Playing With Gender
Gender expression is about how you interact with the world, and everyone can play with that however they want, but gender identity is this very personal sense of who you are as a person, and that is always going to be difficult to articulate. For me personally, the reason I sometimes feel like a man is that I identify really strongly with some of the male figures in my family, and that was how I started thinking about these things. Now that I'm letting myself think about things in a freer way, I can see that there are these traits that they have passed down to me that are tied to their masculine identities that also feel tied to my masculine identity. So, it's a way to feel more connected to my family. I just think people should be able to switch. It is such a freeing thing, and so fun to be able to think about yourself as any version of those things or none of them. It feels less confining, and it allows me to think about myself in lots of different ways. which I enjoy.
Redecorating Your Box
I had gender dysphoria when I was first in college, and for various reasons I did not feel comfortable exploring it. Then transitioning into medical school, I started to feel a bit more autonomous, and a bit more like I had some control over my life. I started letting myself think about it again. Now that I'm older and a bit more confident, I was like, oh, I'm allowed to explore this. I watched TikTok compilations on YouTube. The younger generation, they're coming through for us on TikTok. They are really good at explaining every vocab word, every gradiation of anything. It's something that the internet is really good for, and exposes you to lots of different ideas. If you're interested in something, you can go down a rabbit hole. So I thought about using terms like non-binary, gender fluid, agender, trans, and thought, what is the language that is appropriate for me? I think I've landed on non-binary. I like gender fluid, because I do think of myself sometimes as playing in the gender space, but then I don't want to be in gendered space at all, which I think non-binary is sometimes helpful in that it's the broadest term for not wanting to be assigned either or. I've thought, "Do I even want to talk to people about this, because I'm still figuring it out?" And I still feel a lot of back and forth about this. At the end of the day, the reason I decided to talk about it, which is very recent, is that I decided that it's okay that I'm confused. It's okay that I'm still figuring it out. I just want everyone to know that you're allowed to play around; you are allowed to try out different pronouns or to change the way you dress, or to ask people to think of you in a different way, and change it a month later if you don't feel comfortable or you want to try something else. It is fine to play with your identity. You don't have to feel like whatever identity you decided when you were 16 is the one you have to have forever, because that's just a box that you've created for yourself. But feel free to redecorate the box or leave the box or whatever you need to do because life is short. I think it's important to say that it is allowed, and that other people will not dismiss you for it.