Gender vent

since i came out (not as demigirl but as nonbinary), i have been consistent in my internal and external communications that i am just as much not-man as i am not-woman. i am not transmasculine. given that i am afab, i don't have the ability to be transfeminine. i don't have any nice tidy words for who i am. i am not sapphic because i am not a woman (and because i am attracted to men and because not everyone who looks feminine *is* feminine). i am not [whatever the equivalent mlm word is] because i am not a man, i am attracted to women, not everyone who looks masculine is masculine. i feel massively uncomfortable at the idea of monosexual people (straight, lesbian) being attracted to me because my identity is Not Feminine In Any Meaningful Way. and almost everyone who is visible and almost everyone i know who is afab and whose identity is Not Feminine In Any Meaningful Way is transmasculine, identifies as masculine in some way, and so i start to think that i have to be masculine, i have to let myself be defined by binaries -- which is wrong.

i have never been a man. have always presented masculine in little ways just as i have always presented feminine in little ways. masculinity is as foreign a concept to me as femininity, but in a different way; i have lived femininity and rejected it based on my knowledge of it. my rejection of masculinity is based on the void feeling good, feeling right, feeling like home. but the logical abuse survivor in me tells me that i cannot know unless i try, unless i put on masculinity as a costume the same way i used to wear femininity, only it can never be the same because i never chose femininity. and i don't want to choose masculinity, not because of its toxicity or anything, but because i know i'm not a man. and i wish my brain would accept what my body is telling it.

i use they/them and she/her pronouns but only put they/them in my bio because otherwise cis people will only use she/her and i prefer they/them. but part of me doesn't care, wants people to use any and all pronouns for me, kind of like the way i don't particularly want a name. i just. i'm tired of people assuming femininity, tired of feeling invalid because my Not-Mascness has led me to eschew medical transition (for anyone else i would be the loudest supportive voice, but for myself i am the pinprick of doubt) (also, money), and i'm tired of it feeling surprising when someone tells me i am beautiful *and* handsome.