Gender As I Experience It
I was born trans. That is my sex differentiated characteristics set at different times in fetal development were not consistent enough with the gender I was assigned at birth. Most of the ones that I think underlie gender as one experiences it internally were set more to the female end of the spectrum despite other external appearing ones set male. Eventually I transitioned, decades ago, to live and present in my internally experienced primary gender. However I think male/female are poles in a continuum at best. There are aspects of me that are biologically set to male and others to female. The female predominates for experienced gender and is where I decided to publicly hang my hat as well.
Sex, sexuality, gender identity or experienced gender, and gender expression are all continuums and can vary. Yes there are norms of the various curves most people cluster around. But still continuums.
All my life I have also been resistant to the entire gender noise and resentful of all the emphasis that is put upon it. I am very glad I transitioned and I am much more sane and happy in female being in the world than I ever was in attempted male being in the world. But they are both projections and roles and dancing around and within expected presentations/feeling tones/emotion ranges/ hormonal mixes/etc. At deeper levels of my being I know that neither is fundamental to what I really am. I know that much of what anyone does or cares about is not male/female bifurcated at all. The entire idea is meaningless at some level and yet so deeply part of human experience.
At some level I still feel like I am acting. Much much less acting and far less frustrating and alien as female than as male but still at some level acting. When do I get to just be me with no glimmer of acting is a question I still wrestle with.
When I was a child presented with a form with a box for male or female I would often be stuck trying to decide which to mark. I have aspects of both and have experienced lived in both to some degree.
I increasingly think of myself as a nonbinary trans woman. Most of these gender hard wirings, if you will, in me are female. However I am tired of being squeezed into a pretend disjoint category for “gender” at all. It doesn’t feel fully “me”. I am quite sure I am not a “man”. But "male" or "female" are settings of some aspects of the totality of “me” and not others, many of which do not meaningfully have a gender label, whether they transcend gender or such categorization simply does not apply.
/ sister_sam
npub1uq…8xggf
2025-01-29 00:17:35
Author Public Key
npub1uqmy9zln20k7xv7pc58jk2j89gau505pmf3jkum8qv4lt0m3kl2qz8xggfPublished at
2025-01-29 00:17:35Event JSON
{
"id": "104b49df2a782381c2b3c5602ccc5e74815d5b9c3a7bec80c8f2ea99fc0b0dc4",
"pubkey": "e036428bf353ede333c1c50f2b2a472a3bca3e81da632b7367032bf5bf71b7d4",
"created_at": 1738109855,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "Gender As I Experience It\n\nI was born trans. That is my sex differentiated characteristics set at different times in fetal development were not consistent enough with the gender I was assigned at birth. Most of the ones that I think underlie gender as one experiences it internally were set more to the female end of the spectrum despite other external appearing ones set male. Eventually I transitioned, decades ago, to live and present in my internally experienced primary gender. However I think male/female are poles in a continuum at best. There are aspects of me that are biologically set to male and others to female. The female predominates for experienced gender and is where I decided to publicly hang my hat as well.\n\nSex, sexuality, gender identity or experienced gender, and gender expression are all continuums and can vary. Yes there are norms of the various curves most people cluster around. But still continuums.\n\nAll my life I have also been resistant to the entire gender noise and resentful of all the emphasis that is put upon it. I am very glad I transitioned and I am much more sane and happy in female being in the world than I ever was in attempted male being in the world. But they are both projections and roles and dancing around and within expected presentations/feeling tones/emotion ranges/ hormonal mixes/etc. At deeper levels of my being I know that neither is fundamental to what I really am. I know that much of what anyone does or cares about is not male/female bifurcated at all. The entire idea is meaningless at some level and yet so deeply part of human experience. \n\nAt some level I still feel like I am acting. Much much less acting and far less frustrating and alien as female than as male but still at some level acting. When do I get to just be me with no glimmer of acting is a question I still wrestle with.\n\nWhen I was a child presented with a form with a box for male or female I would often be stuck trying to decide which to mark. I have aspects of both and have experienced lived in both to some degree.\n\nI increasingly think of myself as a nonbinary trans woman. Most of these gender hard wirings, if you will, in me are female. However I am tired of being squeezed into a pretend disjoint category for “gender” at all. It doesn’t feel fully “me”. I am quite sure I am not a “man”. But \"male\" or \"female\" are settings of some aspects of the totality of “me” and not others, many of which do not meaningfully have a gender label, whether they transcend gender or such categorization simply does not apply.",
"sig": "31a8539d092e9ed010676fa484befc35896859c845129fcbf4f5861641cea623634275d823675189ffcd6ae87129b7baafd0ca9bc0abee7cb70d4476a4e831c7"
}