Hey pals, how ya doin?!
I feel weird, 'cause I'm in a T-shirt
and that rarely happens, but it is so hot.
I didn't have anything planned for today so I thought I would just do the gender tag
because it's been something that I've wanted to do for a while.
For those of you that don't know,
the gender tag is a set of questions made by someone called Ashely Wylde.
The questions are just about gender, and
I think some of them are really interesting,
and I wanted to have a go at them, so that's what I'm gunna do!
Question one:
How do you self-identify your gender and what does that definition mean to you?
I identify as male,
and for me I guess that just means
that it's the label I feel most comfortable with.
I'm a lot more aware of my dysphoria and my insecurities and
gender, in general,
when I'm being referred to as
female, or non binary, or
any other gender.
The trans part, for me, I see as more of a
journey, and an experience in my life
instead of a
kind of identity.
Question two:
What pronouns honor you?
I use the pronouns he, him, and his.
Question three:
Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.
I tend to go for things that are more baggy, and just hide
the shape of my body
but
I'm becoming more
interested in the idea of experimenting with
fashion, and
I'm kind of branching out into wearing
tighter jeans, and
lighter clothes, and neutral
colours, and stuff like that.
Question four:
Talk about your choices with body hair.
I have one hair product
which is
Dirty Styling Cream from Lush
I just put that in my hair sometimes to keep it under control
and
I just
rub it in my hair and kind of just push everything to that side.
The only thing I shave
Is my
face
and that's just because if it grows out too long
it just looks messy
and
I look even younger than
I look
without a beard
I think
maybe?
If I had a full beard and stuff
I would just embrace it and be
a hairy person
because I'm all
for being hairy.
Question five:
Talk about cosmetics.
I choose not to wear makeup
because I prefer my face without makeup.
It is also expensive, and
time consuming, and I just
don't have the skills - or ever have had the skills to do that.
I also have kind of started
painting my nails.
I did it
for
Pride
a couple
months ago?
wow, a couple months ago?
Maybe a couple weeks ago? I don't know.
But I painted my nails blue and pink for the trans colours, and
I kind of really liked it.
For some reason there's this whole
idea that nail polish is a soley female thing..
It's paint..
on
a part of your body..
I don't know.. I like doing it.
I'd probably do it more often
if I was more comfortable with
my
ability to be read as male
because I'm just worried about being misgendered
and also people not taking me seriously
because of having
paint on my nails but yeah.
In the future I'll probably do it more.
In terms of soaps and perfumes
I tend to stick with Lush stuff just because of the
ethics of the company
and
it looks cute as well.
I
if I can find another brand
that's cute and cheap and vegan friendly and stuff
then I'd probably use that!
When I really want to smell good
I use essential oil blends that I've made myself,
I'll wear those on my wrists and my neck.
Question six:
Have you experienced being misgendered? If so how often?
I
used to get misgendered
quite often.
On the phone I'd be called madam and ma'am
and
sometimes people will call me young lady, and
if I'm passing kids or they need to get out the way, their parents will say like
"Oh mind the young lady" and stuff.
It was really annoying, and
triggered a lot of dysphoria and stuff, and that's only really stopped
in the past few months -
and people have kind of started seeing me as a really young boy now,
started calling me like young man, and son, and
those kinds of things.
It doesn't happen that much anymore, which is great.
Question seven:
Do you experience dysphoria? How does that affect you?
I experience a lot of dysphoria.
I have pretty intense lower dysphoria
and it affects me quite a lot.
I
will get a lot of physical
discomfort and pain
as well as emotional
discomfort and pain from it.
On days where it's really really bad,
it'll feel like someone is tugging at my insides, and
I'm, at the same time,
exposed in a room full of strangers laughing at me,
and kind of like tied down so I wouldn't be able to move -
and it's kind of that
feeling of
embarrasment and
panic, and terror, and
vulnerability,
that you can't escape,
and it's scary sometimes, and
really difficult to deal with,
especially when the people around you have no idea what it feels like.
So, I am very ready for
lower surgery.
Question eight:
Talk about children.
I would really love to have kids,
and I wouldn't choose to carry a child because I've always been
interested in the idea of adoption, and
fostering kids.
But I do support men and nonbinary people that do
decide to carry children,
I think it's a great thing to do.
When it comes to being a primary caretaker of
children,
I think that depends on the situation at the time.
Obviously, if I'm
in a relationship with someone who
wants to have
this child with me
mutually, then
it would be
a mutual
thing..
but if I was adopting a child
as a single parent,
which I might do if that's possible,
then obviously I want to be the primary caretaker.
Question nine:
Talk about money.
This is kind of the same as the kids thing,
but if it's just mutually agreed and something that we're both comfortable with,
then it's
it's depends on the situation -
and
if I'm going to pay for something for someone, then it's because
I like that person, and I want to do something nice for them.
It's
nothing to do with me trying to assert my masculinity or control over someone.
Question ten:
Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?
I find that the further I get into my transition
and the more comfortable I am with my
gender, and my masculinity,
the less I care about trying to prove it to other people.
The people who are going to try and invalidate your gender identity
based on your interests, and your
presentation,
are going to try and invalidate you no matter what
because that's an internal thing for them.
You know? So I may aswell do whatever I want to do
accept that they're not going to accept it, and just
focus on making myself happy and doing the things that I enjoy doing.
That's it folks.
Um..
I hope that was interesting to listen to!
I'll put the link in the discription if you wanna check it out,
because it's an interesting thing, and there's a playlist compiling all the
other videos that have been done
with it, so yeah.
Hope everyone is doing well, hope you're having a great day
and a great week and a great month and everything,
I will see you soon!
Music by Cabu