former-cis-current-idiot - Tumblr blog

[former-cis-current-idiot]

soooooooooo.

this first one goes out to untangling a whole bunch of things at once. not gonna be a deep dive but is kind of a nice directory to self to start untangling stuff as part of a cemented personal practice. written in a rough chronological order, so I may shuffle these recollections around.

where to begin...

gender identity:

first, just rejecting femininity in general as a kid. asking for LEGOs instead of Barbies. often picking male characters when I play online or make profiles (such as in Animal Crossing Wild World and Club Penguin) and strongly identifying with that presentation. while reading books (there was a wide variety, but most of it was fantasy fiction), most strongly identified w male characters. knew that I was attracted to boys at that time and wd envision bein a knight rescuing crushes from a castle. considered princess stuff and wasn’t really abt it. however, did really connect w tomboy, tough, butch females. this is definitely the origin of being interested in masc stuff.

Halloween: in the second and third grades, I picked Harry Potter and Anakin Skywalker. esp in the Harry Potter costume, ppl wd tell me that Ginny was gr8 (have always had long red hair) and I wd correct them by indicating the glasses and the scar on my forehead. also went with Dawn’s outfit from Pokemon Platinum in the fourth grade; enjoyed the character but definitely did not connect w the style of her costume, just enjoyed my personal relationship the universe.

did enjoy a Rapunzel dress my mom made for me, but I never really connected w the femme side of her. mention this bc I think it’s important to not think of gender sht as universal!!!

at events that requested formal attire, opted for slacks, dress shirts, ties, and vests every single time. was not opposed to dresses but went for ones that weren’t frilly, but crisp and cool. so have never been against femininity, really, but have always rejected overt femininity bc I did not identify that way. give me pants vs skirts/dresses and will be inclined for the masc option every single time. did not respect makeup bc of the same internalized assumptions. have unpacked over time that opting for masc over femme attire hasn’t been a matter of genuine personal identity, but a matter of social identity preference--it was an inherent sense of how presentation affects how I am perceived gender-wise.

had my first friend in school id zemselves as ze/zem and genderfluid. I totally butchered zeir pronouns and did not take zem seriously. zey were very nice abt it and I feel like a complete shitbag looking back.

when I talked to guys, I always wanted to be identified as a bro. of course I had crushes on em but also wanted to be one of them rather than one of the gals. this never came to fruition and I just spent time by myself for the most part w books and the internet.

jr year of high school: began adderall. lost 12ish pounds and in sr year was 125-120lbs, even 116 at one point, and wanted to lose more bc... dun dun na na... my chest. I gained ten pounds and began freaking out internally and began restrictively eating bc being skinny meant a flatter chest. this went on for two years and I had to learn to eat all over again. I never explicitly stated it in my head, but I associated a skinny frame and a flat chest w androgyny and could not wait to return to something neutral and affirming to my inner sense of self. I still do not connect to my fleshy chest but have learned to make peace w my body, not for how others see me but for myself, because attaching a size to how valid I am to myself led to me bullying myself for years.

for cosplay at a con my sophomore year and for Halloween costumes, I picked Ten and Castiel.

after high school, had a person I knew from high school introduce themselves to me as nonbinary. around the same time, learned that Sasha Velour was genderqueer. I knew these things to be true but did not truly register. present me is appalled at past me’s responses to learning these things bc ppl told me that they were nonbinary and I was externally like okay and internally like hmm. not bc I didn't believe them but bc I literally didn't get it.

the key turning point: read the Homestuck epilogues (spoilers btw!! skip this paragraph if you need to), in the order candy and then meat. this was the first time that I fell in love w Roxy. I have always wanted someone to identify with as a character for cosplay reasons, and after becoming extroverted and anxious after being introverted up until my sr year of hs, I suddenly could not get enough of Roxy. I read candy first, and she lived out a whole vanilla life in a magical romantic start to mutual affection w John. I could not relate to her more bc she was over-involved, a hot mess, sincere, trusting, regularly drinking, and totally in love w a stupid boy. and THEN meat happened. Roxy just showed up presenting masc w he/him pronouns. not only did I relate intensely to my reading of a character’s personality, then there HE was employing gender expression in a way that had never occurred to me but I could not relate to me more. I fell in love w the color pink and the fact that I now had a foundational representation for my gender. weeks or just over a month later (something like that), when I was signing into my uni’s clinic for a session w a nutritionist, the gender identity thing arrested me. after a good several minutes of looking at it, I went w NB/afab. I cannot say that those were necessarily my labels, but when I went to fill out the form, filling it out meant affirming how much I related to Roxy. and tbh that's how it is now. that was prob my first instance of gender euphoria. I was practically shaking and my brain was frozen in between two moments, like I was suspended in space and not yet ready to move.

bc of the Shane Dawson vid w Eugenia Cooney, I watched the ofherbsandaltars response video abt Eugenia. I found Dorian’s ED content relatable. I started to watch Dorian’s other vids abt Aspergers and goth sht, the drug vids, started to rlly love the content... and then watched the gender tag videos. up until those videos, did not know Dorian’s name, or HIS pronouns. when he shared that he had a male name, presented as a gent, and identified w he/him pronouns but didn’t mind they/thems... blew my fckin mind. a real human who was trans but didn’t medically transition and also had an ED related to his self-image and primarily attracted to guys. Roxy gave me the foundation, Dorian gave me a real-world example w a very personal twist: the intense identification w being skinny.

