Exploring the Connection Between Gender Identity and Gender Presentation
My gender identity is dictated by me and only me
The most liberating thing I learned about gender this year is that my presentation doesn’t have to match my identity. I was conditioned to believe that gender presentation and identity are the same. And that if you didn’t fit the mould, there was something wrong with you.
Trying to perform girlhood as a transmasc was deeply depressing.
I worked hard on learning how to act according to the rules of girlhood, but I could still never get it quite right. The binary performance of gender eluded me. The harder I tried, the worse I felt. I dissociated more and became less of me with each passing year.
My darkest and most depressed years were the years I pretended the hardest. My most feminine-presenting years. They were also the years just before I came out as transgender. I was completely separate from my body, always trying to escape. I lived vicariously through my boyfriend. I wanted to be him, not just to be with him.
