So to reiterate - any expression you want to have with your own body, clothing, mannerism, vocabulary - I welcome it.

But I want to retain ownership over the way gender resonates with me. To me, all that stuff above has very little to do with gender. (3/6)

To me, expression is independent of gender, and your gender is completely outside of your control; it resides in the eyes of society. Gender *is* an assignment of society. And so when people expect me to view them as a gender I don't view them as, that just does not work.(4/6)

I can't view them as the gender they want no matter how hard I try.
And to be clear, I still use preferred pronouns and try to do all the least upsetting things for genderpeople. I just am bothered by how afraid I feel to express the way I experience gender. (5/6)

In my ideal world, they would say "Hey, my pronouns are they/them", and then I'd say "Nice to meet you! I process your gender as your birth sex and don't view you as nonbinary personally, but I'm happy to use your pronouns if that makes you more comfortable." (6/6)