came across Luxeander and was doubtful but also appreciative of the enby content.

came across a post by helloitswednesday where they went over restrictive eating habits bc it meant less curves and a flatter chest. I abt died bc wow how was that not me as fck.

have been keeping tabs on another friend of mine from high school who came out as nonbinary, genderfluid, and trans, and I did not relate to their lifestyle at first, but all of their lifestyle changes have been hitting me in very personal relatable ways. turns out that what they were doing is me as fck but they figured it out and were actually doing it and I had been living my cishet-coded experience.

just recently: got a comment from a complete stranger on a photo of me w short hair asking “are you a boy or a girl?” I read that sht and was thrilled bro.

so am currently going through the whole never completely rejecting femininity but also not being sure if I am transmasc and thankful as hell that my name is a name that resonates with me and never interfered with my identity. so it feels like a whole lot of noise for not much change. but it has meant a world of change for myself internally, has helped me interpret what I desire from partners, and helped me unpack my assumptions about myself and other people. so labels only do so much for me, but that’s fine--the results of the work are still tangible to me.

boys from an early age were part of my attraction. but I also identified w em. was obsessed w Harry Potter, and as I’m sure many of you felt, for me Harry was the person 2 be.

sexual attraction also became social for me as well. after that point on my orientation, my orientation formed around assumptions abt whose orientation I fell into. I used to have crushes on gents who were not hets and shipped boy-boy relationships. (most of my fanfics were slash, and I was a hardcore Destiel OTP-er. yes. I’m so sorry.) non-het gents I met I found I was not interested in; I was still overly interested in making their acquaintance bc I still had not had relationships w many in the wild, which was still tokenizing, but I inherently was no longer attracted to the queerness and was rather just intrigued. spending time on queer TikTok and Instagram rlly helped me shape up. speaking of which:

also during uni began to unpack that I was finding myself intensely attracted to anybody that I wanted to be like. unfortunately, came to this realization after I was kicking myself for years bc I was attracted to a handful of my professors over the years. I wanted to melt into the ground and was pissed that I wasn’t finding any peers that I was attracted to. I legitimately fell in love w one of my profs and wanted to die over it. but also there were professors that I was attracted to that I would have assumed previously as not my type. the thing that they all had in common was that I appreciated something about their personality, identity, place in life, and self-assurance that I did not have. I was able to retroactively apply this to other key attractions in my life. early examples: Marty McFly and Milo from Atlantis. McFly was caught in an incredible adventure beyond belief and intensely cool to 12-year-old me. Milo was smart, thoughtful, nimble, relatable, and had an ideal body type, nimble. two boys that I had relationships w in hs had what I now understand as ideal body types that I wd love to have, conventionally pretty/attractive faces, not to mention were lean and lanky.

but also looking back, turns out that I have a record of crushing on anyone with a personality (or who I imagined to be v interesting). prob bc I don't have a personality lmao. anyway, I say that not to dig at myself, but bc I have noticed--how would not crushing on a person change how I interacted with them? bc having more personal gravity, more sense of self, wd contribute gr8ly to me not turning outwards for energy. as an introvert, I was attracted to such personalities and thought abt them in my free time. as an extrovert, I annoy the sht out of them and take up as much time as they allow me as if I can absorb their excretions through my exterior in some sort of personality osmosis. more depth of self required much???

also queer and wlw internet helped me learn how to cherish, celebrate, and LOVE womanhood and femme-ity. they have helped me see how beautiful it is. and I still just don't find myself identifying as a woman. but it is also a world of difference to have a pov abt women outside of a cishet view, and I am super gr8ful--thank u for your work, ladies nd other fine humans.

LGBTQ+ TikTok advanced it. omg the TikTok lesbians. the precious trans kiddos. the beautiful and wonderful and smart and vibrant online bisexual presence. the nonbinary, agender, and genderfluid kickasses. the pansexuals. the homos. so many were there. I loved watchin em and felt a closeness w all of em, but felt like I was looking from the outside in. I especially spent a lot of time watching lesbian and bisexual TikToks. my appreciation for gals grew and had sexual attraction to them affirmed. but also exposure to all variety of peeps was good for me. just seeing the variety of brilliant beautiful thriving queers was good for my soul and gave me a sense for how vast gender is. and how vast sexual orientation is. and how varied the experience. it was deffo very good not only for me to continue breaking out of the cishet assumption for myself, but also to acknowledge how awesome and queer humans actually are. I was in love with every post I came across. I was cheering for these fine humans and accepting everyone, and needing to ask less abt the validity of their identities and rather learning that there is just so much possible and that it is just life. plus how awesome was it that wlw and trans men wd understand my experience a lot better. turned me on to thnkn abt flings and having sexual partners and not just romance. however did not rlly think abt what I cd offer.

ze whole beeswax abt Roxy in candy vs meat? Roxy goes on to take on expression of self in meat. self-actuation. and candy is the story of Roxy fallin in love n havin feels abt a boi she finds attractive n havin a fam. there was a point that hit me that romance-taken Roxy in candy picks a boi, lives a cishet life, and is completely oblivious to otherwise personal change/development/identity.