"not only can live outside those systems, I can thrive as who I am."

[cosmolinguist]

I see so much of myself in this person's life! I knew they were my age before they said, just from their description of junior high.

And of course so much is different too. I wish I could write anything as good as this.

Comments

[arlie]

Thank you for posting this. I appreciated a chance to read the linked post.

And I absolutely get it with the wtf about how everyone has a sense of gender identity, rather than knowledge of the rules enforced on them because of the shape of their body.

I was told that I could determine the innately feminine (aka, the rules of my birth culture) through introspection. So females are good at math, prefer to spend time alone, prefer practical to attractive in their own clothes, tools, etc., and otherwise are just like me? Somehow when I drew conclusions like that I was getting the introspection wrong.

But in any case I knew that was bogus, having already been informed of my innate feminine desire to "catch a man" so I could be his servant, sex object and similar, until he tired of me and replaced me with a younger model. This of course required constant attention to my own attractiveness, including in matters of appearance, along with hiding my intelligence (he'll want someone less smart than him) etc etc etc. All of it naturally tending to twist my development so that I wouldn't be able to earn a decent living except as "wife", or perhaps call girl.

"Innate" attributes clearly aren't accessible to introspection, even while obvious to outsiders.

p.s. I'd be a bit older than the poster - no personal computers in my K12 schools.

[nanila]

Thank you for linking that. It was an interesting read.

I would like to push back on the suggestion that their writing about themselves is superior to yours. They come across as a great deal more self-absorbed than you are.

[otter]

it's too much for me to read today, but I'm hoping to remember to come back and read the rest of it. I got to where they talk about Butler and the other author.

[gender_euphoric]

Wow, that was really profound.

And I find it interesting that someone they quote, Imogen Binnie, used to be my LJ friend.