Image Description: A polaroid of Ani in their early 20’s. They have buzzed, dark hair. They're wearing a black apron, smiling as they clean an espresso machine. The wall behind them is red. Through the window, there is a driveway covered in snow.
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Some Days
Some Days
April 26, 2020
I often find myself reflecting on my experience with gender. Right now, during this pandemic, it seems like I am being forced to face my internal dialogue more intensely. And it feels painful as of late.
From what I can see as an essential worker in the middle of all of this, every person is on edge and in fight-or-flight mode. And that it feels incredibly difficult to engage meaningfully with others due to social distancing, anxiety, and fear of uncertainty, which is normal given the circumstances. But my desire to be understood and seen has not gone away because of it all. My feelings haven’t paused because of this hardship. It feels like I am aching for certainty during this time of uncertainty. That is why I feel the need to express myself right now, as I have found myself struggling emotionally to feel okay. Although I come across as proud of my identity, some days I face intense self-doubt and shame for who I am. And right now, to stave off those negative feelings, I need to share who I am to feel empowered, to feel real.
Before I get into this post, I want to be very clear and say that not every trans person, non-binary person, trans-masculine person or trans man views their body or self in the way that I do. I feel it is important to note that the experience of gender is subjective and that I speak for myself, especially during this time where other queer people may be feeling vastly different things that are also valid and worthy of acknowledgement, too.
At the beginning of my social transition to affirm my gender, I was pressured to choose he/him/his pronouns by a supervisor who called me to her office and asked me how I identified, to which I replied that I was unsure how to respond. She further pressed that I had to choose a sex/gender because my clients were “confused” by my presentation. This occurred literally 2 weeks into this job and living in Louisville. I felt forced to choose an identity that I was not ready for due to transphobia, cissexism and a lack of resources or support. At the time, I was not aware that there were more options than “she” and “he” for pronouns. I was not aware that there are more than two genders, nor that I may have known or seen trans or non-binary people in my life.
As time passed, I felt restricted by he/him pronouns. I had previously been boxed in by gender expectations of womanhood, and was now boxed in by traditional ideas about what maleness and masculinity meant—what roles I was expected to play, what I was supposed to be like, feel like, act like, etc. Some days, the experience of masculinity felt empowering and euphoric. Yet other days, I felt restricted by this binary identifier. Most days, the experience of my gender was nuanced, peppered with a variety of feelings. I can safely say that I have consistently felt more than just masculine. About 2 years ago, I changed my pronouns to they/them to express my non-conformity to a gender binary, to explore more of who I really am without what I feel to be rigid pressures that come with “she” and “he.”
Currently, I have been researching trans and gender-nonconforming identities and watching YouTubers to see people talk openly about their experiences. I still feel like I am seeking terminology that will describe my gender more comfortably. I recently came across several articles by Mere Abrams, a researcher, writer, consultant and LCSW that I also follow on Instagram. They define a few terms that I find relatable right now: demiboy and genderqueer. A demiboy, or demiguy, “is a non-binary gender identity that describes someone who partially identifies with being a boy, a man or masculine” and genderqueer “describes someone with a gender that can’t be categorized as exclusively male or female, or exclusively masculine or feminine,” (Abrams, 2019). I have previously described myself as trans and non-binary and now I feel that I can explore the terms demiguy and genderqueer to elaborate on my relationship with masculinity and with the spectrum(s) and concepts of masculinity and femininity.
