Losing my gender

[Trigger warnings: mentions of transphobia, homophobia, misogyny and ensuing, potential, harassment.]

I am non-binary. I am genderqueer. I am trans: a trans-guy but with the part “trans” being particularly important to me. There’s a boy in me but there’s also a girl — and so much more — so much in between and so much beyond the binary genders our society gives us — and there always will be. I won’t “grow out of it”. The boy in me won’t “grow into a man”. And the girl in me won’t ever be, or want to be, a “woman”. 

So I’m doomed. I’m doomed to not be seen by this world (& to actually always be at risk of being attacked for my queerness). The world doesn’t see me, doesn’t see people like me. People will always address me as either “sir” or “m’am”; they will always default to “she” or “he” pronouns, making the (wrong) choice for me, without asking or wondering. And their choice will be based on fleeting or subjective details: someone will decide based on my voice (which anyway changes depending on circumstances); someone else will decide based on what I’m wearing; others will decide based on my facial- and/or body-hair, or on the shape/forms of my body (that they can see). But none of these details per se determine my gender as either wholly masculine or fully feminine: because I am neither. Or I’m both — I’m in between and beyond — and what I am, how I feel, can change from one day to the next, from one moment to the next. 

Medicine will also not support my gender. 

The amount of body-hair I am getting is so upsetting, dysphoric, to me that I have actually stopped taking testosterone for my GAHT. But that’s not going to solve the problem, either, because I like many aspects of how I feel when I take testosterone and, moreover, stopping it will cause me to get my period again, which is also dysphoric to me. 

So I’m stuck: I’m stuck in between without really being able to be myself in between. 

Being genderqueer or genderfluid or gender-nonconforming or non-binary for me isn’t something I can simply express only through my way of dressing or acting. It’s something I need to see and express through my own body: the shape & look of my body, its smell (which changes on testosterone!), the amount & locations & color & texture of facial- & body-hair. 

When I was considering to start GAHT two years ago, I finally decided to go for it mainly because I was told “body-hair is a non-issue”: i.e. facial- & body-hair can be removed. Yes, but to what expense??? The hassle and financial burden of getting rid of facial- & body-hair can be huge: and it looks like it would be huge for me if my body-hair keeps growing the way it’s starting to do now. Plus, I don’t want it all removed, I don’t want a wholly hairless body like a reptile. I liked my soft, blond hairs, the golden fuzz I’ve always had. I don’t want to get all of that removed. 

And then, even if I did manage to solve the problem of facial- & body-hair, would that really solve the underlying issue for me? Society still won’t really see me, won’t see the real me, the non-binary person I am. 

People are starting to (mis)gender me more in the masculine direction now, which is far less upsetting to me than the feminine direction — to the extent that, other than in the professional/STEM context, I don’t even correct them. And sometimes it helps me feel safer, like when I’m traveling, especially on trips like my recent one to rural Nebraska where being a trans person could simply put me at the risk of my life. But I’m sure that at a careful enough inspection even people who address me as “sir” or “he” will see I’m not a “straight cis man”, because I wasn’t brought up as a man, I was socialized as a woman, so there are so many things I do or ways I say things or small attitudes or behaviors and even some of my clothes (or colors of clothes) that are not “typical for a straight (cis) man”. And because so much of the world doesn’t even know what “trans” or “non-binary” or “genderqueer” means — they’ve never even heard these terms and if they did they’d just feel disgust or hate — then I probably just look like a “gay (cis) guy” to them. Which in many places is just as dangerous because of so much ingrained homophobia. I could perfectly see myself being harassed or attacked as a “faggot” in many places. 

So what are my choices? To “pass as a (cis) man” and then probably be taken for a “gay guy” because of how I was socialized and risk being a victim of homophobia? Or to be misgendered for a woman with all the ill consequences of that (my own feeling upset at the misgendering, but also the misogyny, risk of harassment, etc)?