “Like, because you have short hair y’know? Like a boy. It was just a joke, don’t take it so seriously, anyways I gotta go.”
A joke, something so monumental to you was just a joke to somebody else. Maybe you should grow out your hair again, just laugh this off as a bad choice and go back to just being a girl. This was a bad idea, and you already feel the consequences of these actions. You knew you should've started off small, why didn't you change your mind when you had the chance? All you wanted was to escape the feeling of being boxed into a category and instead feel at [[home]] in your body. Age 20, you’re a girl…*right*?
You’ve gone through a few different phases of style, experimented with different forms of expression. Trying to stick to one thing feels…wrong… to put it simply. It’s like you feel suffocated when you’re put in a box. Looking too masculine OR too feminine both feel weird.
But you’re a supposed to be a girl. You’ve always been a girl, you’ll always be a girl. You can’t be something else. It’s already hard enough to explain your sexuality, how are you supposed to explain that sometimes you wanna be seen as a girl, sometimes you wanna be seen as a boy, or neither, how the hell are you supposed to explain that sometimes you don’t want to be seen as either you just want to simply be.
So maybe you HAVE to be a girl, not because you think you are, not because you want to be, and not because you are, but because you HAVE to be. If you have to be perceived you may as well be perceived in a way you don’t need to explain. [[You push these feelings away one more time.]]
Present day. You’re…not sure.
You feel different day to day. Sometimes you DO want to lean into a certain type of gender expression but sometimes...you just can't put words to how you're feeling. It's complicated. That's all you're sure about. You're not like the transboys or transgirls you watch on YouTube who've talked about how they feel after getting top surgery or getting on hormones, you don't want a change that permanent, because there are still days where you "are a girl"...or well, as much as you can be. You're not cisgender in the sense that you just wish you were more like other women. Because there are days where you *are* perfecty content in your body, it's just not always, because you're always fluctuating.
You kind of envy those who are so sure of themselves. People who can openly say that they're a girl or a boy, trans or nonbinary or anything else they identify as and the people around them get it, because they look the part. You hate that you have to "look the part" for people to respect you in what you think you are. You hate having to explain your thoughts on gender because most peole don't get it and you hate that this part of you festers into self loathing the longer [[you push it away]]. You don't fit into the boxes that are provided for you because your feelings about who you are and how you identity shift. But maybe you're ready to explore your gender identity. It's tiring trying to be somebody you aren't, even if on the outside you often *look* like you're a *girl* that doesn't mean that you *are a girl*.
You're just you. But "just you" isn't a box you can check on a survey or an option when you book a hair appointment. Everything around you is gendered. Everything around you wants you to choose. Maybe the people around you DO want you to choose.
And the thing is, some days you think to yourself "maybe I should have stuck with she/her pronouns, I wonder if it's too late to go back..." and it's not because you feel like you're always a girl, but because it would be [[easier to be a girl]].
You wouldn't have to wonder if people are perceiving your gender the way you want them to because you wouldn't be "indulging" yourself, you'd just have to focus on pretending to be just a girl, something you've practiced for the majority of your life.
You wouldn't have to think about if you're supposed to book as a "man" or a "woman" because the haircut you want is masculine but you know the shop would put you under the "woman" box. You'd just be getting "normal" girl's hair cut as a woman.
You wouldn't have to figure out what box you should check when trying to sign up for a dating app. Because yeah, right now you look like a girl, but a lot of the time, you just don't feel like a girl, you don't really feel like you're anything in particular.
And you woulnd't have to consider if you should invest in a binder so you can *REALLY* flatten your chest some days and feel more at home in your body.
[[Because if you decided to give up "indulging" yourself you'd just be a girl.]]But you're NOT "just a girl". And even if you don't know how to communicate that, at least you're trying.
Because no matter how hard you try, these aren't feelings you can just push away. These are feelings that fester into discomfort, feelings that will follow you in your everyday interactions and how you understand the world.
These are the feelings that opened your eyes to realizing that maybe the reason you don't feel like you fit in is because you don't want to be assigned to a box. You just want to be [[you]]. { https://youtu.be/2APLh8_ExU0?si=uy2GSAg0Ip6fchmY }{ https://youtu.be/GYsgDprYmIw?si=j7wsyU_WKR2ucY_E }