thank you so much for taking the time to read. it means a lot that it resonated with you.
it’s difficult to express my disinterest in making sense of the gender binary when many of my/our community members are finding their power by queering colonial ideas of gender. while i struggle to find anything radical about equating my choice of clothes to my gender, i do my best to hold space for other ppl’s experiences. it can feel like a tightrope walk sometimes but i remain rooted in my own truth and the ability to live in active resistance against the traits we assign to masculinity and femininity.
hoping you continue to find your personal freedom outside the binary
oh snap, i am just now seeing this ciru. but yes, you are so very welcome
i'm interested in your mention of "queering colonial ideas of gender." sitting with that. i wonder what it looks like to try to band-aid colonial ideas vs. truly freeing ourselves from those colonial ideas, expanding into the unknown – or perhaps even digging back into pre-colonial understandings.
i love that you mentioned remaining rooted in your own truth and actively resisting our socialized notions of masculinity and femininity, and gender at large. thank you for your beautiful wish at the end – i trust that you will continue finding your personal freedom in the ways that are truest to you as well <3
This was so real. I've had gender issues...since I became aware of definitions of gender(like this is what it means to be a woman etc). I tried to explore and just got tired coz ideally, I'm just a person. Like, when we speak Kiswahili/ Kikuyu and you're referring to someone, you don't know whether they're male or female, that's my gender. Thank you for writing this. It made me feel really seen ✨
that first paragraph of labels as life rafts spoke to me, the finding of where my people were, where i belonged. i dug deep in the discourse but ultimately just settled on non-binary and haven't explored further. haven't cared to. i'm just me gender n that's that. i haven't felt the need to deeply n constantly attach a label to it all
this sentence spoke to me too: "too underwhelmed to explain how unimpressed i am by our definitions of masculinity and femininity." whew — SPOKE to me. those have always felt still tied to the binary for me, even as expansive as they seem when people talk about them. i don't know
thank u for writing this. i also loved that u ended it so rawly, not tying it together in any way or concluding on some high note. it felt very raw, very real that way, those feelings u left at the end.
Resonant! In my gender journey, I felt floaty in space and a feeling of absence. It’s what actually led me to ATRs and my poem The Earth is A Father for lived examples of expansive gender
thank you so much for taking the time to read. it means a lot that it resonated with you.
it’s difficult to express my disinterest in making sense of the gender binary when many of my/our community members are finding their power by queering colonial ideas of gender. while i struggle to find anything radical about equating my choice of clothes to my gender, i do my best to hold space for other ppl’s experiences. it can feel like a tightrope walk sometimes but i remain rooted in my own truth and the ability to live in active resistance against the traits we assign to masculinity and femininity.
hoping you continue to find your personal freedom outside the binary
oh snap, i am just now seeing this ciru. but yes, you are so very welcome
i'm interested in your mention of "queering colonial ideas of gender." sitting with that. i wonder what it looks like to try to band-aid colonial ideas vs. truly freeing ourselves from those colonial ideas, expanding into the unknown – or perhaps even digging back into pre-colonial understandings.
i love that you mentioned remaining rooted in your own truth and actively resisting our socialized notions of masculinity and femininity, and gender at large. thank you for your beautiful wish at the end – i trust that you will continue finding your personal freedom in the ways that are truest to you as well <3
This was so real. I've had gender issues...since I became aware of definitions of gender(like this is what it means to be a woman etc). I tried to explore and just got tired coz ideally, I'm just a person. Like, when we speak Kiswahili/ Kikuyu and you're referring to someone, you don't know whether they're male or female, that's my gender. Thank you for writing this. It made me feel really seen ✨
“i’m just a person” literally! i, too, love the gender neutral tendencies of kiswahili/kikuyu. honored to know that you felt seen 💜
that first paragraph of labels as life rafts spoke to me, the finding of where my people were, where i belonged. i dug deep in the discourse but ultimately just settled on non-binary and haven't explored further. haven't cared to. i'm just me gender n that's that. i haven't felt the need to deeply n constantly attach a label to it all
this sentence spoke to me too: "too underwhelmed to explain how unimpressed i am by our definitions of masculinity and femininity." whew — SPOKE to me. those have always felt still tied to the binary for me, even as expansive as they seem when people talk about them. i don't know
thank u for writing this. i also loved that u ended it so rawly, not tying it together in any way or concluding on some high note. it felt very raw, very real that way, those feelings u left at the end.
thank u
Resonant! In my gender journey, I felt floaty in space and a feeling of absence. It’s what actually led me to ATRs and my poem The Earth is A Father for lived examples of expansive gender
“floaty in space” feels so accurate