This month is the anniversary of my response to The Gender Tag, so I'm posting an update so I can see any changes.
- How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that definition mean to you?
I'm a woman-aligned genderfluid person. This means that my internal relationship with misogyny, femininity, womanhood, and patriarchy is complicated, that my needs and comfort regarding presentation, pronouns, gender labels, and dysphoria vary from day to day, and that while I don't identify AS a woman per se, I do identify WITH women and womanhood in terms of lived experiences and political solidarity.
Other labels I use for my gender are nonbinary, gender variant, and transgender. And words that aren't genders themselves but are extremely relevant to mine are butch, tomcat, and gender nonconforming.
These words mean that I'm a woman-aligned person who loves and prioritizes women, who has a complicated and tenuous relationship with femininity, and expresses myself in a gender-defying way that indicates both of these and also that I center myself, my comfort, and my love of women over what men find attractive, what they think women should look like, and what they hold dear in terms of aesthetics and fashion. In addition to this, butch also tells them that I don't want to be with them for the foreseeable future, that I don't care if they're attracted to me because I'm not interested and their feelings on that are completely insignificant, and that I'm not dating a man and don't need to in order to be fulfilled because women are my priority.
Another gendered term that I've seen and liked for myself is androfeminine, which from what I can tell means something similar to women-aligned nonbinary.
I like it because it indicates what I'm going for and how I feel very well. I assume the first part comes from androgyne, and because of my gender nonconformity and use of he/they pronouns and the way I want my body to look, I do feel like that fits - that I'm between male and female, not quite either, maybe a mix of the two. I relate to trans men and cis women about equally, but neither of them as much as women-aligned nonbinary people, non-aligned nonbinary people, and trans women.
I also consider myself feminine, in an odd way, and aligned with womanhood and femininity.
And I like it because it doesn't actually have the word woman in it. A lot of people, especially cis people obviously, assume that if a nonbinary person identifies with anything from their assigned sex, they're basically cis and are completely comfortable with the gendered terms associated with that - and oh so mysteriously (*cough cough* it's misogyny) they will apply this to nonbinary people who identify with womanhood most often.
It's like they salivate over the opportunity to reduce trans people to our assigned sex and act as if our perspectives and thoughts don't matter, especially if they can frame this transphobia as radical and progressive. Actually, it's not even LIKE that - it IS that.
I've literally seen cis people refer to AFAB women-aligned nonbinary people only as "women/lesbians/wlw who identify as nonbinary", "dysphoric women", or "women who have a complicated relationship with gender" rather than our actual genders. I've stated that my pronouns are he/they, that I'm trans, that I'm not a girl, only for them to disrespect it five minutes later and act like I was oversensitive when it upset me - even if they considered themselves allies to trans people.
I've literally seen cis people refer to AFAB women-aligned nonbinary people only as "women/lesbians/wlw who identify as nonbinary", "dysphoric women", or "women who have a complicated relationship with gender" rather than our actual genders. I've stated that my pronouns are he/they, that I'm trans, that I'm not a girl, only for them to disrespect it five minutes later and act like I was oversensitive when it upset me - even if they considered themselves allies to trans people.
So, yeah. There's that. I like the term androfeminine because it looks and sounds obviously trans. Most of all, because it doesn't say anything about my assigned sex.
People usually assume that woman-aligned nonbinary people are AFAB until proven otherwise and act as if I don't immediately make this clear and essentially tell them what my genitals look like I'm somehow predatory. Totally not transphobic to expect that of a nonbinary person, right? Honestly the only time it's ever necessary or acceptable for anyone except my doctor to ask my assigned sex is when the topic of discussion is transmisogyny and a trans woman present wants to know if I'm speaking from a position of privilege. Any other time, except maybe if I'm discussing something like birth control with a partner, it's completely unacceptable and inappropriate to ask that of me.
Anyway...
2. What pronouns honor you?
He/him and they/them. I use she/her for safety reasons when I'm not out to someone.
3. What style of clothing do you most often wear?
As of late, skirts and dresses because of my internship. I also took a yoga class last spring (with an Indian teacher if you were wondering) and a lot of my clothes leftover from that are feminine so I wear them because they're comfortable.
