I've identified for some 10 years as cis male who tries to reduce his masculine traits. The reason has been that I grew up among a social circle where every adult male I knew was an exhibit of toxic masculinity in a mild or very severe form and I had eventually noticed that while non-toxic masculinity surely exists, whatever I understand under "being a man" was basically without any exceptions toxic. I understood I had been a horrible asshole when I became adult, and the only way to learn to behave towards humans in a way that was really in line with my values, ethics and morals, was to let go of everything I knew as masculinity. There was nothing left of that that I could really use without hurting people. I still expressed as male, even much more unambiguously than most people. That last time I saw my chin was several decades ago, as I've had a always had a beard since late teenage years.
I've recently had a burnout because of my private life being extremely unfairly overburdening to me. Regarding that, some month ago, I had a long conversation with a wise person that happened to have a kind of a pride flag sticker on their laptop. And later I was talking with another person on the phone, and mentioned how I had had a very useful and constructive conversation. Among all the other praise, I also mentioned "and I also liked that they had a rainbow flag on their laptop", to which my conversation partner reacted with a bit of a confused sound. I added: "It gave me a feeling that I do not need to lead the role of a masculine person. That I can just be whatever I happen to be, no stress. It proved to me that this person is definitely not a bigot, and gave me a general feeling of safety." Later that day, I was kind of pissed off, because I had never before that phone conversation thought that my non-binarity was anything but a tool to reach a specific goal: I wanted to learn to not be an asshole, but I had no problem at all with expressing as a male, and I basically never said to anybody that I would somehow be anything else than a cis man. It didn't really matter to me that much and I did not want to bother myself with this shit. Of course, already years ago, when I was trying to learn some Slavic languages, I did use the neutral ending when talking about past tense, to which some Russian people said that it sounds like I'm considering myself an object: Like a soccer ball or a box or whatever like that. But I still stuck with the -lo ending, because I actually felt it less incorrect to see me as a cardboard box than to see me as a male (nor female). Maybe two weeks ago I mentioned to a colleague that "all I know about my gender is that I am a not-woman". (To which she first reacted a bit funnily in a bit insulted manner, but then noticed that it was stupid thought, because it didn't actually say anything about what she is allowed or supposed to be!)
Then, three and a half weeks later, on Sunday that was just a couple days ago, I felt it would make sense to read some texts on lemmy.blahaj.zone. I did that for some hours. I did get once again an increased urgency to "do something" about being non-binary. Next day, on Monday, I had some friends come over to play board games. And I mentioned to my friend, who has said that he is "non-binary, but it's too much hassle to really make people know it, so I just let everyone consider me a man", that I had recently read that he is actually transgender. But his answer: "No, I don't think that's true. Because I think that if you feel okay with people considering you cis, you are not transgender, and I do feel okay with it."
...and to my surprise, I felt that "I am not okay with people considering me cis". But okay, whatever. That was supposed to be a conversation starter to talk about some things I had read in the Fediverse the previous day, and that didn't start any conversation. So, we just continued with other subject and I didn't really need to care that much.
Sometime after 20 o'clock the guests left, and I cleaned up after them for some time. And then, around 22 o'clock I tried to play a computer game, but I couldn't. Suddenly a cosmic firehose of some kind was open inside me. There was something of an intrusive thought that "You should really do something about this non-binary thing!"
My solution was to shrug that off and learn to play Rollercoaster Tycoon. Whatever, I can handle this some time later when I have the resources for it. But no, I couldn't really enjoy any gaming. My brain just wanted for me to "DO SOMETHING!". But without even defining WHAT that fucking something should be! What a useless brain, damnit!
Eventually I gave up and went sleeping. Or, tried to. But the thoughts got more intense. They started filling me, and I started feeling if my body was really about to physically break apart. It felt as if I was physically being filled with all these thoughts. Eventually, some quarter an hour before midgnight, all that became too much. I tried contacting two of my friends online, as those are both trans women and could maybe help me with my non-binary stuff as well. But alas, both had gone sleeping, the other one had still been active in social media just 21 minutes earlier. Damnit! I had this constant banging feeling inside my head, I felt like an alien was trying to burst out of my body, I NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING!
...so I decided "fuck this shit, I'll go sleeping anyway". And did that. But no. Then I figured that "okay, I must do something. Some twenty-ish years ago some friends had convinced me to put nail-polish on, and I had had nothing against it. So, maybe if I was to paint the colours of the non-binary flag on my fingernails, I'd be okay. There is a 24h hypermarket relative nearby. But it was a stupid idea: I needed to wake up for work in less than seven hours, so it's no time to go many kilometres away from home to buy some goddamn nail polish. So, sleeping it was. Except that no, it wasn't. This was emergency nail polish and it needed to be bought. That's what my mind had now decided. I was abso-fucking-lutely unable to follow this whole stupid thing, I had no damn idea of what's even going on here. But I decided to obey. It's just, I live atop a hill and I really didn't feel like riding my bicycle back up that hill in the middle of the night. So, 15 minutes after midgnight I called an ex-girlfriend that is still a close friend of mine: "Hey... Say, can I come sleep on your sofa this night? I am having a thing I really need to talk about as soon as possible, and this cannot really wait." I got an affirmative answer, told that I'll pay a quick visit to that shop on the way, packed some good beers from my closets to my backpack and went down for that hypermarket.
