If it's slightly different, then why use that word at all? Why not find a more appropriate term for my presentation? To be honest, I just haven't found one. "Feminine" doesn't sound right. "AFAB" isn't specific. And I've also heard "femme" used in nonbinary and genderqueer contexts, so I'm confident that I'm not alone in using it in this way. Nevertheless, I'm acutely aware of how easy it is to misunderstand and misuse terminology. If you're reading this and bothered by it and are able, please let me know and I will take it into consideration.
Maybe I'm being overtly cautious in this caveat, but I've also heard the term "asexual" tossed around in incorrect contexts and it has bothered me, and I did know what word they actually meant to use. And if there's not a word for what I'm trying to convey, then fuck it. I'll make one up. The point of language is to communicate, and if the current language can't communicate effectively, then it must adapt.
I've had some alcohol, not gonna lie. All of this may or may not make sense, but trust me, it is all in earnest. I have a lot of thoughts on this but even when I'm totally sober I have a hard time articulating them all.
When I say femme, I mean I present in a very feminine way. It's not just that I was Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB), not just that I have breasts and feminine facial features and that I'm the exact average female height, weight, and shoe size. None of that has anything to do with it. It's about how I choose to present myself. When I perform burlesque, I do so in a primarily feminine way, even if I'm playing a male character. I make no effort to hide my breasts, I wear feminine makeup and clothing, and don't try to make my physical presence and bearing masculine in any way. In my everyday life, I still wear traditionally women's clothing. I could choose to wear a binder (if I could afford one...), to get a boy's haircut, to practice walking "like a man," but I don't. For the most part, I am comfortable with myself, even as I am constantly disappointed that people consider me a woman and use the wrong pronouns (regardless of how long they've known me or if my work nametag lists my correct pronouns).
As people (both strangers and friends) misgender me over and over again, "forgetting" my identity because it's "hard," I always start to blame myself for being femme. Maybe if I wear more men's button downs. Maybe if I start contouring my face. Maybe if I save up for a binder. Maybe if I don't shave. Maybe if I wear my tightest sports bra and a baggy shirt so you can't see those lopsided tits.
You'd think if people have time to look at my boobs they have time to look at my nametag, which clearly lists "They, their, them" as my pronouns.
But no, no, no matter what I do, I still look like a woman. Which is painfully ironic considering all the times in my life people made fun of me for dressing like a boy or not being pretty or delicate or feminine enough.
But...that's really the kicker, isn't it? I don't want to look like a boy and I don't want to look like a girl, because I'm neither. I'm non-binary, existing outside of the gender binary of male versus female. I considered using "gender-fluid" instead, because there are definitely days where I want to be femme and days where I want to be masc, but even on those days I don't feel like I change. It's more about how I want to look, not about how I feel. Because I don't really feel any different on either of those days -- I still feel like me. It's awfully hard to describe how it feels when I've never felt like anyone else.
Growing up, I always felt like being a woman was an impossibly difficult task that I could never accomplish. As a kid, I learned that anything feminine was a weakness to be made fun of. Wearing makeup and pretty clothes was stupid. Being a tomboy was cool. So I suppressed my interest in makeup and fashion and "feminine" interests in order to appease the women I most admired - my mother and my older sister. To this day I don't believe they taught me this on purpose. In fact, I know they have both struggled with femininity in their own ways, and as a young kid with little to no guidance and an unwillingness to ask questions, I interpreted their actions as fact.
When I got my first boyfriend at the decrepit old age of 18 (or somewhere around there, it was a long time ago), I unwillingly threw myself into femininity because it's what he wanted. He wanted a girlfriend who was sexy (but chaste??), who wore lingerie (but only for him, not herself), who took care of all body hair, who wore short shorts. So that's who I became.
He was an abusive asshole.
Even after all that, I had a hard time accepting and admitting my interest in femininity simply because I felt like it didn't belong on me. For too long I had denied it and accepted other people's claims that I was boyish. I took all of that to mean I really didn't look good in dresses. I never learned how to apply makeup correctly, so I believed I looked stupid in it. Even now in my mid-twenties, I frequently feel like everyone around me is making fun of me when I wear makeup and dress up because I surely must look ridiculous because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and literally learned everything off of YouTube and my fashion sense is nonexistent.
I got sidetracked at some point. This is why I'm not good in academia - I enjoy stream of consciousness too much and can't stick to one topic. Also I like to write about my personal life too much rather than actual data.
After I came out as non-binary, I started buying more masculine clothing and wearing it with less discomfort. Turns out men's boxer briefs are WAY MORE COMFORTABLE than most women's underwear. These days I literally only wear women's panties for burlesque or when I haven't done laundry, cause fuck that shit, bro. I've always favored women's boyshorts but never felt comfortable branching over to men's boxers.
SIDENOTE: If you identify as a woman it's still totally valid to wear men's clothing, and vice versa. Whatever makes you comfortable and happy with yourself.
That's literally the whole point of this post. Frequently I feel like I'm to blame for people misgendering me because I don't present androgynous. I almost always look femme, whether I'm all glammed up for a burlesque show or just sitting around playing video games. But that doesn't change who I am and how I feel.
Recently I decided to stop shaving my underarms and legs in an effort to "feel" more nonbinary. Sometimes it's hard for me to distinguish what I'm doing for me and what I'm doing for how I look. If I shave all that gross female body hair, am I doing it for people who look at my body or am I doing it for me, who actually lives in this body?
I also have some sensory issues, and for the past decade or so I've had a very strict shaving schedule because I couldn't stand the physical sensation of prickles on my body (when I was younger, I desperately wanted to shave because I was acutely aware of how the girls around me looked hairless but my super dark hair was a huge contrast to my super pale skin). I've never been able to sleep if I can feel the hair on my legs, and my body hair grows extremely fast, so for many years I shaved every other day (which I didn't realize was excessive for a veeeery long time).
For most of my life, I danced in an educational or professional setting, so most of my body hair would be visible in some capacity (tights don't hide much). In the past few years, I've stopped dancing as much and have had more research and customer service based jobs, which means people aren't looking at my naked body (well, most of the time). So it really didn't make sense for me to stop shaving in an attempt to make other people consider me less "female" (plus, women don't have to shave anyway, and all of my attempts to reject stereotypical femininity could be used to reinforce gender roles). Nevertheless, part of the reason I stopped shaving was so that just maybe, people would stop messing up my pronouns.
You might be thinking, "wouldn't it be easier to just correct people and tell them it bothers you when they use the wrong pronouns?"
Yes, that certainly would be easy. But fuck man, my social anxiety is debilitating and to this day I have only been able to correct a single person (one of my best friends) when they've misgendered me. And even then, I was dancing around the topic. If I don't blame myself because I'm presenting femme, I blame myself for simply not standing up for myself and correcting people.
ANYWAY. I gave up on the no-shave december and shaved my legs, and it was a huge relief. I'm still not shaving my armpits though, because that never bothered me sensationally and honestly it's just one less thing to worry about. Also, I just kind of like how it looks. We'll see how I feel when it REALLY grows out and I remember how much of a hairy beast I am.
But wait, isn't that what I want? Isn't a hairy beast the opposite of female, which is what I'm trying to distance myself from? BUT AM I ACTUALLY? REALLY I'M JUST TRYING TO DENOUNCE THE BINARY, RIGHT? NOT JUST NOT BE FEMININE?
Look, gender is really fucking confusing.
EDIT: I'm not asking for an apology if you've ever misgendered me, knowingly or not. The best apology you can give is to ask and practice pronouns. Likewise, I can practice telling people my pronouns (they/them, if you didn't know).
