Jemma

Trans folks, I am curious, which option best fits your lived experience early in life?

Boost for reach please.

Feeling you want to be a gender other than AGAB
31.2%
Feeling that you are a gender other than AGAB
25.9%
Neither option fits
27.8%
Not trans, but wanted to press a button
15%
Poll ended at .
Dec 2, 2022 at 2:02amWeb
Show threadProfessor Fig dies all endingsDec 2, 2022
@jemma Sometimes one, sometimes the other. When I thought about it I conceptualised it as "want to be," but when I wasn't looking at it dead on I'd often conceptualise it as "am"
Show threadbrocolie (tots not a vampire)Dec 2, 2022
@epistemophagy @jemma to me it's more of a sense (like proprioception) than a feeling (like a mood), still went with the second one because it still kinda fits
Show threadProfessor Fig dies all endingsDec 2, 2022
@brocolie @jemma yeah that was it for me, but also a sense like the autistic sixth sense of "oh no, I just socially fucked up" like "oh no, they just noticed I'm a girl"
Show threadbrocolie (tots not a vampire)Dec 2, 2022

@epistemophagy @jemma oh

yup, absolutely

Show threadJemmaDec 2, 2022
@epistemophagy @brocolie oh yeah, the feeling that it must be obvious to everyone, I know that one.
Show threadProfessor Fig dies all endingsDec 2, 2022
@jemma @brocolie I had an internal monologue of self-abuse and it was always feminine-gendered slurs for some reason
Show threadbrocolie (tots not a vampire)Dec 2, 2022
@epistemophagy @jemma ouch >< 
Show thread🏳️‍⚧️kittycat🏳️‍⚧️Dec 2, 2022
@jemma it was feeling like I wanted to because I did not know that being a different gender was a possibility.
Show threadJemmaDec 2, 2022
@kittycat same, growing up in a small town, with little representation (and no positive representation because it was the 80s)
Show thread🏳️‍⚧️kittycat🏳️‍⚧️Dec 2, 2022
@jemma yeah :(. im sorry 
Show threadAdaDec 2, 2022
@jemma Somewhere in between option 1 and 2? "I am meant to be" rather than "I am" or "I want to be"
Show threadJemmaDec 2, 2022
@ada oh yes, that's a good way to think about it
Show threadEris RenéeDec 2, 2022

@jemma I put the “want to be” option because that’s how I conceptualized it as a kid. Around the time I started going through puberty I was like, envious of the other girls my age and I would think, “fuck I wish i was a girl and my body wasn’t actively betraying me”. I hoped I would grow out of it, but obviously didn’t lol.

Later on (not until adulthood) I came to realize the reason I felt like that was because I was a girl/woman the whole time and shit was just a bit fucked up.

Show threadJemmaDec 2, 2022
@Eris moving from option 1 to option 2 sounds somewhat like self acceptance
Show threadAndrew PerforsDec 2, 2022

@jemma Basically, while I was sitting around in Reincarnation Heaven waiting to be born again, I found a cursed chalice. Drinking from it meant when I got reincarnated I got zig-zagged off the path my soul was originally destined for. I'm now on an adjacent parallel-universe path to it, and my life has been slowly realising what I need to do to get back to the person I was meant to be.

(Note: I don't actually believe in Reincarnation Heaven or souls or destiny, but this is the qualia of the experience)

Show threadPokePanda Mei wants to battle!Dec 2, 2022

@jemma i...didn't know what being trans was until I was in my teens and didn't know that it wasn't a porn/sex thing until I was in my 20s.

I just assumed that every boy had the feelings I did.

Show threadWildfire DarkstarDec 2, 2022
@jemma As an enby, I always felt like I didn't fit well into my AGAB, but I don't think I was able to properly conceptualize sex in a non-transmedicalist way (at least for myself, I think/hope I avoided being judgmental towards other people) until well into adulthood. So it was more about *wanting* to be something I "obviously" wasn't for most of my life.
Show threadRainDec 2, 2022
@jemma I have zero memory of "early life", but the earliest clear memory I have was pre-teen me deciding I needed to be someone other than myself and making a solid effort to do that to fit with my AGAB, though I can't say the intention was very clearly that to me at the time.
Show threadNyatalieDec 2, 2022
@jemma pre-puberty I felt pretty genderless but did leap at rumours of his becoming girls, onset of puberty something felt wrong and it was weird to be excluded from "girl things" but I didn't think of myself as a girl until I started transition in my mid 20s
Show threadShady JadeDec 2, 2022
@jemma Option B happens, like, two years into HRT. Too impostory for the many prior decades!
Show threadLiminal Flares 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈Dec 2, 2022
@jemma Oops! I meant to tap 'Neither' but accidentally selected option #2.
Show threadJessie Ann (she/they)Dec 2, 2022

@jemma @epistemophagy Early life was more about surviving the violence and abuse that only in hindsight I understand as being significantly related to gender.

Hurt and jealousy about certain things I was denied is probably what gave some definition to my sense of self that ultimately became semi-gendered, but is still pretty murky and fluid.

Show threadJessie Ann (she/they)Dec 2, 2022
@jemma @epistemophagy I was really oblivious about gender and, since people communicated either with what was supposed to be self-evident code I did not understand or with punishment for not adhering to it, I don’t believe any of this was verbalized for me in terms of ‘I want this’ or ‘I feel this’ statements directly about gender. Instead, I was just constantly confused by what I now know was forced gender crap.
Show threadJessie Ann (she/they)Dec 2, 2022
@jemma @epistemophagy Which I is to say, I guess a little bit of A, B, and C.
Show threadOlivia A-CDec 2, 2022

@jemma I may have answered incorrectly. I selected "Neither option fits", because that feels correct, but I definitely said more than once "my life would be better if I had been born a girl", including to my parents

So maybe that's just denial on my part?

Show threadQuinn (he/him)Dec 3, 2022
@jemma Closest approximation for me was “just extremely uncomfortable when people brought up my perceived gender at all”, to the point that I initially thought I must be nonbinary by default. Until I had experiences that actually gave me good feelings about my gender and realized that I did actually have one
Show threadEmber  Dec 3, 2022
@jemma mine was "separating things by gender is bs gender norms suck" and I'm nonbinary with pretty much the same feelings now. I resent being forced into gendered systems