And then I spent one and a half hours about what's been going on in my mind, and how my understanding of my gender suddenly shifted in the last two days. And then I dug the nail polish and coloured my nails. I was feeling super anxious about this – not that I was scared, but because it felt like a big rite that I needed to do. So, I ended up having nail polish all around this skin of my hands, and around the fingernails almost as much as on the fingernails. But whatever, the flag was coloured. The thumbs remained uncoloured. Originally because the flag only has four colours and I didn't feel like sawing any fingers off, but then I figured out that this whole situation is still a work-in-progress, and I figured that letting the thumbs just stay without nail-polish symbolizes a necessary acceptance of being only in the beginning of a long way.
The next day, Tuesday, I was surprised by how motivated I felt at work. I had had a habit of being about 5 minutes late to work basically every day, and with my depression getting worse, that had started being more like 10 or even 15 minutes. And now I was 20 minutes early with no problem. The whole working day I was feeling what you feel if you have an intense crush to someone and then they agree to start a romantic relationship with you. Just kind of... floating? flying? And my belly was full of butterflies all day long. I have never been happier, at least not in the past decade. And I am still feeling super good.
This all kind of took me by complete surprise. At 22 o'clock I had no idea anything was off. Less than 120 minutes after that, and I had lost my gender. Now, since I now know that these things can brew a long time without giving any obvious hints about themselves, I understand that I really don't know what is going on about my gender identity. I'm lucky to know altogether six people that are a form or another of queer, and now I'll try to talk with each of them to understand this whole shit better. I do not know where my gender identity is about to bring me. For a while I actually felt something similar to "ghost pain" on breasts (about B-cup, heh), except that it wasn't really pain but just "feeling". But it really seems that that is really not necessarily anything serious. Currently the solution that seems most sensible is to try to slowly alter my gender expression to be less recognizable as any gender. Another person on Blahaj was saying they were happy that people were misgendering them, and I think that would be a good goal. That probably means getting rid of the beard I have had far longer than half my lifetime, uninterrupted. That is going to be a sad moment. I think I'll need to buy more colours of nail polish and at least start using that, as it really seems to empower me. It's a good way to let my mind understand that "yes, stuff is being done", and it seems to be enough, as long as I really do schedule meetings with people who are better in the know about all this. I need to look at various options, try out this and try out that. And, I've anyway had a semi-serious plan to somehow reduce my testosterone levels because they seem to be much higher than men have on average. My ability to find ketchup in the fridge are even worse than how men usually have it. It feels stupid having to constantly ask female colleagues for help to find things that are right in front of my nose but that I still cannot find. Now I think I have one more reason to do something about that. I do not think I need my testosterone for anything. For me, it seems to only make my life worse without bringing much any benefits. It makes me get very very angry about things I really wouldn't need to get angry about, I tend to calm down in less than 10 seconds, but manage to look like an ass during that time. There's no need to flip the finger as easily as I do.
I also feel quite secure to say that I am not genderless. I have never in my life felt any gender euphoria at all. Also not any dysphoria of any kind – until that late Monday night. But now I feel, for the first time in my life, that I can actually have a gender that matters to me. I have an intuition now that I would not have that euphoria from being agender. There is an innate need (for the first time in my life) for me to have a gender. Of some kind. But it apparently needs to be a "custom" one. Which is not very easy, as this whole thing doesn't come with a manual of any kind.
This felt like an anvil dropping on my head from a clear sky. It crushed me into pieces, uninvited. It was not wanted, it was not welcome, and it made my life a LOT better.
Anyway, to conclude with a question: What would be very interesting are actual tips for how to get the gender-ambiguous expression I would like to have. I have the body of a very mid-sized man, maybe a little slimmer than average. And I'd say my facial features are quite strongly male. Though, I haven't really seen myself without a beard for ages, so maybe getting rid of that will make me less excessively male-looking.
And, if anybody recognizes something about my psyche that I am not recognizing, do shoot out!
TL;DR: Monday at 22 o'clock I was a cis-man, Monday at 23:45 I was vehemently and irrevocably trans.
During those two hours, I lost my gender. I felt angry and annoyed because I didn't want to complicate my life, but in the end this made me feel so happy and rid me of almost all of my depression that it was definitely a very very good thing, after all!