But normally? Tomboyish mostly. There are times where I'll go all out and wear a dress or something, but my favorite clothes are skinny jeans, sweatshirts, t-shirts, ribbed tank tops, beanies, denim and cargo and khaki shorts, plaid flannel shirts, button-downs, sweaters, leather jackets (bisexual clothes, of course), and Keds or Converse or other shoes in that style.
I'm vain as hell honestly and put a lot of effort into looking good. Just not good in a way straight men like. Good like a '90s bisexual who can steal your girl and look hot doing it.
Also, I really want ties. And waistcoats. And suspenders. Like half my Tumblr is fashion (the rest is social justice, paganism, fandom, humor, and hot people of various genders whose pictures show up on my dash) and so much of that is formal or dapper menswear.
It's really hard to make a veil look good with that kind of thing or to look GNC or androgynous in a veil in general, so usually I wear feminine clothes on religious holidays. Also would someone please help me figure out fashion for religious GNC women who veil because I am Begging You.
4. Talk about your choices with body hair. How do you style your hair? Do you choose to shave or not? What do you choose to shave or not to shave?
My hair is being impossible to style. It's thick, wavy, honey blonde, and growing out from an undercut because I want to experiment and see what I can handle in terms of long hair and looking visibly nonbinary with it. So far it's like three and a half inches long and fugly. I'm trying to be patient.
I haven't shaved my legs in maybe a month, but I did fix the hairs growing between my eyebrows and I've shaved everything else because I don't like the itching. Take that how you will.
5. Talk about cosmetics. Do you choose to wear makeup? Do you paint your nails? What soaps and perfumes do you use, if any?
I almost never wear makeup, partly because of my allergies, partly because of my sensory issues, and partly because I just can't be bothered.
I don't ordinarily paint my nails, but my toes are currently a sparkly blue that's getting pretty chipped. I'm planning to just leave it there until the paint chips off on its own.
I use only non-scented, hypoallergenic soap because after the Great Hives Fiasco of 2016, I'm afraid to use anything else. Which means I don't use perfume either.
6. Have you experienced being misgendered? How often?
What trans person hasn't, really?
Being closeted means that it happens pretty often, yeah. I do tell people that I'm uncomfortable being called miss or anything similar, but not the reason why. Doesn't stop them from disrespecting it, though, and giving a weak half-assed apology - if they apologize at all - but then doing it over and over and over again because cis people are exhausting and apparently have no sense of boundaries.
It's not even always that I'm not out to them and they don't know, either. This happens even when I'm out to someone, which is partly why I rarely come out. They don't fucking care about trans people. For crying out loud, they're quicker to apologize for misgendering an animal than for misgendering a trans human being. If they even see us as fully human.
7. Do you experience dysphoria? How does that affect you?
Yes, both physically and socially.
Physically, it's mostly my chest. I almost never wear anything except sports bras because I immediately feel sick when I wear underwire, push-up, etc. It looks way too feminine, way too womanly.
I did try to bind last year but it was so physically painful and didn't fix my dysphoria, so I stopped. If I'm going to be dysphoric either way, I might as well be comfortable.
What I want to look like physically is like a gender neutral version of a stereotypical twink, basically. Like a cross between that and a stereotypical butch or one of those skinny androgynous cis women who keep telling me they wish they had my curves. Very lean, but also muscular, with great biceps, narrow hips, an angular face, and a small enough chest that I'm read as ambiguous in just a sports bra, jeans, and a t-shirt.
Like I'm not male or female and honestly kind of stereotypically "skinny white AFAB nonbinary", but also like the kind of suave, sexy butch who would be equally at home on a hiking trail, in an expensive suit and leather jacket, in a grease-stained tank top under the hood of a car (not that I actually know how to fix a car), or charming a lovely femme right out of her dress in a booth at Denny's.
I get that this desire is very rooted in being thin and the fact that I'm not thin. I get that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Blame societal fatphobia for that, then shut the fuck up and let me transition how I want to transition.
Socially, I can tolerate being called a woman or girl because that is something I identify with. Other than that, it varies, but feminine-coded pet names are really dysphoric for me, as is being perceived as a cis woman or being read as female by a stranger when I'm not trying to be.
I can tolerate she/her pronouns and being called by my birth name sometimes, but my issue is that because of transphobia those are the ONLY words that people use for me.
