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I am not a boy, I am not a girl, I am not nonbinary. I am.

Ramblings About My Relationship with gender identity

By Sianna KnightPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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"What do you identify as?" There's always a pause before I answer, "I'm a girl; I use she/her pronouns". The truth is, I do not want my identity to be labeled. I don't want to be something; I just want to be.

Labels: What's with Them?

For some people, labels give them a sense of belonging. It creates a community of people who have things in common with them- whether it be identity, beliefs, attraction, or anything else. It's a beautiful thing; there's nothing wrong with it at all, but I personally feel like labels hold me back. I do not care about what gender I am. I am just Sianna.

Gender identity, to me, is how you view your own gender and how you choose to express it. I don't perceive myself as having a gender. I just perceive myself as a being. And I'm sure that sounds pretentious, but I've truly just never felt connected to any gender label. I've never felt the need to label my gender for any reason other than making sense to other people.

What Am I?

I like to think that in order to exist, I must be experienced. There must be some sort of substratum, or some base my existence depends on, which I like to think is external perception. My existence is fully up to interpretation: whether it be what I am, who I am, etc. To me, I just am. To others, that may be completely different. I present femininely so most people perceive me as a girl, but a lot of people who I've talked to about my gender crisis have told me they just see me. They don't see a boy or a girl or anything outside of the gender binary; they see Sianna.

I personally believe am a collection of different perceptions, including my own. I can't refine that to a gender, because everyone has a unique perception of what gender is, and consequently a unique perception of me. So, I am not anything, because I am something different to everyone. I just am.

What Pronouns Do I Use?

I am fine with any pronouns. All pronouns feel right to me, but for the sake of simplicity, I tell people to refer to me with she/her pronouns.

I guess I could be called nonbinary, because I am most definitely outside of the gender binary. But giving it a label contradicts my discomfort with those labels. I just don't believe in gender, for me at least. I want to exist without being referred to or perceived as anything specific; I just want to be perceived. Is that unrealistic? Yeah, probably. I present feminine, I am referred to with she/her pronouns, and I call myself a girl. Because how am I supposed to explain to people my relationship with gender identity in a short sentence? Along with that, I don't mind being seen as a girl. I just personally don't see myself as a girl, or anything really. I guess I am just apathetic about my gender identity.

This may come off as meaningless pretentious writing, but the lack of a labeled identity is a huge part of me. It makes me feel free and as if I don't have to fit in a box. And that isn't me trying to say that labels affect everyone negatively, because that is definitely not the case. But I, personally, have never felt the need to label my gender identity, except for when I'm trying to avoid confusing others.

So, to answer the question of what my relationship with gender identity is, I do not have one. I just want to be seen, and I don't want to be seen as anything other than Sianna.

Identity
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About the Creator

Sianna Knight

I am 17 years old, and I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at the age of 15 and bipolar 1 disorder at the age of 14. Writing has become my way of expressing myself while creating a space for others to feel seen

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Comments (1)

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  • Mars Mabry2 years ago

    That's completely understandable, I've never seen you as specifically any gender or a girl, I've always seen you as just Sianna, I've felt similarly towards gender for most of my life so I just use trans to describe my gender but being unlabelled in gender is great too, you know what you want to be seen as I'm happy that you have a place to express that!

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