Legally Faith :v_tg: :v_lb: on Nostr: This has come up a couple of times in the last few days in my DMs and in more public ...
This has come up a couple of times in the last few days in my DMs and in more public conversations and I think it's worth talking about mire in-depth. Buckle up! This is gonna get long...
I don't have a solid sense of gender identity. I'm a binary trans woman. Both of these are true.
I'm often annoyed at many of our models of what it means to be trans because they focus so much on gender identity: You're trans when your gender identity doesn't match your assigned gender. But what if you don't have a gender identity? For people like myself, who don't have a solid sense of gender identity, this is really problematic. It's still better than the old transmedical models in which transition was merely a treatment for the disease of dysphoria, but it's still problematic.
In March of last year, when I had my first therapy, I remember sitting on the couch telling this woman I'd just met all about my gender struggles. She asked the usual questions about gender identity. "I don't know," I said, "I don't even know if I have one." We talked a bit more about identity and I began to realize something terrible. I didn't really have an identity at all.
Growing up, I was raised in a conservative non-denominational Baptist church. We were taught that you're supposed to find your identity in your Christian faith. In my autistic fervor, I took this quite literally. Good little Christian was almost my entire identity. As I grew into an adult, I had hobbies and interests and a wife and a career but I never let those become my identity. Hobbies and career weren't important, they told me. Even in my marriage, what matters wasn't our family but my heavily gendered role as a Christian husband. As much as I loathed that role, it was the only part of my marriage that was allowed to be part of my identity.
In the beginning of 2020, I began the process of deconstructing my beliefs and that identity began to crumble. The more I peeled back the layers, the more emotional and spiritual abuse I found, the more cracks appeared on that shell. By mid-2021 or so, I had a very scorched-earth approach to spiritual deconstruction. My philosophy was to burn it all and see what survived the fire. By the time I was sitting on that therapist's couch last March, my identity had all but gone. What bits remained intact, I told her, were just areas I still needed to dismantle.
Most of my time in therapy year wasn't actually spent processing gender. The gender part kind of happened on its own. Instead, we spent the time processing my identity and my trauma. Who am I as a person? What even is identity? What do I care about? What do I want? What are my values? When I argue with the voices in my head that tell me I can't have those things or that they're wrong, whose voice is it? (My dad's, usually.)
The good news is that some time around the turn of the year, something clicked in my brain and I finally had a sense of self. I didn't have a full-on identity yet, but I had a sense of "This is me!" and generally knowing who I am. It's built since then and these days I have a pretty solid sense of identity, I think.
I still can't tell you what gender that identity is. 😩
What I mean isn't that I don't have a gender. It's that I don't have a sense of gender, if that makes sense. It's possible that this is related to autism but I don't really know. All I know is that when I reach for the gender feelings that some people have in abundance, they just aren't there. Are they hidden under some trauma, to be revealed at a later time? Maybe? I won't know until it happens. All I know is that the gender feelings aren't there now and never have been, as far as I can remember.
In the last year, instead of processing my gender directly (I couldn't), I spent a lot of time processing what it even means to be trans. So many of the stories I found hinged on a clear sense of gender or on dysphorias that I didn't have. So many of the resources focused on an identity I couldn't feel. I knew I had to be trans because I hated being a guy and wanted to be a girl so bad. While many of the stories didn't make sense, about half of them lined up with an eerie familiarity. I needed something else, some other definition.
Instead of an elusive sense of gender identity, I had to look at other things. What do I want? How do I relate to my assigned gender? How do I related to other people of various genders? Looking around my Twitter account at the time, it was dominated by women and I loved it. The few men in my follows felt strange and distant to me. Going to tech conferences was an eye-opening experience. I was surrounded by guys in my field and I couldn't relate to them at all. When my eyes caught one of the few women at the conference, I felt drawn to them, not in a sexual way, but because I wanted desperately to befriend them. Searching through my past, I found memory upon memory of similar things: time spent with my sisters, memories of wanting to hang out with girls at youth group. None of that gives me a sense of identity but it all adds up to a pretty solid mountain of evidence at this point.
Even with that pile of evidence, I still don't have a sense of gender identity. It's pretty obvious I'm trans, whatever the hell that means—I definitely share experience with a lot of trans folks—but that doesn't add up to a sense of identity. I could try to prove my transness from evidence, as if in a court of law, but that still doesn't give me an identity. It doesn't say what kind of trans person I am.
And, yet, I am a binary trans woman. How? Why? Because I want to be. Because I choose to be. Anyone who says differently can fuck off! It's gender by fiat, as it were.
Even without that feeling of gender, I've found that this chosen gender seems to fit me pretty damn well. I don't paint my nails because it's feminine and I want to be feminine, I paint them because I like purple. I love my long hair and the way it brushes against my neck. I love the way my dress swishes against my legs. I love moving through the world and being seen as a woman, relating to other women as one of them. It fits me perfectly.
I'll be the first to admit none of this is very satisfactory. I'm still jealous of women who have a solid sense of gender identity. That said, I suspect there's a lot of cis people who don't have a really solid sense of gender identity, either. They just never notice because their assigned gender fits okay and they never have a reason to question it. For a trans person, though, it makes everything harder and more confusing.
This is my story. I can't speak to anyone's experience but my own. What I will say, though, is if you're struggling with finding your sense of identity or sense of gender, don't give up hope. There is a path forward. I can't guarantee you'll find a solid sense of identity but there is a path. It's maybe a bit harder and more confusing but but there is a path. You can still be the man or woman or non-binary person you've always wanted to be.
How? It takes time but you will find yourself. Probably the best thing I did early on was decide to be intentionally whimsical, to start doing things just because I wanted to. One of the things that society does to closeted trans people is rob us of our agency. By making us play that gender role, they rob us of all real choice about who we are, how we present ourselves, who we date, etc. Even if you were part of the LGBTQ+ community before, gay men and lesbians both have hidden sets of rules that a closeted trans person runs up against. The only way to break out of that is to start doing what you want, and that includes pursuing the gender you want.
I don't have a solid sense of gender identity. I'm a binary trans woman. Both of these are true.
I'm often annoyed at many of our models of what it means to be trans because they focus so much on gender identity: You're trans when your gender identity doesn't match your assigned gender. But what if you don't have a gender identity? For people like myself, who don't have a solid sense of gender identity, this is really problematic. It's still better than the old transmedical models in which transition was merely a treatment for the disease of dysphoria, but it's still problematic.
In March of last year, when I had my first therapy, I remember sitting on the couch telling this woman I'd just met all about my gender struggles. She asked the usual questions about gender identity. "I don't know," I said, "I don't even know if I have one." We talked a bit more about identity and I began to realize something terrible. I didn't really have an identity at all.
Growing up, I was raised in a conservative non-denominational Baptist church. We were taught that you're supposed to find your identity in your Christian faith. In my autistic fervor, I took this quite literally. Good little Christian was almost my entire identity. As I grew into an adult, I had hobbies and interests and a wife and a career but I never let those become my identity. Hobbies and career weren't important, they told me. Even in my marriage, what matters wasn't our family but my heavily gendered role as a Christian husband. As much as I loathed that role, it was the only part of my marriage that was allowed to be part of my identity.
In the beginning of 2020, I began the process of deconstructing my beliefs and that identity began to crumble. The more I peeled back the layers, the more emotional and spiritual abuse I found, the more cracks appeared on that shell. By mid-2021 or so, I had a very scorched-earth approach to spiritual deconstruction. My philosophy was to burn it all and see what survived the fire. By the time I was sitting on that therapist's couch last March, my identity had all but gone. What bits remained intact, I told her, were just areas I still needed to dismantle.
Most of my time in therapy year wasn't actually spent processing gender. The gender part kind of happened on its own. Instead, we spent the time processing my identity and my trauma. Who am I as a person? What even is identity? What do I care about? What do I want? What are my values? When I argue with the voices in my head that tell me I can't have those things or that they're wrong, whose voice is it? (My dad's, usually.)
The good news is that some time around the turn of the year, something clicked in my brain and I finally had a sense of self. I didn't have a full-on identity yet, but I had a sense of "This is me!" and generally knowing who I am. It's built since then and these days I have a pretty solid sense of identity, I think.
I still can't tell you what gender that identity is. 😩
What I mean isn't that I don't have a gender. It's that I don't have a sense of gender, if that makes sense. It's possible that this is related to autism but I don't really know. All I know is that when I reach for the gender feelings that some people have in abundance, they just aren't there. Are they hidden under some trauma, to be revealed at a later time? Maybe? I won't know until it happens. All I know is that the gender feelings aren't there now and never have been, as far as I can remember.
In the last year, instead of processing my gender directly (I couldn't), I spent a lot of time processing what it even means to be trans. So many of the stories I found hinged on a clear sense of gender or on dysphorias that I didn't have. So many of the resources focused on an identity I couldn't feel. I knew I had to be trans because I hated being a guy and wanted to be a girl so bad. While many of the stories didn't make sense, about half of them lined up with an eerie familiarity. I needed something else, some other definition.
Instead of an elusive sense of gender identity, I had to look at other things. What do I want? How do I relate to my assigned gender? How do I related to other people of various genders? Looking around my Twitter account at the time, it was dominated by women and I loved it. The few men in my follows felt strange and distant to me. Going to tech conferences was an eye-opening experience. I was surrounded by guys in my field and I couldn't relate to them at all. When my eyes caught one of the few women at the conference, I felt drawn to them, not in a sexual way, but because I wanted desperately to befriend them. Searching through my past, I found memory upon memory of similar things: time spent with my sisters, memories of wanting to hang out with girls at youth group. None of that gives me a sense of identity but it all adds up to a pretty solid mountain of evidence at this point.
Even with that pile of evidence, I still don't have a sense of gender identity. It's pretty obvious I'm trans, whatever the hell that means—I definitely share experience with a lot of trans folks—but that doesn't add up to a sense of identity. I could try to prove my transness from evidence, as if in a court of law, but that still doesn't give me an identity. It doesn't say what kind of trans person I am.
And, yet, I am a binary trans woman. How? Why? Because I want to be. Because I choose to be. Anyone who says differently can fuck off! It's gender by fiat, as it were.
Even without that feeling of gender, I've found that this chosen gender seems to fit me pretty damn well. I don't paint my nails because it's feminine and I want to be feminine, I paint them because I like purple. I love my long hair and the way it brushes against my neck. I love the way my dress swishes against my legs. I love moving through the world and being seen as a woman, relating to other women as one of them. It fits me perfectly.
I'll be the first to admit none of this is very satisfactory. I'm still jealous of women who have a solid sense of gender identity. That said, I suspect there's a lot of cis people who don't have a really solid sense of gender identity, either. They just never notice because their assigned gender fits okay and they never have a reason to question it. For a trans person, though, it makes everything harder and more confusing.
This is my story. I can't speak to anyone's experience but my own. What I will say, though, is if you're struggling with finding your sense of identity or sense of gender, don't give up hope. There is a path forward. I can't guarantee you'll find a solid sense of identity but there is a path. It's maybe a bit harder and more confusing but but there is a path. You can still be the man or woman or non-binary person you've always wanted to be.
How? It takes time but you will find yourself. Probably the best thing I did early on was decide to be intentionally whimsical, to start doing things just because I wanted to. One of the things that society does to closeted trans people is rob us of our agency. By making us play that gender role, they rob us of all real choice about who we are, how we present ourselves, who we date, etc. Even if you were part of the LGBTQ+ community before, gay men and lesbians both have hidden sets of rules that a closeted trans person runs up against. The only way to break out of that is to start doing what you want, and that includes pursuing the gender you want.