So don't be stupid or anything, like don't out me at work, but if I'm out to you already and we're in a situation where it would be safe for people to know I'm trans, call me Ari and use he/him or they/them pronouns.
8. Talk about children. Are you interested in having children? Would you want to carry a child, if that's an option for you? Would you want to be the primary caretaker for any children you have?
I don't currently want kids and am DEFINITELY not interested in getting pregnant. I think I might have tokophobia because the thought of pregnancy actually makes me viscerally shudder and almost start crying, and I honestly think that if I ever found myself with an unplanned pregnancy, I would hurt myself if I couldn't get an abortion. This is one of the reasons I'm pro-choice, actually.
It sounds like sensory hell and it would be a huge dysphoria trigger as well, and even if it weren't for my possible phobia, there's no way in Elysium or the Fields of Punishment that I'm putting up with that for nine months. Not to mention the excruciating process of childbirth, and for what? An expensive tiny screaming box that shits itself, sucks on your tits, and wakes you up in the middle of the night when you're already an insomniac? No thank you.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate kids. You can't be a social worker and hate kids. Even if I did, I wouldn't let them know, because they're impressionable and are just being themselves. I just prefer them in small doses, that's all.
There's other factors going into this. I'm terrified of holding babies, for one thing. And I don't really want to bring a small human into a world like this, especially when I don't feel emotionally equipped to help them navigate it.
So if I ever do have kids, I'm going to either adopt an older one or co-parent my friends' and partner's kids.
I feel like we'd put an equal amount of primary parenting into the kid, just because that's healthier and more balanced.
9. Talk about money. Is it important to you to provide for a family financially if you choose to have one? Is it important that you earn more than any partner you might have? Do you prefer to pay for things like dates? Are you uncomfortable when others pay for you or offer to pay for you?
I mean, as a social worker, you can't really be a breadwinner most of the time in a family or a relationship, and I'm okay with that.
I would totally want to spoil my girl, though, and take her out to nice restaurants and shit occasionally just to see her smile. But I've never actually dated and mostly want to blush and hide around hot people, so this is all just theoretical and I'm not sure how I'd handle it.
10. Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?
Yes, two things.
One, even though I've known on some level that I was trans from a very young age, I do think there are other factors - specifically, being a fat, neurodivergent GNC bi woman - that inform my gender.
Two, I just want to talk to my fellow wlw for a moment. Specifically the ones that aren't trans girls, because being a trans woman isn't an experience I can fully relate to.
There's been a lot of hoopla in our community, especially on social media, about being a "dysphoric wlw" (especially for butch lesbians) or a "woman/wlw who uses he/him (or they/them) pronouns". And I know it's easy to get swept up in that as a young, newly out wlw struggling with gender.
Which is why I want to tell you - unless the person talking about it is non-cis (specifically AFAB/TME nonbinary) themselves and unless it's focused specifically on wlw who aren't cis, take all of it with a grain of salt.
Sure, being a wlw can complicate your sense of womanhood. Sure, you can want top surgery or T or to use he/him pronouns and still be a woman or woman-aligned - just look at me.
But the fact is, things like pronouns and dysphoria ARE socially gendered and they don't exist in a vacuum. So if you find yourself honestly feeling like you might be dysphoric or wanting to use pronouns other than she/her, question your gender.
When I was younger, I had those feelings too. I still do. And if this kind of #radical #discourse had been so present within the LGBT spaces I interacted with when I was sixteen, if I had approached someone with my questions about gender and some cis woman or cis LGB person had strong-armed their way in and yelled about how it was misogynistic and homophobic and reinforcing gender roles to tell me I might be nonbinary or trans, my dysphoria would have been so much worse today because I never would have confronted it and recognized it as a sign that I'm nonbinary.
People usually assume that woman-aligned nonbinary people are AFAB until proven otherwise and act as if I don't immediately make this clear and essentially tell them what my genitals look like I'm somehow predatory. Totally not transphobic to expect that of a nonbinary person, right? Honestly the only time it's ever necessary or acceptable for anyone except my doctor to ask my assigned sex is when the topic of discussion is transmisogyny and a trans woman present wants to know if I'm speaking from a position of privilege. Any other time, except maybe if I'm discussing something like birth control with a partner, it's completely unacceptable and inappropriate to ask that of me.
