#gender non compliant

I want to give a shout out to people who embrace awkwardness. People who don’t shy away from not knowing. People who don’t need to know all the things in order to just go with it. Don’t get me wrong. I love the people who want to get to the bottom of things, the ones who ask all the best questions and help make sense of the world, or the people who just get it without ever having to be told, but I feel like those people always get a lot of praise, and today I also want to lift up the people who don’t have to totally understand something to get on board 100% and enjoy the bumpy ride just because they like to be beside you along the way.

You see, my gender identity is complex right now. I don’t know what I’m doing, honestly, and I keep getting the sense that I shouldn’t even be doing anything! I feel like I’m too damn old and secure and honestly happy to mess with all the good things I’ve got going. I hear accounts of people saying things like, “I knew if I didn’t transition I would die.” I see kids who are adamant at age 4 that they were born in the wrong body. I know people whose biological sex is so discordant with their gender identity that it affects every part of their life and every relationship in it.

I am not those people.  

I’ve got a great marriage, a cool kid, and my dream job. I’m not being ripped in half or in danger of a hurting myself. I don’t even hate everything about my body, just like, everything between my hips and my chin. Like for real, just utter disdain for that part, though.

Otherwise, I feel really privileged not to be drowning, so privileged that I also feel really guilty about my sort of quiet discontent. I feel weird asking, or even wishing, for people to acknowledge that I’m not totally cisgendered.  Like sure, I totally avoid any mirror that might show me my own naked torso.  And yeah, maybe I had a mental breakdown at the cognitive dissonance my first mammogram caused. And also, my stomach churns when someone calls me ma’am.  But some days I still feel somewhat legit as a butch lesbian. Some days my gender identity is a gender neutral “dude.” Some days I like to soak in a bubble bath with a good romance novel, and I think, “This is feminine, right?” On all those days I am completely chill and everything balances out.

Of course there are other days where I sit on the floor of the shower and cry because I don’t know what the hell is wrong me. I have crafted a 100 ways to just be intellectually and emotionally queer, and they all look good on paper.  I should be okay.  I should be over this.

But I’m not. So, lately I’ve been trying new things. I have a name my inner circle calls me. It’s not a secret really: It’s Rey. It hasn’t been hard for most people really close to me adapt to, but it’s been an adjustment for me to adapt to hearing it out of them. There are some situations where it feels more right than anything anyone else has ever called me, but in some situations it still doesn’t.

The same is true with pronouns, except maybe more so. Most people still use she/her. Some people are trying they/them. Occasionally I’ll test he/him, as it seems the only option left to toy with. There are times when all of them feel natural. There are also times when she/her feels so painful I wince. There are points where they/them feels silly and self-indulgent. He/him always amuses me, but like a game or wearing a Halloween costume. 

Then you throw in gendered words that define my other identities.Siris one I love. It’s the honorific I strongly prefer. Mx. is fun and fitting. Partner seems neutral enough, but spouse seems distant and nondescript. Wife still fits me best, despite its clear gendering. And mom…MomorMama is like a name to me. It’s what my kid calls me. It’s just so deeply ingrained. The idea of him calling me anything else in this moment is unfathomable. Gender identity be what it may, I will always be hismom. 

I don’t know what the answers are, and I am living it. This is my body and my brain and they’re supposed to be my preferences, but I don’t know what fits, and what doesn’t. What’s more, even when something doesn’t feel right, I am rarely certain if it’s because it’s wrong, or because it’s new. I’m constantly trying to figure out if these words are like the wrong size shoes, or shoes I need to break in.  But here’s the kicker, I can’t break these words in by myself!

Identities are not shoes. I can’t simply wear them around my own space. I virtually never need they/them pronouns to describe myself. I don’t use my own pronouns in conversation because I’m not a megalomaniac. The only people who can use they/them pronouns are the people I tell to use them, and how the hell can I tell people which pronouns I prefer until I know which pronouns I prefer? And how can I know what words fit until I try them on? But it seems really awkward to tell my loved ones to refer to me as they/them one week and then the next week tell them he/him, then oops, sorry, not so much.

People get confused!  And honestly, how could they not?  I am confused! 

But the really wonderful thing, the reason I wrote this whole post in the first place is that I have people in my life who love me enough to be confused with me.  

They call me the name they’ve always called me, and then they call me the new name they’re learning to call me, sometimes in back-to-back sentences. They mix up pronouns like they’re throwing confetti. They say things that sound weird to them, then they grimace, and try again. They say things that sound weird to me. Sometimes I grimace. Then they try again. 

I try again with them. We laugh nervously. We shrug. We apologize quickly but never linger. We check in often, “How was that?” But then again sometimes we don’t acknowledge it. Sometimes we sit with the awkwardness. 

All of us together.  

Sometimes I worry I am asking too much of them.  Sometimes they worry their clumsy attempts hurt my feelings.

But more often than not, the opposite is true.  

Their awkwardness, their little slips and corrections, they serve as reminders that I’m not alone in this. They’re trying and they love me enough to keep trying. 

And those reminders that they love me in spite of the awkwardness, even more, they love me enough to embrace that awkwardness actually makes me feel less awkward.  

And that is the very long version of why I now think of awkwardness as a type of love language…it makes me feel loved!