if you have HRT Related queries or advice please check out !diyhrt@lemmy.blahaj.zone, an entire comm for HRT

I thought this post would be a good start to my new PieFed account. I'm back to talk about myself here again after about 6 months.

I feel like I need to make another one of these for myself because in previous posts here, I have discussed things like imposter syndrome or not valid or worthy enough etc. I read the definitions and found the words for who I am way too late in life. And feel like I've come a long way in a relatively short space of time in this regard.

Right now I feel pretty confident saying that I no longer need validation from anyone. That's not why I'm here talking about myself this time. I am just here to start off this new account by saying to the world that this is who I am. And who I always have been, long before I started seeing characters that I strangely identified with or envied in media and finally started looking up the meaning of things like "non-binary"and reading about myself.

I get validated by the world now. From euphoria to ewwphoria to just connecting dots in my mind and making sense of memories and things I did and things I liked.

Appearance wise, an androgynous question mark is what I wanted and seems to be I've started to achieve, with less effort than I thought it would take. Really I'm returning to my style from after school was out and into my early 20s, before I retreated from the world for a little too long. And I'm not even half way there yet.

But in real world, shop cashiers are occasionally referring to me as not my agab (then getting squirmy and trying to correct themselves); and I'm 100% noticing a lot more men, always men (and always a certain archetype in certain kind of large vehicle) practically fucking leering at me out their windows as they drive past. Like, eyes on the road big guy. Actually everyone is a little different now, or I am and it's all in my head but either way the result is the same. Interactions in the real world are validating as fuck now.

And on mainstream social media, where I've got pictures, people are frequently referring to me with pronouns and words that don't match my agab. And more enlightened people use they/them. And once in a hostile encounter, I got referred to as "it", which bothered me for a while but now I think I'll own that too. And when you talk about something from the past relating to gender issues and someone that I haven't even spoken to since school gives it a thumbs up, it goes a long way.

I'm using a gender neutral name now on those platforms but even with my very gendered real name, at one point I got accused of pretending to be my agab by a dumb bigot. Which you know what, fuck yeah. I am not a 1 or a 0 and people that only understand binary don't know wtf to do with me. Even targeted algorithms and advertising, gross as those things are, are validating as fuck these days to watch try to figure me out.

And yeah, that's it. Like I said at the start, this post was just entirely about myself. And for myself too, I need to put this out into the world somewhere, so thank you for the space to do this. I haven't had any big "coming out" moment (although knowledgeable people will definitely know by now based and things I say and share etc.) and honestly the way I'm planning on doing it is to just be more and more authentically me until it gets to the point where if anyone asks and really needs us spelt out for them, the news won't be shocking and it'll be more of a "well duh" moment.

I just want to end this by saying that you don't owe the world androgyny or have to be GNC to be non-binary. Your identity is who you are, not who you appear to be and you are valid no matter how you look. This is just my own journey and my own way of feeling more like my authentic self. And in current socio-political times, I don't mind my appearance being a protest and a way to tell bullied people that they're safe with me either.

I am who I am, who I always was and who I am inevitably becoming. And I don't need anyone else's permission or approval to be me.

The next day, in the middle of the night, I woke up to a dream about the assistant. It was a simple, innocent dream, really. Just me going to the cemetery and talking to them.

I thought this was an odd dream, as they seemed rather creepy, cold, and wanting nothing to do with me. I guess, however, a part of me thought they had a softer side I could “unlock” if I became friends with them.

In school, they would definitely have been the “weird” kid everyone is scared of and no one bothers to talk to. I’ve always been the type to talk to those people, though, and make sure they had a friend. I guess that was why I wasn’t very popular, but I didn’t care much about popularity anyway.

I realized that I had to do one thing: talk to the assistant.

Feelings of excitement and anxiety bubbled up inside of me.

I got in my car again and drove to Walnut Grove Cemetery, seeing the assistant with their shovel yet again.

“What are you doing here, again?” they asked. Their tone was cold, dry, and deep yet oddly feminine, though I couldn’t tell what gender they were. I didn’t want to get it wrong, however.

“First off, this may seem weird, but what gender are you? Are you a sir? A ma’am?”

