I never really remember wanting to be certainly female or male. I didn't even really want to be both. If anything, neither was just fine by me. I guess I never really gave consideration to what identity I should have. Is it because I was so comfortable being a female, and so that was that? Was it because it was not a topic up for discussion in my childhood? I guess I won't ever really know, because I cannot get my consciousness into another person's. Another person who, for example, was born with the physical body of a male and identifies as she/her. (If that was just the end of this blog entry: "Welp, that's that, I suppose. Guess I'll never know!")
Normally with a topic like this - I don't appear to be affected by it, don't think about it on a daily basis, etc... - I would keep my nose out of it. But there are enough people in my immediate life who discuss this topic as many times as was necessary to start my own gears clicking. I try to put myself in their position in order to (hopefully) better understand it/them. What's that thing... oh, yeah: Empathy.
I've never really felt like I was specifically a woman, although I am comfortable being in the body I was born in. That is, if I were uncomfortable with it / in it, I feel as though that would be one of those things you just know. And I don't think I am uncomfortable in this body, therefore I must not be. I could possibly just be comfortable with it because I am used to it. I have a tendency to adapt very well / thoroughly. Also, since I can remember, my mind has been otherwise occupied (OCD shit). (I only say "otherwise" because I have spoken with people who are not affected as I, specifically, am, and they have told me that what used to occupy my mind was unusual.) And, yes, I have really reeled it all in quite an astounding amount, which is why I can even sit still long enough to write this blog entry AND enjoy doing so - thank God. Even so, however, perhaps my mind (young or old) is simply not wired to consider things such as "who am I?". I have already decided that I have no purpose. I never really questioned the "meaning of life", as apparently everyone else has (??). Perhaps it simply doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Perhaps the reason why it doesn't matter to me one way or the other is because I have never battled with the thoughts / feelings that people who battle with identity have battled with. Goodness. It is so very hard to say.
I will say, however, that since I was young, I remember wanting to be an animal. Is this usual? I decided I wanted to be a horse. And when I was told by my mother that I could not grow up to be one (because that's "not how that works"), I was torn to bits about it. Even playing "house" - which, by the way, what an excruciatingly dull bloody game that was - I cannot express the amount of disinterest I had in being the wife, husband or baby. I wanted to be the family dog. I wanted to bark. To run around on all fours like the wild beast I was surely born to be (allergies and all). It could be argued that this sprang from a deep-seeded desire to never have to communicate with anyone outside of my immediate family ever again. Because let me tell you: that was ever-present. To be clear: this was not shyness. This was something more like a decision.
I have always related more to animals, I suppose. Even these days, I either enjoy seeing or can't help but see beast-like similarities in my movements, my reasoning, my habits, decisions. Maybe I just think it's way cooler to be an animal and wish that that was I thing I could do. Maybe it's as simple as that. I do really enjoy being human, though... I wonder what the pull was / is. I wonder where this started.
When I was pretending to be a horse (did I just type that?), it was genderless. Maybe not on purpose, maybe just because that didn't matter to me. It never mattered. I didn't care if you were male or female, if you weren't my mother, father or sister, I wanted precisely nothing to do with you. My sister would even ask me if I had any "crushes". She thought I was lying when I said "no". I eventually became convinced that I should be feeling a certain way toward someone, and when someone asked me out I just kind of shrugged and said "yeah, alright". What I should have said was: "I am mostly robot and am not interested in feelings and certainly no interest in sex, but let me say thank you anyway, because apparently what you just asked me is considered to mostly be a compliment here." But I didn't know that that's what I should have said. I thought everyone was just anxious around everyone (the way I was) and was usually uncomfortable (me), especially in school. Most of the male-type-humanoids who I "went out with"? I didn't even want to be around them in the first place. Why did I do this to myself? I wish I could have just known that it was okay to not be interested in dating.
When my sister and I would pick out our favorite characters / the ones that we related to the most (in movies / shows / books), I almost always chose a male character, while my sister chose a female. There could be a few reasons for this: one being that I subconsciously didn't want my sis stuck with a man-character (because I knew she loved being female and I didn't really care either way, so I might as well just take the one she didn't want). Similarly (but still separately), it could have something to do with the fact that I was the little sister and, as such, naturally assumed the "beta" position in socialization with the big sis. That holds water either way, actually, because even when I would pick the male, I would typically pick the lowly male side-character. Of course, that could have been due to the fact that the "lowly male side-character" was usually the only funny one in the damn thing. And funny... oh, to be funny. What's that over there? The promise of sexual compatibility? Oh, no thank you, I would much rather just be able to make people laugh.
The same thing happens when I write, a lot of the time. If there is a main character narrative, it is typically in a male's voice. How would I know what male people think? I have never been one. I have never desired to be one. I think it may just be that I was brought up in a spot where the males of the entertainment world were funny, while the females were beautiful. The rest of it was likely that I just didn't even think to think about it because I was so overwhelmed about simpler things / thought in patterns / spoke in binary. And now? Just doesn't seem to matter to me.
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