How's your gender doing these days, anyways? You're not talking about it much.
I don't know.
I know who and what I am, and that's good. But living it is is very frustrating.
I am out in little ways, if people were able to notice - I never ever use binary-gendered terms to refer to myself, and I always use gender neutral terms to refer to people whose gender hasn't been implicitly or explicitly communicated.
...as someone who works in tech and isn't a guy...
But those are tiny little flags, and 90% of the world just doesn't have the tools to notice them, let alone understand them.
How can you expect people to know if you don't tell them?
I don't expect them to know.
But I feel constantly aware that the people around me don't even understand the concept of my gender. And the conversation isn't simple - it usually requires a correction (oh, hey, I actually use 'they/them' pronouns...) definition (well, non binary means...), an explanation (so...not everyone fits into either a or b...), a discussion (But doesn't that mean that....), and then a debate (I just don't think that it's grammatical....). Which is a long process to get people to just use the right pronouns!
And you know what? Pronouns are super boring! I don't want to think about them either!
It's hard to be something that people think isn't real, even people in the queer and trans communities. The constant debate about the existence of my gender is exhausting. Every new conversation feels like I'm starting all over again.
It's overwhelming - there's so many more people to convince, so many more conversations to have, places to be 'out' in, all full of people who might aggressively go out of their way to disrespect and hurt me .... so I'm talking about it less and less....
...which makes it seem like it's not important, even though it's important to me...
...which makes me feel like I'm just...doing it wrong? Shouldn't it be easier than this?
...you're not a genderfailure
i AM genderfailure!
