Every time a meet someone new I question myself can I tell them about my gender identity. I wonder, “what will they say”, “will they understand”? Also I think should I let them get to know me and tell them after they have known me for awhile. I also question myself is it worth telling them.
The reason I’m afraid about what they will say it because sometimes when I tell people they don’t get it and call me an ”it”. This hurts and frustrate me. I know the reason why they say I’m an “it”, is because I don’t identify with a gender. By saying this in there mind this makes me an ”it” like an animal that you would neuter or spay. I have a problem when you do this to an animal that has had that done to them being called an “it”, because how do we know how that animal feels. Another reason they use ”it” is because before a baby is born and we don’t know the gender people say, “do you know what “it“ is?”
The reason I’m afraid they w0n‘t understand is because some people that don’t understand do not want to take the time to listen. Some people are so closed minded that they don‘t wanna or have the time to learn a new thing. They don‘t wanna believe that someone can feel different than the gender they where assigned at birth. When this does happen, I know this person isn’t really worth my time and energy. I also think maybe one day they could come around.
Most of the time my fear about waiting to let people to get to know before telling them is they would use the wrong gender pronoun during the time that I gave them to know me.
Then when I told them that my pronoun is different then what they had been using. This would mean they would have to try to use the right pronoun and I would be going through having to correct them. It would be exactly like it is know with people that knew me before I started using my name as my gender pronoun.
I have know idea why these things run though my brain. I should be comfortable enough to tell people especially if I feel they are gonna be around me on a regular basis. This will make things easy for me and them in the long run. We wouldn’t have to go through the process of them having to learn to use gender neutral pronouns when referring to me. I hope that as time goes by these fears will go away.
I sorta get some of this, Meredith. How I identify in orientation does not match what anyone sees who does not know my spouse's and my story. Who "should" know and be told/corrected, and who does it not matter about? But pronouns don't enter it. And gender is still a lot harder for folks to wrap their heads around than orientation. It takes a lots of courage, endurance, and fortitude to claim space in a binary world. May you discover an abundance of all those things.