Dysphoria Whack-a-Mole
An interesting part of being non-binary for me is that I feel fairly comfortable in a variety of gender presentations. Unfortunately, I've only used this to try to assuage my anxiety by living in 'boymode' full-time. Even though I've enjoyed that presentation at times, It's never been my most authentic self. It'd gotten to the point where I wasn't dressing feminine at all anymore - even stopping hormone replacement therapy.
Compounding this was my move from California back to Kentucky. I naively thought moving back wouldn't change me, that all the growth I'd done in those years would stick; I couldn't have been more wrong.
Despite coming out to my family years prior, they had never gotten any practice gendering me properly because I didn't visit. Some of them didn't have any interest in trying. Because I'm so conflict-avoidant, I'd dress extra boymode-y and avoid talking about anything even remotely feminine. As it would turn out, that excludes many of my interests and activities! The realization they never knew the real me (and never showed an interest in changing that!) was a factor in ending contact.
All of the friends I still had in Kentucky had moved away by the time I got back and settled, and then COVID happened. Getting here and staying inside constantly made me more reclusive than I've ever been. Trying to push yourself back out of the house and push yourself into new gender expression is asking a lot!
In April I started going to a LGBTQ+ clinic that opened in town, and it was really the starting point for a turnaround. I restarted hormones after four long years! Unsurprisingly, that has brought major changes, many of them mental. It quickly became clear that the 'indifferent androgyny' I had been doing could not continue any longer.
It turns out I had been weaponizing my identity against myself! It can feel so convenient to minimize certain aspects of yourself to avoid hard questions. Why be a woman, when it's easier to be androgynous? Why deal with other people's transphobia, when I can just blend in? These small deceptions added up over time, building a sense of dissonance between who I am and how I was presenting myself.
It often feels like I'm starting transition all over again which is discouraging - but it's going a lot better this time. I'm doing things I had always been afraid of - drastic hair changes (I have short blonde hair! I curl it! Innovative!) and wardrobe changes (rompers! dresses! not sweatpants!) that I always talked myself out of now felt necessary to survive.
This has been really good for me. I look in a mirror and actually like what I see for the first time. I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone and tackling long-held anxieties.
Through all of this, new dysphoria triggers I'd never expected keep popping up. My favorite baggy sweatpants (which I loved for being gender-neutral) now cause me dysphoria, and my new women's joggers that are more fitted make me feel good. My staunch disinterest in surgeries became incredulity at a six-month wait for orchiectomy from my insurer. Arm hair that I was fairly neutral toward now has to be waxed regularly.
I even changed my pronouns back to she/her after using they/them for so long! I go by sky (intentionally lowercase) instead of Skylar because it started feeling weird to hear people say my name. That I chose?
Why are all of these things changing? I haven't been able to figure it out, and it is so frustrating. I feel so little control, like my brain is dragging me toward self-actualization whether I want it or not.
This shift in identity, I worry, might be caused by hormones or societal pressure, rather than seeking out my 'true self' if such a thing exists. This worry is just internalized transphobia; I've known who I am for so long, and this was just my latest attempt to suppress it.
I doubt we'll ever to figure out why someone feels like the gender they do. Gender may just be fundamentally irrational. Can I live with that?
- before this i wrote: Standing Up For Yourself is Good, Actually
- after this i wrote: A Journey to Medication