Thread by @musaho_books, So I've been realizing more and more as time passes that manhood, [...]

So I've been realizing more and more as time passes that manhood, masculinity, being a man, all of those things just don't resonate with me.

Everytime I speak of men, I speak of them as if they're as alien to me as women are. Being a man is just not something I've ever really, in my soul, identified with. And I'm only now realizing that.

And it's not just that I dislike what men generally are. It'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't resonate.

I think it's good for men to contemplate more healthy, and less toxic/hegemonic ways of being. But I'm realizing that that's not my journey, 'cause, well, I'm not a man. And that feels right to say.

That's the thing. Calling myself a man never felt right. Weirdly, I don't mind saying I'm gay, but I hate saying I'm a gay man. I spoke to my counsellor (who's amazing) and she suggested that maybe I'm a gender fluid man. And, while I liked that term, I hated that man was in it.

And if all of that hasn't confused me enough, listen to this... I've always fantasised about being a girl. Ever since I was a child, and even now. I have a female alter-ego who's smart and badass and beautiful. She's a better version of me.

For a long time I thought, okay then, maybe I'm a trans woman? But what I'm starting to realise is that that alter-ego isn't so much a woman who I wanna be, but rather my bottled up feminine energy who can'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't make me look like America'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'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't mind using he/him pronouns either. Hell, y'all call can all me she/her if you want too idc.

What I've been learning about myself is that I'm not invested in the gender binary. I'm not interested in being a man or a woman. I'm not interested in being gendered. I'm Saajid.

Idk if I'm ready to call myself non-binary. I fear that people (and it's really cis people, not nb people) are turning nb into another gender category because they misunderstand it. To them, it's the third gender. There's man, there's woman, and there's non-binary.

I don't want be categorised. I don't wanna be gendered. I'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'm not hopeless though, we just got a lot of work to do.

I feel like non-binary is something I will eventually be comfortable with. Or maybe not, I don't know. Until then, there's one thing I know for sure:

I'm not a man, I'm just Saajid. And I thank Allah for making me the way they did.

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