“Technically,” they answered, their voice still dry and cool, “I’m none, but you may be neutral or feminine with me if you wish. After all, I was supposed to be…”

They cleared their throat. “...born as a girl.”

“Excellent! I’m (your gender)!”

“Great. Now if you don’t mind, you’re kind of… wasting my time. Like I said yesterday, you’d best go home and not come here for a while. What exactly did you come here to do?”

She was unfriendly and rude, even angry-sounding, so I figured I’d be quick. I was kind of getting nervous, to be honest, though I also still figured she had a softer side, I just needed to be friendly.

“I want… to get to know you more.”

She looked genuinely dumbfounded. “Me?? You want to…” She looked around. “Get to know me more??”

“Yes, you. I don’t believe we properly introduced ourselves, by the way.”

“B-but… I’m just a humble assistant.”

She didn’t seem humble to me, but I guess that was okay.

“I’m (your name).”

“I’m… Kanami Yamamoto. Can we…”

She paused for a little bit.

“Can we…?”

“Can we go for coffee sometime, maybe?”

“It’s a date, then,” I teased.

“What!? I’m not doing this for… you, you know. I’m doing this because you wanted to get to know me.”

“Well, then that is doing it for me. I’m just teasing, anyway.”

She sighed, then laughed. “Oh my God, I thought you were serious.”

She, to be honest, didn’t strike me as the type to laugh. Of course, though, she went right back to being cool. “Anyway, I’m not doing this because of any interest in dating, especially not… someone like you.”

“That’s fine,” I responded. “As long as we can be friends.”

Kanami hesitated for a bit, looking away, before saying “...Sure.”

She looked a bit uncomfortable, but maybe I was misreading the situation. Either way, I didn’t ask. I just stood there, awkwardly in silence.

…

“You’d best go home, I’ve got work to do, it’s getting late… er, early, and…”

I nodded, smiling. “Well, see you!”

“Bye!”

Walking away, a thought suddenly popped into my head. “Wait!”

Kanami cocked her head to the side.

“What’s your phone number?”

All of a sudden, I felt my face turn hot. “I’m… I’m sorry if this is too forward.”

“No worries,” she said, from what I could tell, completely expressionless.

I pulled out my phone and she slowly told me her number, “888-2508”.

“Okay… Bye then.”

“Bye, ma’am.”

And so I drove back home and fell asleep again.

…

I saw this elsewhere and wanted to share it here, the OP asks if you could upvote the thread and maybe add a short supporting comment about how it'd make the game more appealing to you

Prologue

“A…Are you sure?” I stuttered, phone up to my ear.

“Hell yeah!” answered my friend at the end of the line, Mike Roberts.

“I don’t know…” I answered back. “It seems kinda…”

“What?” he scoffed. “You scared?”

Mike is my childhood friend. Ever since kindergarten, he’s tried to find “adventurous” ways to get us into trouble, claiming I was “scared” if I didn’t. Regardless, I still liked and cared about him. He was like a brother to me after all.

I gulped. “No! Of course not!”

“Then what are you waiting for? We’re going to the cemetery in fifteen minutes. It’s already 1:45 a.m.”

That’s right. Mike woke me up in the middle of the night just to do some haunted cemetery crap where we “speak to the dead” or whatever. I don’t believe in it.

I sighed. “Fine.”

“Great. I knew I could get you to agree.” He chuckled mischievously, and I could feel his grin spread from ear to ear.

“Bye, then?”

“Byeee!”

I threw on my favorite shirt and pants, then drove the car I’ve had for four years to the local cemetery, Walnut Grove Cemetery.

I walked down the steps to my house and hopped in my silver Subaru Outback.

I shivered a little in the brisk October air. I should’ve brought a sweater with me.

I drove past all the houses next to each other, several restaurants, apartments, all going by in a blur while my favorite song, (your favorite song) by (that artist), played in the background.

Finally, I arrived to meet Mike at the cemetery. It was cool and obviously dark, as it was two in the morning. There was a large white fence and many graves from as early as 1874 standing by each other.

“You know, with your hair blowing in the breeze like that, you’re very (handsome/beautiful).”

