I would like to have a way to think about my gender which does not rely so heavily on the subjectivity of self perception, even though the freedom to self identify with any gender is an important thing.

I am getting tired of feeling like I am insane whenever I try to reconcile the logic of everything I think I know about gender with everything I know about my life.

I had the experience of being born as a girl, quite enjoying the prospect of femininity as a youngster, suddenly losing any desire to be perceived as anything other than a boy as soon as other people began looking at me and seeing a young woman, finding the safety and euphoria of a cozy little masculine comfort zone in a wallflower attitude and clothing from the men’s section at thrift stores, not figuring out how to “present feminine” – whatever that means, idk – until I was almost halfway through my third decade, realizing that some people declined to participate in the stereotypical binary and feeling an affinity for this path, asking for alt pronouns in a couple of circles, receiving either confused rejection or a lukewarm acceptance from people who I think were mostly virtue signaling with the exception of a few who were being genuinely respectful, and then feeling like – nothing I tried on fit, none of the words fit, including the words I was born into.

I now have a much better sense of my self and who I am and what I am like, at the cost of fitting in with any of these different ways of being.

“Women can be masculine and still be women” okay, yes, lovely, we needed warm bodies in the factories when we sent all our boys off to fight a world war and then it was fine and practical for everyone to wear pants. Brilliant.

What do you mean when you say the word, “masculine?”

I want to understand.

All of this is brought to the surface as I am agonizing over the decision of what I am going to wear to my wedding.

Of course, the nuances of gender are so much more than a binary choice between a tuxedo or a dress. It isn’t how we look on the outside that matters. There is so much more to a well written character than their costume, their body, even their personal voice – not just the spoken word but that they’re saying.

And yet.

And yet.

I would look so good in a tux.