I'm waiting for some soup to cool on the stove, so I guess I'll do a thread about gender

(no surprise reveal, just some ruminations)

my personal relationship with gender has always been a battle between how I feel vs how others treat me and resolving the two

I have childhood toys marked "Alex" not Alice, wanted to play on the boys' baseball team, hated puberty, wore suits in school choral recitals etc etc

this sounds like the start of a "and therefore I am a boy" story

but my gender expression doesn't exist in a vacuum

it interacts with society and also my *personality*

I am very much a "works well within constraints" type person

my nightstand is a cardboard box from the last time I moved

it's fine

I look at my body as a pile of resources assigned to me on a deserted island

cool, whatever, I'll make it work

I went through this whole period of researching fashion and makeup

I wasn't trying to become a specific type of woman or man

I was trying to figure out what kind of body/face I have and how to maximize its attractiveness

I know how to dress a slim body with boobs and what haircut works with my jawline

I look good in suits and certain dress cuts and certain hairstyles

I've had conversations with friends where they're like "so you're...*something*" meaning I'm *something* outside of the normal gender binary

if being apathetic and happy to fuck around with gender is nonbinary, then ok

but, the thing is, how I see myself doesn't immediately transfer to how society sees me

society sees me as a woman, has treated me like a woman, for good and for worse

and I'm not interested in investing time and resources into changing myself in hopes that society...won't treat me like shit?

(and there's no guarantee they would stop, anyway)

basically I wake up in the morning and think "hello, my name is Alice. also, I have boobs." similar to "hello, my name is Alice. also, I have brown hair."

and because I have boobs, people treat me differently! they pass over me for promotions, hit on me, sexually assault me, try to take away my rights

but I'm not interested in removing my boobs, because they don't personally bother me. I'm apathetic.

I consider my pronouns to be the same as my cell phone number

it's a way to get ahold of me

I'm still the same person on the other end of the line

I didn't change my cell number when I moved

I'm not invested in changing my pronouns

it's fine

maybe someday it won't be fine! but right now, I really don't care

I would rather do other things than teach people new ways to isolate me

and if I'm not interested in hormones or surgery, then might as well keep being called a woman

because I've been treated like a woman my whole damn life. it's made things HARD. I want that recognized.

so yeah I guess you might call me nonbinary or agender or genderfluid or WHATEVER but what matters to *me* is how society treats me

because when I'm alone, I have no problems

anyway these are just *my* personal feelings

they do not reflect the experiences or feelings of others

please respect people's pronouns and genders