So, gender is a very odd thing.
Ever since I was a kid I don't think I've ever really understood gender. Girls wore pink and had long hair, but guys wore blue and had short hair? I knew guys who wore pink nearly every day, and had long hair, and I knew girls who had short hair and wore blue. When I tried playing with the boys on my street growing up, I was ignored because I was a girl, and when I went to go play with the girls, I never wanted to play with dolls (although I always did love me some dress up).
When I reached my teenage years I started to embrace more of the femininity I was supposed to have. I felt like wearing just a t-shirt and jeans meant that I wasn't doing enough. I wore stuff that never really fit my personality; I was just trying to force myself to be girly.
When I was sixteen and first started venturing into the world of the internet forums, I came across the idea that gender wasn't binary. This was a totally new concept for me. I knew being trans* was a thing, but not being male or female? That's crazy.
Or was it?
Because I have a female body, I had accepted that I was female. I stayed that way for about three years.
Last summer, I began experimenting, binding my chest with ace bandage and wearing more "gender neutral" clothing. This was a part of me I hadn't quite accepted.
At the beginning of last semester, I began to understand that I wasn't female, but definitely wasn't male. This started a bit of a crisis for me; what was I?
Now, on the cusp of my 20th birthday, I still don't know what I am, or who I am. Right now, the thing that fits the most is probably agenderfluid, or just genderqueer. Unlike many trans* people, I don't experience dysphoria, but I also know that one doesn't have to experience dysphoria to be a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.
Gender, you see, is complicated. I don't think any of us are 100 percent male or female, but close enough to either on the spectrum to not see anything "different" about ourselves. I still use she pronouns for the most part because, to me, those pronouns mean virtually nothing, and I haven't found a pronoun I like better yet. But that doesn't change my identity. I love suits and dresses, and I love heels almost as much as I love loafers.
What I do know is this: I am hella queer. I am a weird, bent, and broken human being, but I am also a strong one, a beautiful one, a handsome one, one who isn't going to let typical gender roles and ideas confine her. That's the great thing about breaking out of the typical male/female binary: I get to choose my own abilities and roles myself.
