(Is it coming out if you were never in the closet about it?)
I don't regard myself as exclusively female, and I really never have. The way I view myself and interact with the world just does not fit into the gender binary. Sometimes I identify as more masculine than feminine, sometimes it's the reverse. I'm perpetually in flux in any given reaction or circumstance, which doesn't really lend to sticking a label on my gender identity and adhering to it.
I'm not transgendered; that's different. I'm perfectly fine with my human suit being female. I'd be fine with it being male, too; I just wish it was more functional! But I don't really have body/mind dissonance. (Well. Except for reasons that have nothing to do with gender.)
I am just sometimes a guy, and that's fine.
I use female pronouns because I grew up with them, so they feel fine applied to me. Plus the only place where I really get asked what pronouns I prefer is my BARCC colleague's pro-feminist men's group, and I choose female pronouns there because much of what they're discussing is male privilege stuff, and no matter how masculine I'm trending in any given interaction, I just do not have the male privilege.
I know that this post will not surprise people who know me in person, many of whom have noticed this without having to be told. But I encountered a pile of bitchiness today directed at me that was all cis-this and cis-that, and I was like "Um. Not cis, actually, and I'm puzzled that you are assuming that."
Because here's the thing; making blanket assumptions can be an intellectual-laziness thing, and in cases like this, it's often a way of othering people and refusing to deal with them as individuals.
But guess what? I do not fit into the gender binary. I never have. Pretty sure I never will. Who am I? I'm
shadesong. There's only one of me. So you don't get to stick a fake label on me and pretend that it tells you anything about me. You have to meet me as an individual human being, and with respect.Which is how you should be treating everyone anyway.
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