Anyway...
2. What pronouns honor you?
He/him and they/them. I use she/her for safety reasons when I'm not out to someone.
3. What style of clothing do you most often wear?
As of late, skirts and dresses because of my internship. I also took a yoga class last spring (with an Indian teacher if you were wondering) and a lot of my clothes leftover from that are feminine so I wear them because they're comfortable.
But normally? Tomboyish mostly. There are times where I'll go all out and wear a dress or something, but my favorite clothes are skinny jeans, sweatshirts, t-shirts, ribbed tank tops, beanies, denim and cargo and khaki shorts, plaid flannel shirts, button-downs, sweaters, leather jackets (bisexual clothes, of course), and Keds or Converse or other shoes in that style.
I'm vain as hell honestly and put a lot of effort into looking good. Just not good in a way straight men like. Good like a '90s bisexual who can steal your girl and look hot doing it.
Also, I really want ties. And waistcoats. And suspenders. Like half my Tumblr is fashion (the rest is social justice, paganism, fandom, humor, and hot people of various genders whose pictures show up on my dash) and so much of that is formal or dapper menswear.
It's really hard to make a veil look good with that kind of thing or to look GNC or androgynous in a veil in general, so usually I wear feminine clothes on religious holidays. Also would someone please help me figure out fashion for religious GNC women who veil because I am Begging You.
4. Talk about your choices with body hair. How do you style your hair? Do you choose to shave or not? What do you choose to shave or not to shave?
My hair is being impossible to style. It's thick, wavy, honey blonde, and growing out from an undercut because I want to experiment and see what I can handle in terms of long hair and looking visibly nonbinary with it. So far it's like three and a half inches long and fugly. I'm trying to be patient.
I haven't shaved my legs in maybe a month, but I did fix the hairs growing between my eyebrows and I've shaved everything else because I don't like the itching. Take that how you will.
5. Talk about cosmetics. Do you choose to wear makeup? Do you paint your nails? What soaps and perfumes do you use, if any?
I almost never wear makeup, partly because of my allergies, partly because of my sensory issues, and partly because I just can't be bothered.
I don't ordinarily paint my nails, but my toes are currently a sparkly blue that's getting pretty chipped. I'm planning to just leave it there until the paint chips off on its own.
I use only non-scented, hypoallergenic soap because after the Great Hives Fiasco of 2016, I'm afraid to use anything else. Which means I don't use perfume either.
6. Have you experienced being misgendered? How often?
What trans person hasn't, really?
Being closeted means that it happens pretty often, yeah. I do tell people that I'm uncomfortable being called miss or anything similar, but not the reason why. Doesn't stop them from disrespecting it, though, and giving a weak half-assed apology - if they apologize at all - but then doing it over and over and over again because cis people are exhausting and apparently have no sense of boundaries.
It's not even always that I'm not out to them and they don't know, either. This happens even when I'm out to someone, which is partly why I rarely come out. They don't fucking care about trans people. For crying out loud, they're quicker to apologize for misgendering an animal than for misgendering a trans human being. If they even see us as fully human.
7. Do you experience dysphoria? How does that affect you?
Yes, both physically and socially.
Physically, it's mostly my chest. I almost never wear anything except sports bras because I immediately feel sick when I wear underwire, push-up, etc. It looks way too feminine, way too womanly.
I did try to bind last year but it was so physically painful and didn't fix my dysphoria, so I stopped. If I'm going to be dysphoric either way, I might as well be comfortable.
What I want to look like physically is like a gender neutral version of a stereotypical twink, basically. Like a cross between that and a stereotypical butch or one of those skinny androgynous cis women who keep telling me they wish they had my curves. Very lean, but also muscular, with great biceps, narrow hips, an angular face, and a small enough chest that I'm read as ambiguous in just a sports bra, jeans, and a t-shirt.
Like I'm not male or female and honestly kind of stereotypically "skinny white AFAB nonbinary", but also like the kind of suave, sexy butch who would be equally at home on a hiking trail, in an expensive suit and leather jacket, in a grease-stained tank top under the hood of a car (not that I actually know how to fix a car), or charming a lovely femme right out of her dress in a booth at Denny's.
