3:29am June 25, 2013

➸ "You don't need this junk. You need a cat.": I can't sleep so I'll write about why I hate medical ideas and language even though I need them.

youneedacat:

I am tired of something I don’t even know how to name.

People are always demanding diagnoses. More specifically, they want more than just even a list of diagnoses, which is hard enough.

They want explanations of each and every thing I can’t do, broken down by diagnosis. Worse, they want…

^This

(Go read all of this if you can.)

This is why I don’t like talking about disability stuffs with most people. The way everything gets picked apart - as if it’s not your whole life anymore, just super clinical. There’s something unnatural feeling about it. And you can get sucked into the fragmented, pitying way that they’re talking about it and lose sight of the important connections that helps you live.

And also, I’ve noticed the same thing about Trans issues. Stuff gets picked apart - and you often have to defend how you live until you’re backed into a corner. And a lot of people don’t seem to understand the difference between “not all boys like that - including trans boys, so it’s a stereotype” and “this stuff is all connected in me because it’s all Me and you can’t break people into boxes”

(I hope this isn’t a bad tangent)

There are good ways of talking about both these things though.

Yeah. Add to trans conversations that I can’t even figure out WTF gender is, and practically everyone is always taking about their gender whether they’re trans or non trans. I started just calling myself “nongendered” so I could escape all that.

(And no it doesn’t bother me that gender is a huge important part of identity for most people. Trans or not. It’s just not something I can apply to myself. Whether it’s male, female, androgynous, butch, femme, genders without names, or any and all combinations, I just can’t even figure out how it’s supposed to apply to me. Other people are fast to give me all sorts of genders, and confused when I suddenly don’t fit what they expected, but none of them feel like they fit on the inside.)

So gender is definitely an equally confusing and unpleasant topic of conversation for me. I used to think since I didn’t “feel female” maybe I was really male, but that felt just as wrong. I’m just me, I don’t have words for it. I do find having had a female upbringing means something - but not to my identity. Just to my life experiences. My identity doesn’t fit any of these words people use, and I can’t even imagine what gender feels like. Or how things like clothing or hair are supposed to have genders. Or etc. All I know is it’s a big part of practically everyone’s identity, even most non binary people I meet, but not part of mine.

Notes: