I’m not really sure what I’m doing. Let me try my best to put it into words.

Around strangers and in places where it feels like you need to pick M or F, I feel the best if someone thinks I’m male. I can’t tell you why, it’s just a feeling. I remember going back to China to see my relatives in the countryside and really desperately wishing I hadn’t stopped HRT so that I would stop receiving the awkwardness. Essentially, gender is a “script” that people follow when interacting with each other. That’s why it’s important to know whether we “pass” – it’s not simply to be “valid” but to know how to appropriately act in a way that isn’t uncomfortable to others.

I guess I don’t like how normal people can see me and see I’m queer (as a girl). You see, I’m only a girl if I’m with my friends, but I’d rather coworkers think I’m a boy… this doesn’t really make sense, does it? But it feels like that. I wonder how much of that is social anxiety though – the avoidance of being seen for being different.

In my mind, a boy’s name is not inherently contradictory to girl-ness. It is just a form of presentation that somehow fits, like boy’s clothes. I can’t explain it. I can’t explain why some things feel more right. So basically, you have someone who has a boy name and uses “he” and wears boy’s clothes, but does that make a man? I’ve always had trouble with making friends with most guys. But some men have primarily girl friends as well. None of anything means anything!

What happens when you have dysphoria both ways? Then, such a thing can’t be informed for whether or not one should medically transition anymore? I know what I want to look like, probably. How’s this different from a fat person seeing their thin ideal self in the mirror? I have a hard time reconciling all this and separating what I want and what society approves of. Maybe what I want is to be approved of as the in-between mess that I am, though I know that’s not possible as long as I keep family and work in the loop. Idk. Though maybe it’s not that big of a deal because I’m Asian and will probably look almost the same. In the end, if my tendencies cause me trouble either way, it’s better to “choose the gender presentation that causes the least trouble” after all? The name, clothing, flat chest, and liking girls are non-negotiable and those line up the best with being a boy, so I should just go through with it?

tweet: i'm probably nonbinary but i have a job so idrc about that rn