Identity is primarily described as an internal sense of being. My internal existence is held tightly—it was a challenging, emotional, and difficult thing to admit, explore, and ultimately claim as my own. However, identity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We are surrounded by individuals, communities, and systems which create their own taxonomies of classification. How do I acclimate to taxonomies which don’t align with my nuanced reality?
In order to proceed with this exercise I must recognize my own lenses through which I observe the world. I am a trans feminine person who finally started working through my gender feelings in early 2022. I have chosen to pursue several options of medical transition, but I also rarely use the term woman to describe myself. I fully endorse that trans women are women and trans men are men—it isn’t comprehensive for my experience. I am also a late diagnosed Autist and person with ADHD. I’m polyamorous and explicitly reject concepts of the relationship escalator. I recognize that this particular identity intersectionality may be considered societally atypical, but I embrace and am proud of who I am.
Finally unpacking the chest of gender feelings in my mid 30s was an epic journey in itself. I had tried to sink the chest in the ocean for decades, but it kept washing ashore. I kept telling myself that this time it wouldn’t come back, but repression rarely listens to such futile demands. As I started unpacking my identity and eventually starting hormone replacement therapy, my pronouns shifted to they/them, and then a combination of they/them and she/her. For a while, I preferred she/her pronouns, but never fully let go of they/them—it spoke to a greater mystery of understanding. Since then, I primarily use they/them pronouns, but still use she/her pronouns (which is also how many people refer to me).
It is this particular dynamic that has been the epicenter of many reflections and discussions with friends and in therapy. Am I holding onto she/her pronouns because they fit me, or because it makes existing in society more palpable? Or maybe it is both with a dash of some additional unknown factors? I was talking with a friend recently about lenses of perception. They shared how seemingly discordant perspectives could all be true at the same time. I’ll illustrate this with my own identity as a set of concentric circles—the outermost layers represent ways that I may be grouped into social taxonomies, where the innermost circles represent my own sense of self. Before we dive in, an important disclaimer is that this represents how I view my interactions within the world and absolutely should not be taken to represent transgender, non-binary. or gender non-conforming folx as a whole. We have suffered through society telling us who we are for our whole lives, no one gets to take that internal autonomy away from us.
The outermost circle represents how broad social systems, random strangers, and even acquaintances are likely to view and interact with me. My legal gender marker is F–although if X is wasn’t rife with systemic invalidation and oppression I’d likely select that. In a world that only recognizes binary gender, congratulations you picked the right bucket. Similarly, my attraction would be labeled as lesbian when constrained to a binary system. I vehemently disagree with this system, and even more so when it is presented as two opposite groupings instead of overlapping bell curves. I regularly speak out against this system, but it is still a prevailing taxonomy in the world I exist in. It is far from the most accurate depiction of my identity, but it isn’t inaccurate either. Small minded? Absolutely.
Moving inward, there is progress towards alignment of perception and identity. We’ve moved past a binary system that at least partially acknowledges that gender is a social construct. This begins to capture an understanding that I am neither a man nor a woman, even if I most closely align with women when forced into a binary. It flirts with the lines of gender expansiveness and acknowledges that I am attracted to people who are not women. I say quasi pansexual, because masculinity and maleness are hard passes for me. I personally loathe the term non-binary, but it is the best colloquial approximation available. It falls short that it is still defined with relation to a binary and is defined by what it is not, rather than what it is. This is further complicated by the societal expectation that non-binary folx should seek and owe the world androgyny. This is absurd and categorizes them as the mid point within a binary spectrum. While this is better than a pure binary system, it remains constrictive. It binds individuals to the very system they are seeking liberation from.
The third layer is the one which I most commonly express to the world, especially close friends. I embrace concepts which are expansive and harder to categorize. Biological diversity cannot be placed into neat buckets, and my identity captures the broad brush strokes of this natural and boundless chaos. The presentation of my gender remains chaotic and beautiful. I cherish playing around with different styles which subvert societal expectations. I often pair clothes and other presentational elements that refuses to be constrained to a narrowly constructed box. It can often result in others pausing and wonder if they are gendering me correctly. This manifestation of chaotic good energy best captures my refusal to be subdued into gender norms. The term queer best describes my sexuality. It doesn’t require any long conversations or asterisks of how is a particular label defined. What happens if I find myself attracted to someone that would not fit a previous label? Does this label benefit me or help me to share aspects of my identity? I found this not to be the case for many of the labels in the outer circles, as well as many unmentioned ones. My attraction to others does not need to be condensed into a label which does not benefit me. Additionally, any and all attraction to me is inherently queer in some fashion, because my identity is outside of binary gender.
At the innermost layer, I am an enigma. My identity and existence are hard to understand and conceptualize—they don’t adhere to the expected social scripts. It is from here that my core beliefs and desire to simply be rise up. Why does any of this need to be categorized? Why does my unique identity need to be neatly packaged into a taxonomy? I still exist in within relationships, communities, and governmental systems which enforce various levels of taxonomy. When these systems don’t recognize the nuance of my identity, either from unawareness or malice, how do I respond? This layer emerged from constantly trying to find the labels or identities that fit and worrying about all of the edge cases above and more. The difficulty of aligning identity compounds when I must interact with external factors who don’t capture existences similar to mine in their taxonomy. From the pressurized chamber of late self-realized intersectional identities, an unknowable and unquantifiable being emerged.