Flip side of this though is my parents apparently still haven't got my letter. Bro called them to share some good news and they were heavy into the sister/daughter/girl. I don't know if it was always that way when they talk about me, but it smarted a little extra. I know that they probably just haven't gotten the letter yet but I can't help but feel each reference was a little jab at my gender. Just have to be patient.
Though they did seem to make a big deal about my hair being short and looking a lot like my brother. I don't really know what to make of that. It's too hard to avoid trying to read too much into things. Again, just need to be patient.
Will probably text them asking about the letter when bro heads back home.
I never really felt much about the new name Ezra. A lot of people talk about their new names just feeling right. I never really had that sort of feeling, but it was better than my old name, which just felt wrong.
But my brother's in town, and somehow hearing him say my new name gives me that new name buzz. Like a little something slipped into the right place in the world.
Though this talk of haircuts reminds me of the time I angry cried because of a haircut.
I had gotten a sort of chin length cut. I was happy with it at first, but when I got home I realized they'd tapered the back into a sort of bob.
And I was furious and defeated and to my confusion and probably to my boyfriend's I started to cry.
Looking back now it was pretty obvious. Tapering the back made the cut from a longish, overgrown male cut to a distinctly female one. This was before I'd figured this gender stuff out, so I didn't put the pieces together then. Though I went into the hairdresser with female pictures the one I picked was inspired by Sebastian's (male) appearance.
My aversion to haircuts probably has to do with a lifetime of experiences like this. Just almost getting what I want but then being thrown off by some unspeakable detail that takes an acceptable androgynous/male haircut into feminine. I have the words now, so at least there's a hope that the next one will be right. But I'm still not looking forward to it.
I need to get my hair cut. Specifically I need to express with words to the haircutter that I would like a masculine haircut. Not a short feminine haircut. Not the fade pompadour thing that is the popular male haircut right now. But a haircut that makes me look like a man(ish).
The parameters for this are loose but the goal is non negotiable.
I imagine that lots of people see it as nonsense. It does seem pretty nonsensical at a glance. I don't think I'd get it if I weren't nonbinary myself. The internal experience of not matching your assigned gender is such a mind trip already, and then adding another layer of neither gender feeling right—-I barely believe it and I experience it myself. I rely strongly on the evidence of the manifestation of my subconscious wants to convince myself.
How do I know I'm not just butch? Great question. I'll preface my answer with I'm not sure about any of this, neither the facts around which I base my answer nor the answer itself.
I think what butch means is an alternative way of being female. Having a traditionally masculine appearance doesn't make you any less female. Or that womanhood is fundamental enough that appearance, physique, mannerisms, fashion cannot touch it.
I feel the same way about not being female. The former part makes it hard to communicate that though.
Other nb Ezra makes me feel a little inspired to try to make NB work with what I've currently got.
But it's kind of hard to think of how. I'm already doing lots to express myself as male but it's an fortunate / unfortunate thing that women wearing men's clothes doesn't make them any more of a man in the eyes of society. Not that I think the alternative is the way it should be, but it does make it harder to make a statement about one's gender identity when you've got the body of a woman.
I guess I'll console myself that I am doing the best I can given the circumstances. Even if people just assume I'm butch.