I could tell he was smiling despite the darkness. He teased me a lot, after all.

“Ya ready?” he asked as my foot reached for the entrance of the fence.

I took a deep breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

While on one hand, I’d never done this before, I don’t know why I was so scared. It’s not like we were digging up the corpses or anything, just talking to ghosts I didn’t believe in.

With my phone flashlight, I could see the grave I was standing next to was that of Maria Karlsson, a Swedish-American girl I went to school with who died when we were 13 in a car crash.

“H… Hi.”

No answer. See, Mike? It wasn’t real. Maria was just a corpse rotting in the ground, and she definitely went to Heaven if it even existed.

“HEY!!!”

Mike and I jumped. “Yes, sir? Ma’am… uhhh…”

“Assistant,” said the person. They were carrying a shovel. Their skin was oddly pale, their neck-length hair shaggy and dark brown. Their eyes were a reddish-brown, and they wore a black turtleneck with a white shirt covered in dirt over it.

“Ok then, Assistant. What do you want?” snapped Mike.

“Michael!” I called him Michael, as if he were my own son, when I scolded him. “Let’s not be rude.”

“Take some advice from them,” the assistant replied. “What the hell are y’all even doing here?”

I stared at their blue jeans and black shoes with white soles. “Oh, I’m so, so, sorry. I can explain…”

“We’re here to speak to the dead,” finished Mike, coming up behind me.

The assistant blinked. “Excuse me?”

“He dragged me into this,” I replied.

“I don’t think the dead can talk back to you.”

“Believe me, I don’t either.”

They crossed their arms. “Now, I don’t want to see you two for a long while. You’d best leave.”

Mike sighed. “Fine.”

Walking back to our cars, Mike scoffed. He did that a lot.

“A worker, here to spoil our fun.”

Truth be told, Mike had more fun than I did, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

So I just nodded. “Yeah.”

“I mean, just let us have fun! I want to speak to the dead, maybe even be haunted.”

I nodded again, not quite knowing what to say.

“Well, I’d better get to bed.”

“Me too. That was…” Not fun, but… ”...interesting.”

“Why, thank you, (your name).”

“You’re welcome, Mike.”

And so I got in the car and drove back to my house, driving back past the buildings and watching everything become a blur as my favorite song played yet again.

…

I plopped down on the bed, lying on my back. As I closed my eyes, I saw no one other than the worker.

They were certainly creepy. Almost like a ghost or something with that pale skin. Wow.

I slowly but surely fell asleep.

Like “sparkly cis” (my own term?) or something like that? At first, I started using the pronouns he/him. Then, when I realized that I actually don’t identify as a man and that it didn’t feel right, I started switching to they/them, as I felt like neither a man nor a woman and didn’t feel strongly about gender either way.

Well, I’m fully aware that what’s in one's pants is NOT equivalent to their gender, but the thing is: I don’t really want a penis. I don’t want both. I really want neither, maybe just a hole, but the vagina I have is fine to me because it’s not a penis.

I’m AFAB and identify with feminine terms and neutral terms, like the pronouns she/they. If I’m dating someone, I want to be referred to as “partner” or “girlfriend” but not “boyfriend”. Not “man”, “dude”, or “bro”, though I also see those as gender-neutral, so I’m more okay with those than “boyfriend”.

“Homie” or “friend” is my favorite, though. I don’t even mind just “person”, but I prefer homie or friend like I said.

I feel impostor syndrome or whatever though and it feels like I’m just a cis woman with extra steps or “spicy/sparkly cis”.

I realized when I just didn't really feel like masculine or feminine labels applied to me. I now am fine with feminine or neutral labels but yeah.

It's for anyone whose gender (or lack thereof) isn't described by the M/F binary. It's short and easy, and results are useful in academia, business and self-advocacy.

I am something that you'll never understand

(I Would Die 4 U - Prince)

So, I (18X [possibly genderfluid/masc enby]) posted about liking a guy, I'll call him Kieran to avoid confusion (19M) while in a relationship with "Michael" (24M). Michael and I broke up recently and I've been talking a bit to Kieran. I asked if he wanted to hang out sometime and I know we just could be friends but he said he would love to and I'm panicking!!

