it's a question I'm happy to get, in a way... I guess I'm glad when I'm given enough credit as a thoughtful person, despite being cis.. lol. I have my own experience and reality of it, a complicated relationship with my body.

As a child, I hated a lot of things of being a girl... assumptions and archetypes, styles of toys and clothes. I refused to ever play as girls with my toys or LARPs, only ever assuming a male role, and insisted I "didn't know how to play a girl". Though... I always fantasized about being a female animal, in the private sexual fantasy sense. Mostly my own body/visage was only interacted with in a practical way... clothes suitable to run on all 4s in, so, I hated dresses/skirts, or things too fancy to get dirty. I wore sneakers and capris and T-shirts, like any kid, really.

As a teen... I guess begins profound hatred of my, features, face, body... not only for being human in general, but being exactly the visage of human I was. Feeling like a sculpted pile of mashed potatoes... I liked women a lot, but I felt like quite a gremlin in comparison.

It isn't until my early 20s that I consider if something about how I present myself or identify could be some kind of solution to the deep miserable self-hatred well. At this time, a lot of people around me and in the online climate of places like tumblr, were coming out as NB or trans in some way. While I knew trans people in middle/high school (very sparsely, mind you), there wasn't anything about the idea of testosterone which held any appeal. 'Nonbinary' presented me a possible new way of seeing myself ... ? I felt like-- such a failure of a girl, a female, whatever, and I felt like I could never become 'sexy' or 'pretty' in the way a girl is. Could I harness a greater sense of self-image through finally excising this 'girl'ness entirely...? Maybe I had gone about it wrong... I just wanted to feel less miserable.

but uhmmmm...no. Absolute non-starter... I played with the idea for a little bit, but it only made me feel more miserable and agonized about the things I "just couldn't" be, couldn't escape. I didn't want to be, not a girl, I just, longed to be the kind of girl I could revel in being... or even just tolerate being passively. Exist without so much turmoil and self-hatred. Pivoting into anything nongirl only made me feel like a failure, or like I was compromising, backed into a corner... it only made me feel more resigned and helpless. Walking away from femininity only because I was too mid. There was also some small sense of shame of course, that I'm honestly not really interesting enough to thrive in something like another gender or whatever. Accepting "I just want to be a pretty girl, afterall", I felt dumb as a post, I felt basic and of course, like I didn't deserve any kind of pity or sympathy in it. It seemed like the kind of thing that intrinsically pisses other people off to mention, discuss...

I uhm, finally made efforts into "the kind of girl" I wanted to be... acquiring dresses, skirts, tights, tall boots, growing my hair out... finally started feeling something--!! I let, my fursonas be less ugly and weird looking haha, more feminine and delicate or at least cute. Even my artistic depictions of myself for ages were, barely fantasies, I couldn't connect myself to the idea of the kind of girl I wanted to be without misery and shame...

I met my husband in my mid-20s during this kinda era and, he absolutely swooned over me as some Goddess of girlishness, of course he didn't see me as any kind of failure or imitation of girlness. That really helped my confidence...

But ah *stares into the stars* what even is gender, to me...?
This is only my personal view, but the thing about the categories of boy/girl/nonbinary/agender/voidgender etc, is that these are all equally human social constructs to me. None of them represent something more 'other' than anything else. Human boxes, human ideas. Even very modern ones ...

When thinking of 'nonbinary', I felt still too excruciatingly human... and like it only had a different slew of impressions, archetypes, expectations, etc. I didn't feel it let me 'escape' anything... it held all the same degree of trappings as 'girl', they were only different trappings.

In many ways, I dislike... the reality of existing or being seen at all. It's been a long time to accept I exist or can be seen. As a child, I just didn't want to be observed whatsoever.. positively or negatively. When I say, "I'm [IDENTITY]", the other person's head will always swirl with preconceived notions, associations, assumptions...!

When thinking of gender, I had to get very practical and pragmatic about it... how other people were seeing it, in discussions, as almost a kind of spiritual or meaningful identity aspect, something internally true like a religious epiphany, didn't really grock with me... it's only a social impression, a human symbol, a communication, and often a subtextual one. What did I want out of any of it? There would be those notions, associations, assumptions, with any answer.

