More Gender Feels | Kayinworks

This will be a work in progress I’m sure and something that’ll change over time.

A big problem, with complicated gender stuff, at least for me, is my desire to not overly burden people. Someone sees he/she/they and they can feel like it’s mine field… and for a lot of people it might be, while being equally frustrating to the person trying to express themselves. I, by comparison, feel lucky.

For years I sucked down my gender feelings, going “Well if I’m mostly a guy, all this girl stuff is just extra nonsense in my head. But as more people asked if I was a girl, or willingly perceived me as a girl. I realized those feelings were actionable. That was a part of me that was as equally me as the other parts of me.

So how do I identity? I’ve been just saying genderqueer because it’s easier, but more accurately, some kind of bigender? While a lot of genderfluid people have their feelings shift day to day, for me it’s less like that. My gender response feels very contextual. Which is why I try to stress to people who worry about doing the best thing for me is there are no wrong pronouns for me. Use how you see me. I will not be upset if you see me as a guy because that means that’s very much the relationship we have (either as friends, or as creator and fan or whatever). The only time pronouns feel even vaguely uncomfortable is when it feels forced… and even then, I know the person is just trying to be sweet and considerate and it’s kinda nice.

I want to stress this applies only to me and my gender expression, so if you’re reading this, don’t take this as general advice. My experience seems atypical, even just in terms of bigender folk.

For most of my “professional” existence like here or twitter, or in a physical space, I’m a lot more in my guy headspace. But if you see me online acting like a girl or see some girls talking about me, especially in queer spaces, you might expect to see some ‘she’s floating around, but generally, He is the most clear, least confusing choice.

I’ll put it this way, you’ll know if you should use She. If you’re unsure, He is almost certainly best. And if you’re still unsure, you can use They. But please, I beg you, don’t fret about it more than I do.