The Unit of Caring

Anonymous asked: 1) I have a strong negative/dismissive gut-feeling towards nearly every modern theory of non-binary gender I've read. I can rationalize the existence of such a thing, but nobody *else* describes it in a way that doesn't seem faintly silly. 2) I have a strong gut feeling that my own concept describes me personally. I experience dysphoria/urge-to-transition but it directs nowhere. I don't feel better cross-dressing. I love androgyny. I would love advice/thoughts/reassurance. Thanks.

Brains are weird, and what is going on in peoples’ brains that makes them want to transition is weird, and finding the language to describe to other people what is going on in your brain is really hard. I wouldn’t put too much weight on the fact you don’t relate to other peoples’ effort to put into words what their concept is. 

(Also, consider that you might have a negative/dismissive gut feeling for reasons like ‘this explanation uses vocabulary that I associate with communities hostile to me’ and ‘this explanation presumes things about gender that I would get laughed at for believing’, which could give you a gut feeling of Not For Me even if they’re describing something similar to what you have going on.)

So, like, put that aside. It’s not something you have to resolve before you start doing things that make you happy. You have your own concept of what it’d mean to be nonbinary, and you match your concept. Cool. As far as I’m concerned, that’s more than sufficient to justify identifying as nonbinary, if there are contexts in which being identified as nonbinary will make you more comfortable/happier/feel more honest/whatever. 

As for things you can do from here: some people like to make a blog with their preferred gender, pick out a name, take pictures, see how they feel about all of that. Some people like writing things about them or rewriting old things about them for gender fit. Maybe you’d get something out of writing up your concept of nonbinaryness, both for yourself and because others might relate to it. I definitely recommend having some friends who won’t think much of switching pronouns, whether or not you come out to them; it can be less pressure just to be around people whose concept of trans people is like ‘oh, you too? my entire gaming group and half my housemates are trans now’ instead of ‘wow really what’s that is it really a thing?”

 You can look into trying hormones. In particular I know a lot of people who are like ‘dunno if I’m trans but being on estrogen is great for me’ and they did mostly turn out to be trans but estrogen was a good choice even for the ones who have not decided presently that they’re trans. 

I’m going to publish this in the hopes other people have more ideas.

• 1 July 2017
• 24