I get that this desire is very rooted in being thin and the fact that I'm not thin. I get that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Blame societal fatphobia for that, then shut the fuck up and let me transition how I want to transition.
Socially, I can tolerate being called a woman or girl because that is something I identify with. Other than that, it varies, but feminine-coded pet names are really dysphoric for me, as is being perceived as a cis woman or being read as female by a stranger when I'm not trying to be.
I can tolerate she/her pronouns and being called by my birth name sometimes, but my issue is that because of transphobia those are the ONLY words that people use for me.
So don't be stupid or anything, like don't out me at work, but if I'm out to you already and we're in a situation where it would be safe for people to know I'm trans, call me Ari and use he/him or they/them pronouns.
8. Talk about children. Are you interested in having children? Would you want to carry a child, if that's an option for you? Would you want to be the primary caretaker for any children you have?
I don't currently want kids and am DEFINITELY not interested in getting pregnant. I think I might have tokophobia because the thought of pregnancy actually makes me viscerally shudder and almost start crying, and I honestly think that if I ever found myself with an unplanned pregnancy, I would hurt myself if I couldn't get an abortion. This is one of the reasons I'm pro-choice, actually.
It sounds like sensory hell and it would be a huge dysphoria trigger as well, and even if it weren't for my possible phobia, there's no way in Elysium or the Fields of Punishment that I'm putting up with that for nine months. Not to mention the excruciating process of childbirth, and for what? An expensive tiny screaming box that shits itself, sucks on your tits, and wakes you up in the middle of the night when you're already an insomniac? No thank you.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate kids. You can't be a social worker and hate kids. Even if I did, I wouldn't let them know, because they're impressionable and are just being themselves. I just prefer them in small doses, that's all.
There's other factors going into this. I'm terrified of holding babies, for one thing. And I don't really want to bring a small human into a world like this, especially when I don't feel emotionally equipped to help them navigate it.
So if I ever do have kids, I'm going to either adopt an older one or co-parent my friends' and partner's kids.
I feel like we'd put an equal amount of primary parenting into the kid, just because that's healthier and more balanced.
9. Talk about money. Is it important to you to provide for a family financially if you choose to have one? Is it important that you earn more than any partner you might have? Do you prefer to pay for things like dates? Are you uncomfortable when others pay for you or offer to pay for you?
I mean, as a social worker, you can't really be a breadwinner most of the time in a family or a relationship, and I'm okay with that.
I would totally want to spoil my girl, though, and take her out to nice restaurants and shit occasionally just to see her smile. But I've never actually dated and mostly want to blush and hide around hot people, so this is all just theoretical and I'm not sure how I'd handle it.
10. Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?
Yes, two things.
One, even though I've known on some level that I was trans from a very young age, I do think there are other factors - specifically, being a fat, neurodivergent GNC bi woman - that inform my gender.
Two, I just want to talk to my fellow wlw for a moment. Specifically the ones that aren't trans girls, because being a trans woman isn't an experience I can fully relate to.
There's been a lot of hoopla in our community, especially on social media, about being a "dysphoric wlw" (especially for butch lesbians) or a "woman/wlw who uses he/him (or they/them) pronouns". And I know it's easy to get swept up in that as a young, newly out wlw struggling with gender.
Which is why I want to tell you - unless the person talking about it is non-cis (specifically AFAB/TME nonbinary) themselves and unless it's focused specifically on wlw who aren't cis, take all of it with a grain of salt.
Sure, being a wlw can complicate your sense of womanhood. Sure, you can want top surgery or T or to use he/him pronouns and still be a woman or woman-aligned - just look at me.
But the fact is, things like pronouns and dysphoria ARE socially gendered and they don't exist in a vacuum. So if you find yourself honestly feeling like you might be dysphoric or wanting to use pronouns other than she/her, question your gender.
When I was younger, I had those feelings too. I still do. And if this kind of #radical #discourse had been so present within the LGBT spaces I interacted with when I was sixteen, if I had approached someone with my questions about gender and some cis woman or cis LGB person had strong-armed their way in and yelled about how it was misogynistic and homophobic and reinforcing gender roles to tell me I might be nonbinary or trans, my dysphoria would have been so much worse today because I never would have confronted it and recognized it as a sign that I'm nonbinary.
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