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So I& #39;ve been realizing more and more as time passes that manhood, masculinity, being a man, all of those things just don& #39;t resonate with me.
Everytime I speak of men, I speak of them as if they& #39;re as alien to me as women are. Being a man is just not something I& #39;ve ever really, in my soul, identified with. And I& #39;m only now realizing that.
And it& #39;s not just that I dislike what men generally are. It& #39;s not simply a disdain for toxic masculinity that makes me feel this way.
Even when we entertain the conversation of redefining manhood or masculinity to be more pro-feminist, which is great, it still doesn& #39;t resonate.
Even when we entertain the conversation of redefining manhood or masculinity to be more pro-feminist, which is great, it still doesn& #39;t resonate.
I think it& #39;s good for men to contemplate more healthy, and less toxic/hegemonic ways of being. But I& #39;m realizing that that& #39;s not my journey, & #39;cause, well, I& #39;m not a man. And that feels right to say.
That& #39;s the thing. Calling myself a man never felt right. Weirdly, I don& #39;t mind saying I& #39;m gay, but I hate saying I& #39;m a gay man. I spoke to my counsellor (who& #39;s amazing) and she suggested that maybe I& #39;m a gender fluid man. And, while I liked that term, I hated that man was in it.
And if all of that hasn& #39;t confused me enough, listen to this... I& #39;ve always fantasised about being a girl. Ever since I was a child, and even now. I have a female alter-ego who& #39;s smart and badass and beautiful. She& #39;s a better version of me.
For a long time I thought, okay then, maybe I& #39;m a trans woman? But what I& #39;m starting to realise is that that alter-ego isn& #39;t so much a woman who I wanna be, but rather my bottled up feminine energy who can& #39;t really come out. The good sis is stuck inside like Covid-19 got us now.
But then came the nath. This nose ring is just a simple piece of cheap costume jewelry (it already rusted away, I had to buy a new one lol). But even though it may seem mundane and unimportant, it shifted my whole life. It made me realise something.
It became a performance of femininity to an extent that I never went to before. Yes I know it doesn& #39;t make me look like America& #39;s Next Top Biological Cisgender Female Model, but it makes me feel like me. That inner female energy finally got a small channel of outward expression.
When I think of my ancestors, I think of those Muslim and Hindu women from India who got on ships coercively and new lives in the Caribbean. And while they didn& #39;t wear a rusty piece of costume jewelry they found on amazon, it still makes me feel close to them.
This is why the they/them pronouns have become more attractive to me. But I also don& #39;t mind using he/him pronouns either. Hell, y& #39;all call can all me she/her if you want too idc.
What I& #39;ve been learning about myself is that I& #39;m not invested in the gender binary. I& #39;m not interested in being a man or a woman. I& #39;m not interested in being gendered. I& #39;m Saajid.
Idk if I& #39;m ready to call myself non-binary. I fear that people (and it& #39;s really cis people, not nb people) are turning nb into another gender category because they misunderstand it. To them, it& #39;s the third gender. There& #39;s man, there& #39;s woman, and there& #39;s non-binary.
I don& #39;t want be categorised. I don& #39;t wanna be gendered. I& #39;m a self. A person. A human. And yes, the world defines me and treats me a particular way because of my biology. But the soul is beyond the biological mass it dwells in.
Also being from Trinidad, being from a Muslim community, the thought of being openly non-binary in front everyone I know on a day to day basis is, well, almost impossible to conceive. I& #39;m not hopeless though, we just got a lot of work to do.
