Wide fit

[Padma]

I took a step back from Susan's for a while over the last few months, and I now realise this is partly for reasons of non-binarydom. I've been spending a lot of time since on a forum (and in analogue space) with folk who are very non-binary in their gender identity, and finding myself feeling way more understood/understanding than I'd been feeling lately here.

It's not that Susan's felt really hostile or anything, I just found it getting harder and harder to empathise with people with a very binary sense of gender, because I felt invisible. Having gone off and found a posse to be with, I feel a lot more comfortable about being here more again, and I want to hang out more here in the Unicorn Lounge too (maybe play a little piano - no, not that little, my fingers are pudgy...)

I'm feeling a lot clearer about my sense of gender-self than I have before. Anatomically, being female is what will undo my gender dysphoria - but in terms of gender identity, what that anatomical change is enabling is for me to inhabit myself properly as a very, very genderqueer woman who has some androgyne traits, but also some inexplicable but very definite traits in common with trans men.

I don't have a word for what I am. Womandrogyne is not a bad label, but it doesn't express this sense I have of being female with some kind of maleness inherent in me, who is currently being treated for Persistent Penis Syndrome. Why is it that I'm so sure I'm going to want to pack sometimes, post-transition? I don't know. What I do know now is that it doesn't require explanation or justification any more than anyone else's gender identity and expression does - but that in some spaces, that explanation or justification is sometimes demanded of me, and I'm not going to roll over in the face of that. The more I live myself, the more I like myself (and that has been a long time coming).

Anyway, I think in the past I felt more like I'm tiptoeing into this part of the forum and saying "um, is it okay if I hang out here?" But now I'm coming back in more boldly to say hello, here I am, I like being here with you lot in the gender probability field. My latest news is that all being well, my aforementioned PPS will be cured around September, and I couldn't be happier about that.

[suzifrommd]

Great to have you back, Padma.

It's so true that the world does not have language to describe people with non-binary identities, and also true that we tend to assume if we can't name it or describe it with any certainty then it can't exist.

But you are setting a great example for those who come after by proudly showing yourself as you are.

Great news about Sept.!

[foosnark]

I'm curious about what the other forum is?  In my online exploration I haven't found much beyond Susan's that is active, somewhat sane, helpful beyond just getting basic terminology or style tips, and not overrun with trolls.

Things get a little more binary than I'd expect even in this subforum sometimes, but overall it seems like a good place to me.

[ativan]

Hmm...

I never thought of you as belonging anywhere but here in the forest.
I just assumed that you had a good relationship with binaries,
therefore was able to go outside and play during recess with them.
I have never been invited to do that, around here,
but I think it's their words and how I use them, that causes that.

Indeed, many binaries impart their own brand of understanding what non-binaries are about.
Often giving some really off the binary wall perspectives at times.
I get tired of it honestly, but it is a learning experience for many of them.
I have stated recently that I have 60 yrs experience listening and in the past following, their advice.
It is doubtful that they have in turn as much experience living in a non-binary world.
So there is a difference in perspectives that can be difficult to see past.

But things have become quite different than 6 months or a year ago, somewhere around there.
Most of the binaries that frequent here are pretty good at seeing those differences.
There is credit due there somewhere, I haven't a clue as to why or how it happened.
But it is much quieter in the forest these days.

I too would like to know where this other forum resides...
Email me or find me on FB, either way is OK, but please let me know,
as I have given up on finding other sights that aren't militant troll filled, and irrelevant.
Ativan

[BlueSloth]

*gets off the piano bench and crawls back into the tree above it*

I wanna know where the other forum is too.

[Padma]

Just to clarify - I've had other stuff going on that made me step back from here for a while, that was to do with my PTSD, and not the forum itself, as such - it just felt like too big and noisy a playground for a while, and I didn't feel safe while I was generally feeling more of that anyway.

And it's not that the binary folk on here have actively lambasted me for my non-binariness either (well, once or twice I've hit a rich seam of fundamentalist transmatriarchs, shudder), it's largely just been that I've felt overwhelmed by the sea of info and communication that assumes I'm a woman, I'm just a woman, and I'm just xyz kind of woman (or must want to be any or all of those), it's felt like being slowly sandblasted. Finding myself spending time with people who are simply more similar to me in their sense of gender identity and perspective on all this stuff has really boosted my confidence in who I am - and am not.

I'm actually in the throes of starting a local peer support group for non-binary trans* folk, which is pretty bold of me.

I've PM'd y'all about the other forum.

[Jamie D]

"PPS"

OMG, I love it!   

[Padma]

Yeah, I'm kind of proud of that .