The reality of sociality is... I like being very visibly a girl. I like when I walk behind a girl on the street, and she turns around, and immediately calms/softens, realizing I'm a girl. I like getting into the elevator with girls... I like complimenting eachothers hair, accessories, shoes... being asked for an opinion on a top in a thriftshop... basically, it turns out I actually like the stereotypes and impressions associated, as an adult who can more often than not just choose when I need to completely detach (as a child, I was constantly overstimulated). I feel I 'step into' girlness when I have to do an errand. I like to speak delicately. It's an appealing performance. Even the unflattering social impressions, don't feel wrong, lol. I like the kind of girl I represent... I like putting this 'type of girl' into the world. I realized I could choose to do that, and SO... I did!!! I no longer felt 'resigned' or 'helpless'... it was my choice to pursue this, and, reap the rewards of it.

I feel being any kind of human is a sort of performance... I would like to be a manic pixie dream girl, then. Something genki and silly. Maybe a Marceline, playful but a bully... or a Lapis, troubled but unwittingly graceful. Or a Nene-chan, dumb but earnest. Pathetically though, I needed someone to love me, to see that potential... to be charitable to my 'options' at all... in the past, I'd have shriveled and died to even approach the idea of being a Lapis... it would be too painful, too unobtainable... as impossible as being a squirrel, quite frankly!!!!

Privately I-- do as I so please!!!!!! I can be a shota, I'd like to make a shota 'sona this year, I have plans to. I like to be otouto~~ intimately with MY HUSBAND!!! I find I can enjoy being anything... because *his* perception of me *as* a shota, is of course not unpleasant... he understands my crucial Avvy-ness. There are parts of me that are, Tsukasa, Asriel... little brother, big brother. But, these aspects absolutely don't want to fucking post on twitter or go to the grocery store!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would get NOTHING out of being Asriel or Tsukasa while escorting my husband to a medical appointment... I would even describe it as a kind of sick torture for them. Asriel and Tsukasa exist only in the company of Kris and Amane, they get nothing out of being perceived by anyone else ... and because terminology isn't a prescriptive checklist of things you do or think, none of this makes me any less of a girl, because I say so... my feelings are that I don't want, to be assigned something like nonbinary or genderfluid by others at a distance ... it feels as much an imposition as girlness felt to me as a child ... "because you exhibit XYZ thing, that means you are this social construct"... I'm more content being seen as a modest delusional fujoshi. When I see girls like that, I feel a great kinship. I don't want my strange brain or hobbies or fantasies to diminish my girlness... it took me so much effort to get there.

I guess when I think of the wide world of fantasy, imagination... my 'gender' alters as much as my... species, race, weight, instincts, hair color, temperament. It's just, gender is the only thing we culturally have defined as in some way, flexible... my way of thinking doesn't alter a public perception of my species or race or weight or something. When I am Tsukasa... I don't feel any critical dysphoria about having a pussy... but instead, I feel fussed by the texture/weight of my clothes, or, the scent on the air is wrong... I long for things like, tatami mats under my feet or a heavy silk kimono on my shoulders. If I'm Asriel... I most wish to express with that strange mouth, but, really, he's content to be in a world he's the same species as Kris and not divided by so much.

The other night I was talking to my husband about, identity... that even things that are 'true' about you, don't always become a part of your 'identity'. In reality, so many aspects of his BPD are more critical to represent and express than like... being fat, or Colombian. Even though those things are inescapable IRL. I feel this about my ah, social aversions. There is an 'Avvy-ness' which is not contingent on gender, any more than a billion other factors ... but that doesn't like, erase what I say I am socially, either... it's my choice, after all, that aspect.

I guess being a girl for me represents harnessing that feeling of having agency, choice, not being forced to reckon with the consequences of my appearance... but deciding I could just become something I liked to see in the world. Annnnnnd I accept if that sounds dumb coming from a cis person ahahaha... (:

at least once, a trans friend said to me, that he really liked that one could enter the gender cave and come out as anything... that the very act of navel-gazing or overthinking didn't make him trans, but that one can find anything within the cave, even the same thing they went in with. I liked this notion... self-discovery, can look like anything....!