While searching for people who identify as a demiguy, I found a different perceptive than my own from J. Latso, a fat person of color who identifies as non-binary and a demiguy. In their article “Coming Into My Gender: 5 Reasons Identifying As a Demiguy Brings Me Both Fear and Freedom,” (2017) Latso describes their experience being raised with men, being sensitive, their fear of coming out and why demiguy best describes their gender. It felt validating to read their story, to read about a person assigned male at birth who feels partially connected to masculinity and manhood. As my body changes with testosterone, I am seeing masculinity reflected in my body, yet I still feel non-binary. That’s why the term demiguy—partially boyish, partially masculine, partially manly—has been resonating with me. What I know and see in Western masculinity|manhood through images of whiteness, stoicism, intellectualism, assertiveness, chivalry, courage, the family provider and protector, etc. is not a full picture of who I feel I am. Yes, I relate with some of these traits, yet the Western archetype of manhood often comes with a forceful denial of emotion, softness, and femininity, which I cannot relate with. I feel intellectual, assertive at times, chivalrous at times, courageous, protective, but I am also intuitive, emotional. I love cooking, painting, and talking about feelings with others. I am thoughtful, creative and sentimental. And although identifying as a man can be a varied, diverse, queer experience, when I say aloud “I am a man” I don’t feel it resonate fully with my heart. Although masculine describes how I feel about my body, it does not reflect the entirety of my gender identity in social and personal contexts.
I think that my relationship with the concepts of gender is influenced by the mindful, emotional, and spiritual experiences I often have that make me feel genderless. On days when I am writing, creating, meditating, thinking, I am my thoughts and beliefs and creativity. I am art. I am creation that is bodiless and formless, free to birth whatever comes from my mind, heart and hands. This is a very real experience, where I feel that I am a spirit of sorts, a genderless entity that exists in connection with all of existence: the elements, colors, light, space, infinity. I feel this quite often, that my body is merely a vehicle for my spiritual experience. I do not feel as if I am agender, as I feel gender-full in social contexts. I am trying to express that my whole person is more expansive than sex and gender, that my Consciousness is an entity in itself that has no gender, as it is formless and co-exists in other contexts outside of human-ness. Therefore, I have the ability to engage with gender and interact with my environment in expansive ways because I am Will, I am Life, I am Nature itself.
With this is mind, some days I feel that binary terms of masculine and feminine do not fully define me, where I am not limited to or controlled by concepts of sex or gender, where I feel I exist adjacent to the binary concepts of male and female, man and woman, that I live in a gray area, a space overlapping what society defines as manhood and womanhood. When I look in the mirror, I see a face with hair and see maleness in my body. But even these “mirror moments” simply feel like a counterpoint to my assigned sex and gender, depicting a visual change from smooth to rough, from round to square, a change that signals a resistance to and a debunking of outdated cultural, social, and scientific beliefs that say I was supposed to be feminine, I was supposed to be girly, I was supposed to want to make babies, I was supposed to be nurturing. This concept is called gender essentialism, “the belief that a person, thing, or particular trait is inherently and permanently male and masculine or female and feminine,” (Abrams, 2020). My mirror moments debunk this myth. And I love that my body is capable of living on this natural spectrum of human sex traits.
Most days, this all feels hard to reconcile. Last week, I had an emotional breakdown because I have been feeling the pressure to conform to traditional masculinity in ways that feel inauthentic to me. Ways that were bordering machismo and over-confidence which I despise and want to distance myself from. But I have been feeling this pressure to conform because of how people are treating me now. Being called bro, brother, guy and man numerous times a day, every day, with a lack of emotion or genuine sentiment makes me feel cold and disconnected. And it makes me feel that I have to file myself into a binary category to feel real in my body, that I have to identify as being on|coming from|existing on one side of an imaginary line in order to feel seen. I have to remind myself that I am valid how I am and that “masculine” is a word to communicate how I feel at times, but that my gender is more nuanced than a one-word description of myself.
This journey is challenging and beautiful all at once. Recently, I have been feeling invalid, unknown and unreal for being trans. But some days, I feel incredibly confident. I look at my chest and feel euphoric. I look at my whole body and think how wonderful I look, how wonderful I am, in all of the ways I am exploring with self-identification: trans, demiguy, non-binary, genderqueer. I want to remind myself that these are beautiful words to try on.
Sources:
Abrams, Mere (2020, January 27). Gender Essentialism is Flawed: Here’s Why. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/gender-essentialism
Abrams, Mere (2019, December 20) 64 Terms That Describe Gender Identity and Expression. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/different-genders
Latso, J. (2017, April 6) Coming Into My Gender: 5 Reasons Identifying As a Demiguy Brings Me Both Fear and Freedom. The Body Is Not An Apology. https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/coming-into-my-gender-identifying-as-a-demi-guy/
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