Gender isn't, like, real tho

Dear GwenPal,

Post-election, I am experiencing a lot more anxiety than I accounted for; Gen-Z men are falling for far-right ideology, and interacting with men makes me feel like death. Not to mention, it worries me how many of my community members were willing to vote away my rights. How many conversations have I heard about how confused people like me are? How many times have I experienced people insulting me to my face without knowing it was me they were talking to?

If you don't know (and I haven't made it abundantly clear), I'm femme nonbinary. I grew up with the girl(?) experience, and thus, I feel a nostalgic connection to the women around me. However, I feel no true connection to womanhood.

Eh, that's not necessarily true.

I don't feel like I aspire to anything uniquely and traditionally feminine, such as maintaining a youthful appearance or "acting like a lady." I see no point in pretending that a label defines the beast I am. I don't see myself as a woman because the archetypal woman (at least the traditional standards I grew up with) is inherently unreal. It is a mishmash of all of the traits that those labeled female have expressed throughout the inception of gender differentiation. Just the existence of intersex people alone conflicts with the notion that we were made from a mold. We are permutations of each other, arrangements of atoms and molecules, and I happen to be a substance in the shape of what we tend to identify as a woman.

I would hardly say that scientific classification is the basis for what and all that I am.

I do not doubt that other afab people experience Womanhood™️, I just don't resonate with that experience enough to label myself as a Woman™️. Not to mention, I feel like a taller, funnier, less horny teenager. So Girl(?) it is.

That being said, it's disheartening to see how many of my community members share (occasionally violently) negative opinions of me to my face without knowing that they're talking about me. It's incredibly unsettling. I never realized how many of my own people hated me.

Despite the fear and anxiety I've been experiencing for however fucking long now, I will continue to show up everyday. I will continue to be myself and advocate for my rights and the rights of others. I've realized that while everyone and their fucking dog has an opinion (and a podcast to talk about it), I have a tendency to sit on the sidelines with my hands in my lap, cheering on those who dare speak their mind as though I have no mouth to speak along with them.

Well, today I'm breaking tradition.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Gender-affirming care is life-saving care, and trans people deserve to live. Obvi.

It feels ridiculous to have to say it out loud because I don't know why we have such trouble acknowledging that gender isn't actually real. Why are we gatekeeping who can and can't be put in one category or the other?

I wrote a mini research essay in 2023 on the concept of gender rivalry and how it unnecessarily pits its members against each other. If you'd like to read an intergalactic perspective on gender, I'll link the essay here.

All I can say to my gender-diverse siblings is to stay strong. We will weather the storm. I love you dearly, no matter what skin you're in <3

What's Gwynny Thinking About?

Today's song isn't even a song. Wow.

I know, I know. Inconsistent much?

Rude.

As GwenPal develops into its next stages of... development... I would like to try something new, something fresh. Something non musical perhaps.

Okay, I didn't have a song in mind so I decided to talk about this video on fractals that I found incredibly interesting.

Within the video, he mentions that trees don't belong to a single species. They are more biologically similar to other plants than they are to each other. Yet, we call them all trees because they grow in a specific way.

So the trees literally evolved to grow in this very specific way despite coming from different biological backgrounds. Hmm. Interesting. Thought-provoking, even. Makes me want to apply this knowledge to other aspects of life to understand other humans better (cough gender cough).

Anywho, I really like this video, it explored patterns I've been obsessed with since I was a young age and it's quite informative. I give it a 🏆gold trophy🏆 for tingling my brain with knowledge.

Thanks (for my knowledge tingles)!

I hope you enjoyed today's letter (and potentially my essay as well). I want to use this platform to talk about issues that are close to my heart, and what could be closer to my heart than queerness?

Not much but God (but that's everything).

Until next time, GwenPals!

XOXO 💋

Your GwenPal