I once heard someone describe their gender as "none gender with left girl." (For the uninitiated, it's a reference to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_Pizza_with_Left_Beef) It's lived rent-free in my hear ever since. Incidentally, it's pretty similar to how I feel about my own gender.

Today is International NonBinary day.

So I bought a sewing machine and tried fitting this old polo:

I highly recommend picking up this skill, it's way easier than I thought it was going to be and the results are just spectacular~

Clothes that fit enbies can be so hard to find, but the trans joy of seeing yourself in something that fits is absolutely worth the work!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/27212481

We created a new community for all Trans and Queer people to ask and answer more personal and intimate questions! Hope this helps!

!tquad@lemmy.blahaj.zone

For starters, I present femininely because that’s just my base model (afab) and I’m quite literally too poor and too busy working to do all of the modifications I want on my body. I also find the convenience of looking cis does help me get through my tougher work days.

While I appreciate those who know of my identity using the proper pronouns to refer to me, it stings just a tiny bit every time I get misgendered. I get it. I just ‘don’t look the part.’

It feels like I’m at an impasse but I do want to put in the work to look the way I want to. I just need some time and a good mindset to get things started. I just want my body to feel mine again.

i find it funny that i happen to be lgbt but was born in one of the countries that totally hates us. i’m nonbinary [she/he/they] and bi/pan :)

i moved to the us with my family at age 10 in 2013.

Question 1

Hi! I am an AMAB enby living in Edinburgh. I was wondering if, other than the LGBTQ+ society at my university, there was any sort of community/group/Discord server for non-binary people in my area.

Question 2

I was just watching some movies from the 1920s, and I felt some sort of connection. Obviously, things are better nowadays than in the 1920s (apart from the politics), but I was wondering what the non-binary experience would have been like back then, apart from the obvious xenophobia etc etc.

Question 3

I would like to try dressing more femme. I tried a skirt last year, but it was a midi skirt (I think mini would suit me better) and it was far too tight anyway (damn nonstandard sizing). Physiologically, I am shorter than most AMABs in the UK, but otherwise average, and stockier than the average enby. Could anyone give me any advice for skirts and dresses?

Hey fellow enbies!

Does anyone here have experience with binders? Specifically, do they permanently alter the shape of your chest? I like my naked body and view is as gender neutral, but I'd like to be READ as more neutral while wearing clothes sometimes. So I want to bind in a way that won't alter how my naked body looks. What's your experience with that?

Thanks!

I don't want to turn this place into my personal journal, so hopefully this is the last post of its kind that I do here (I do have a general question in mind to also post here though). Although I do wish this place was busier so that people could discuss their journeys without feeling like they're taking over, or feeling too exposed.

On the subject of labels. I am sticking with non-binary now and deciding to make the conscious effort to stop thinking of myself as an imposter or invader, whether I ever actually take any steps towards HRT or not. I feel 99% sure that if all of this stuff was openly discussed and accepted in my country when I was a kid, I would've read the definition of non-binary and been "Yup! That's me!" Just like when I finally read the definition way too late in life. And if that had been the case, I feel like a lot of things in life would've been better and made sense or felt fairer to me.

As far as HRT goes, I am very open to trying, mostly to see how it feels. I feel like as long as I have only ever known having T in charge of things, and have never experienced E driving me, part of me will always feel like an imposter. Reading up on the effects of switching to E, almost all of it sounds beneficial to me. Except for one of the two irreversible effects, breast growth. This is the difference between doing this without needing to explain anything to anyone and publicly coming out. I have seen people report that it starts fairly early. And I already have a kinda prominent chest and reason to believe it would end up being quite hard to hide.

Either way, it's not on the cards soon due to finances, living situation etc. And either way, I would still be non-binary because I am also 99% sure that if I was AFAB but still had the same personality and experience in a binary world, I would've also read the definition of non-binary and been "Yup! That's me!"

So for now, I'm actually happy owning this body and by extension the way society looks at me for a while longer. I'm happy being GNC at most for now. And I'm going to use this time to work on my mind, work on a regular income, work on my general health, work out, and prepare for what the future may bring.

