Oh it's #NonBinaryVisibilityDay for #NonBinaryPeoplesDay and my hair's a hot mess but heck it I guess let's talk gender (mine, not yours nor your sisters nor your nice trans auntie's)

(this vapid philosophizing brought to you by Woods Cervezería and the tastiest empanadas west of Guerrero

Gender is a social construct, yes? My social background is growing up in Delaware (miss me with your Wayne's World jokes) in a white secularist family with a side of LDS and Judaism. (I wish I'd known more queer Jews when I was a kid, probably would've been a good influence.)

I grew up socialized like I was born: skinny white boy. Then I hit puberty and was like "oh, boys are cute. So are girls. Wait, could I be a girl too?" (Conflating sexuality and gender? Yep, I was 13 and poorly learned.) So.. innocent crushes on my schoolmates and it was!

My 8th grade Spanish teacher, Sra. Alston, was so sweet with praising me the first day I switched from black nail polish to COPPER. School teachers, I see you affirming your students' gender and sexual identities, and I appreciate you.

You know what happens at some AMAB kids around age 14? Yes, the choir director started stopping me in the hallway asking when I was gonna audition for men's choir. Turns out I was bass. That threw a small wrench in the idea of "can I present as girl?"

(I was trying to find a gif for the "nobody knows the trouble I've seen" scene from Spaceballs but well that's the gif you're getting)

Flashback to when I fell asleep with my bedroom door open after trying on (hilariously poorly) some makeup. The next day my mother shared with me the ground rules for my elder sisters: no makeup outside the house until you're 16.

Apparently my sister who likes dressing up classy practiced for the whole year approaching her 16th birthday. Morning of, dad asks if she wants to wear any out. Mom reports she was already fully made up with a stellar "natural" look.

Meanwhile junior high me was a lame-ass stylist with a goff bent so ... I learned that if you put cheap-ass black lipstick on during lunch, you'll probably end up with teeth stained black for your next class!

In high school, all I knew for trans representation was drag queens, Tim Curry, and (pardon my french) the sh*m*le tab on xhamster. And that one time we watched "A Girl Like Me" with the high school LGBTQIA+ club. So that was helpful for self-actualization, I guess.

Also flashback to that one time I brought my girlfriend from another school into the band room and overhead one of my colorguard friends exclaim "I thought he was gay!" No, honey, just a fairy who hadn't figured out I could separate gender presentation from sexuality.

So, by 10th grade I had figured out "queer activism is important": I drafted an amendment to the Delaware civil code to include same-sex marriage for a Student Government project ... but I had to delegate debating it to a friend because band trip was the same weekend. PRIORITIES.

And sometime in high school, I started occasionally identifying as the third daughter in my family. My sisters were super cool, they offered to buy whatever femme clothes my mother wouldn't. (My parents were chill but didn't want to fund anything too salacious.)

One of my dearest friends from high school, may she rest in peace, drew a portrait of a lithe, femme fairy creature. She had me pegged.

Oh, and of course she knew I had been roleplaying as "Jan" in Rhydin, the town where AOL's FFRP (text-based free-form roleplay) denizens lived.

Back in the 2000s, we'd never heard of "non-binary". My vocabulary was limited to male, female, trans mtf, trans ftm, and "genderfuck" (it me).

(Y'all tumblr kids are living in a gilded age. We just had Deadjournal and Xanga because nobody had the connexions for LJ invites.)

College was fun. I got my first tat, depicting my various options for gender & sexuality derived from the binary, and joined the local Rocky cast, granting the opportunity every Saturday night to put on a skirt, stuff my boobs, and confuse fellas on the street when I said "hey".

Okay, it's been ten years since I got out of school, so I got lazy about wearing anything besides jeans and a t-shirt. But I still remember the joy of innocently subverting social norms by passing for femme until I opened my mouth, and then hearing bros go "whoa wait."

let's talk hair

I thought Joseph Gordon Levitt on 3rd Rock was cute, so I started growing out my hair. Then I realized I much preferred having long hair, with interesting waves, and the opportunity to dye it

Plus ppl like to play with long hair

Did anyone else shave their arm hair? I could wear pants over my legs. I'm lazy about depilation now except for the occasional leg shave, and keeping my face tidy. Still wish I could just disappear all my body hair except light ones for comfort.

Now that tumblr has advanced gender discourse a bit, I feel okay with "non-binary: they or he". "He" ain't quite right, but it not's wrong either, and it's easier for other people. "She" doesn't seem to fit when other ppl say it unless I'm dressed up. Neo pronouns are effort lol

"Auntie Andy" certainly has a better ring to it then "Unca" but um I'm not sure I wanna discuss with my sister about when she wants to teach her kids about trans gender identity.

Anyway, I'm super privileged to have partners over the years who were casually supportive and affirming, especially when it came to doing my make-up and nails (which I KNOW isn't restricted by gender but it's femme and I like it dammit)

And even more privileged to not have suffered any majorly traumatic incidents related to gender and sexual identity, besides the occasional f-word thrown my way and half the eighth grade gossiping about me (but teenagers are shitheads about anything they can find)

I've probably missed out on some social and job opportunities that went to cis bros, but I can't really complain since I've been comfortably employed my whole adult life with co-workers who were supportive or didn't discriminate. (Hooray for tech jobs in performing arts )

Mind you, I've deliberately stuck close to university towns or sexually progressive cities like SF because they're familiar and honestly I'm scared to venture somewhere or speak up too loudly if I suspect I'd get attacked, even with white male ish American privilege.

And when it comes to "women & non-binary" discourse, I appreciate y'all afab nbi's who are supportive of me entering "nbi-friendly" spaces that I perceive as practically restricted to women.. and no, I don't mind being deployed as a pawn against "nbi = woman lite".

That occasional dysphoria? Not enough to motivate surgery or hormones (also I want to avoid relying on external suppliers). But it still feels weird occasionally when I look down and there's nothing to pad out that bodice.

And this sweet gender o' mine? Work in progress, casually, gradually. Some day I'll fix my wardrobe to "mostly cute femme garments cut for a male body".. especially if that skirt has POCKETS.
/fin I guess
PS I see y'all in my notifs and I appreciate yall
PPS send v-neck tanks