gement | Gender stuff has been weird.

Pronouns, names, all gendered markers have been feeling actively weird for, when I count it out, several years at this point. They fit wrong, like itchy sweaters.

I used to have some nice binary options. While I wished I could get more guy time, it got honored here and there, and I could more or less put it away between times.

I had a female housemate for a year or so who shared my (male but socially androgynous) name. I basically shelved the name, and the identity, for that year, and just lived in a blenderized state for a while, mixing up my clothes and presentation more and more. That housemate's been gone for a while, but the blenderization remained.

My birth name, with its very gendered inflection, has been stinging, just sounding so GIRLY, since about then.

For a while when I started dating W it was a relief, an active relief, to get a space where I was unambiguously treated as male. Then I learned there was such a thing as too much guy time, which was an excess I had really, really never expected to be offered.

We've been going to the local club, and I've been firmly introducing myself with my male name, and feeling the need for downtime from it, trying to roll with it as a relatively androgynous alternative and thinking of a more masculine abbreviation as the 'really guy' version, but it's still my male name and sometimes it's just a bad fit.

Then I've been going into new workplaces, introducing myself with a firm handshake and... muscle memory from the club says I should give the male name (which sounds like a lie) and I swallow it down and give the female name (which sounds like a lie plus it's bucking the muscle memory).

I've been growing out my hair for the Logan's Run costumes. The last month I was starting to feel actively dysphoric about the way I imagined people were seeing my GIRL GIRL GIRL hair. I'm so glad to have it short again, but not too short, because then it's into butch masculine military presentation and that's wrong too.

I had a couple of dreams recently, confirming on two separate occasions that wincing because someone casually gendered me (Excuse me, ma'am. *wince*) has become so routine that it happens in my dreams realistically, unremarkably and without comment. It's just there. Just like in real life.

People have asked, politely and when they see how often I bind despite the fact it gives me migraines, if I've considered reduction surgery. I haven't. At all. I like my body's shape, I like how it moves. I like my facial shape and my voice unless I'm thinking actively about how they're read in specific situations. The one thing I'm not freaked out by is my body. Not interested in messing with that.

Last night, and at least once before, I remembered dreaming that I was naked and had a routine, center-of-the-cis-bell-curve male body. The dream called attention to this because someone else at the beach hadn't expected to see nudity and made a face. I looked down at my body, clear specific visual memory of a typical if somewhat chilled physiology, and then shrugged, because it's the beach and they can live with it. There was no sense of oddity, just like there's no sense of oddity when I look down at my routine female body.

I want to be all the things, and in the absence of getting all the people to see me as all the things all the time, whatever bit is not being recognized squeaks. I'm living with a nearly constant squeak. This is not just frustrating, not even just annoying anymore, it's BORING. It's tedious to have the same problem over and over, with no emotional movement, nothing that I can tell people to do to fix it.

I've asked a couple of partners to start using "they" as my pronoun, and sometimes "Shape" as my name. I also answer to "Space," "M," and "Ferret." These words are place holders. I say, "I'm between gender identities right now, but I'm sending out applications."

I'm not asking that of everyone, though if you think of using "they" that would be awesome.

I think I'm going to start to ask people to be mindful of gendered role words, though. Those I consistently want either neutral or masculine if neutral isn't a choice, and they weigh more heavily than pronouns.

Prince. Time Lord. Sir. Handsome.
Sibling. Kid, Kiddo, Sprogling, Child-person (better than either daughter or son).
Person (better than lady or gentleman in most situations, unless I'm exceedingly dapper). Ferret.

"You, sir, are a ferret and a gentleman."

It'll have to do for now. Stupid sweaters.