If anyone responds here and I don't respond and / or upvote and stuff right away, it'll be because it's currently 2am here and I've finally fallen asleep. Although I am planning on another joint and cup of coffee.

songs with multigender vibes?

@nonbinary

I'm looking for more music with this theme. Something like "In Or Out" by Ani DiFranco.

Lyrics:

"In Or Out"

guess there's something wrong with me
guess I don't fit in
no one wants to touch it
no one knows where to begin
I've got more than one membership
to more than one club
and I owe my life
to the people that I love

he looks me up and down
like he knows what time it is
like he's got my number
like he thinks it's his
he says,
call me, Miss DiFranco,
if there's anything I can do
I say,
It's Mr. DiFranco to you

somedays the line I walk
turns out to be straight
other days the line tends to
deviate
I've got no criteria for sex or race
I just want to hear your voice
I just want to see your face

she looks me up and down
like she thinks that I'll mature
like she's got my number
like it belongs to her
she says,
call me, Ms. DiFranco
if there's anything I can do
I say, I've got spots
I've got
stripes, too

their eyes are all asking
are you in, or are you out
and I think, oh man,
what is this about?
tonight you can't put me
up on any shelf
'cause I came here alone
I'm gonna leave by myself

I just want to show you
the way that I feel
and when I get tired
you can take the wheel
to me what's more important
is the person that I bring
not just getting to the same restaraunt
and eating the same thing

guess there's something wrong with me
guess I don't fit in
no one wants to touch it
no one knows where to begin
I've more than one membership
to more than one club
and I owe my life to the people that I love

#nonbinary #enby #lgbt #bigender #multigender #genderfluid #trans #androgynous

First I just want to say that I wish this community was busier. There's still major things missing from R*ddit around here on Lemmy. Namely, actual discussion. In all areas, like even the punk subreddit was great for actual discussion and not just dumping links and shit. And as far as gender identity goes, I'm not sure how different my mindset would be right now if it wasn't for the non-binary and genderqueer subs on R*ddit being around and just having other people's stories to read and interact with.

But to the actual post. Not so long ago, I boldly and confidently declared that I'm agender. And I truly felt it at the time. Which honestly has just made it so much more obvious just how many times daily and for how many reasons I wish I was afab. And it can't be exactly true that I'm no gender if this is how things are.

However, I remain under the non-binary umbrella because I know that I will probably never* take steps to change my physical body or even start asking people to address me in a certain way. Not going to even share these thoughts and feelings with family, or even a therapist. And I haven't even been in contact with a lot of my friends for years and in this already religious conservative leaning country that I'm in, I have no doubt that a lot have gone down Joe Rogan looking rabbit holes in the years since. I've even had one old friend catch up out of the blue, which I was quite happy about at first, who then sent me a Jordan Peterson link and I kinda ghosted that conversation and haven't spoken to him since. So I've told exactly one (1) person in my life, a decades long online friend that I've never even met in real life lol.

So based on societal pressures and various other things, not excluding imposter syndrome, I begrudgingly accept my shell despite my inner feelings. I begrudgingly accept being something 'other' or 'in between' and that I will never be either. And anyone that wants to claim that this is some sort of fad is out of their god damned mind. Because it's actually kinda shit. The world is full of "men" and "women" labels on arbitrary, cultural and non-biological shit. And being man shaped but also not only pretty much disgusted with the current state of 'masculinity' but also yearning to be surrounded by things and people with the 'women' label is shit. And I think a double source of guilt and imposter syndrome is being man shaped, feeling this way but also being attracted to women shaped people.

So yeah, it's all fucked up. After a couple of years of this journey and thinking that I had answers, turns out that I still don't really know who I am or where I belong. Or if this state of being just dooms me to be alone and seeking connection in random corners of the internet in a binary world. But it's also all good because actually life has always been this way and I've got this far.

Everyone is different. Some people who are non binary but lean/present as feminine might use feminine words, but others I’ve seen use the masculine because they think modifying the grammar is complicated.

I personally use the gender-neutral modified language, like using elle in Spanish.