Have you ever scrolled online and see people confidently declaring their gender and sexuality like they’ve had it figured out since birth? “I’m nonbinary.” “I’m a lesbian.” “I’m pan.” Meanwhile, I’m sitting here wondering, why do I feel like nothing? This question has been bouncing around my head for a while now. But after reading Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, specifically Christopher Soto’s “What Growing Up Punk Taught Me About Being Gender Nonconforming” and Aubri Drake’s “Clothes make the Gender/Queer,” made me realize that maybe this feeling of nothingness isn’t emptiness, but simply uncertainty in a world that demands certainty from everyone.
Soto writes, “I tell my friend who still presents outside the binary that I want to be alive. I want to live. And so this is my gender: a desire to live.” That line hit me like a ton of bricks. For me, identifying as a woman has always been about survival. It’s safer, easier, less questioned. I don’t have to explain myself or fear someone reacting violently because I don’t fit their idea of what a woman “should” be. Soto ties their fear to capitalism and violence because the way safety, livelihood, and even love feel like privileges granted to those who conform. Sometimes I wonder if I’d feel freer to explore my gender if the world wasn’t punishing those who step outside the binary.
Growing up, everyone labeled me a “lesbian” before I could even figure it out on my own. I was the tomboy wearing my dad’s clothes, obsessed with comic books instead of makeup. My mom used to tell me to “act like a lady,” for simply sitting in my own home with my legs open. Then puberty hit, and suddenly I had curves I didn’t ask for. Aubri Drake’s words that “clothes started clinging to my body in all the wrong places… they stopped being a form of expression and instead became material to hide in”described exactly how I felt. I started hiding under oversized clothes because my body no longer felt like mine, but a spectacle for others.
For years, I bounced between labels from bi, lesbian, pan, and now to queer. Each one feeling right for a second and wrong the next. I even dated men exclusively at one point just to prove something, though my attraction to women has always been stronger. Every time I picked a label, I felt like a fraud and that everyone knew I was out of place.
When it comes to gender, being called “masculine” or “feminine” makes me physically recoil. I don’t feel like either. I identify as a woman because it’s practical since it’s what fits easiest in the world’s boxes, but that’s never been the only reason. I’ve briefly thought about identifying as nonbinary, but fear always stops me: fear of losing cis privilege, fear of not being taken seriously, fear of violence. Like Soto, I get what it means to feel “illegitimate” just for wanting to live safely.
That’s why the label queer has been a relief. It’s flexible. It’s fluid. It lets me breathe. I don’t have to get a headache by searching for answers I don’t have yet. My gender and sexuality are personal, evolving, and maybe a little messy, but at the end of the day, that’s ok.
A few months ago, before reading these essays, I went down a rabbit hole on Reddit trying to understand why I felt “genderless.” I remember scrolling for hours through different threads from queer and neurodivergent people describing the same sense of in-betweenness I couldn’t name. One that stood out to me was called “Does anybody else feel genuinely genderless?” on r/NonBinary, more specifically this one quote:
“When I lean more towards masc or femme with my presentation that’s all I feel it is — a presentation. Or really what it actually is is society interpreting my presentation as gendered. Ultimately it’s still just me. I don’t feel more feminine when I wear skirts — but it’s perceived that way.”
When I lean more towards masc or femme with my presentation that’s all I feel it is — a presentation. Or really what it actually is is society interpreting my presentation as gendered. Ultimately it’s still just me. I don’t feel more feminine when I wear skirts — but it’s perceived that way.”
That line felt like someone cracked my brain open and wrote down my thoughts. It echoed everything Soto and Drake described; that gender can feel more like a performance that others interpret than a truth you embody. Re-reading that thread and other ones I mindlessly scrolled actually helped me realize I wasn’t broken for feeling detached from gender. I was just tired of performing one.
I still feel like “nothing,” but I don’t see that as a bad thing anymore. That nothingness feels like freedom; free to move, question, and change without being boxed in. Reading these essays made me realize I’m not alone in that uncertainty. There’s comfort in knowing gender and sexuality don’t have to be solved; they can just evolve. Maybe “nothing” is true freedom. Maybe my gender isn’t nothing — maybe it’s just mine.
Phenomenology this is the theory is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. In simple terms is each person can experience the same thing but due to their past have a completely different view of this experience. For me this help me better understand my own unruly body, I personally have been sick since birth I had rare disease that caused my main vein to my liver to fail as a baby in turn cause me to need a liver transplant at only 2 years old, due to this I was often sick and in and out of the hospital for many different things. With this being stated I have a lot of medical trauma that yes what they did was for the best but as a child you do not completely understand why they are doing the things to your body that hurt or our uncomfortable. This trauma I never really thought was there until I started to go to therapy and learn more about the body and mind through going back to school.
Sex a very common thing for most couples to engage in I personally have been with someone for many years but have never taken that step even though there is a desire to do so. Why? Well through this concept of Phenomenology and going to therapy it has helped me see that because of my medical trauma my body react to physical touch very negatively. I will tense up from head to toe and shut down internally this occurs suddenly and is completely out my control my body take control. I used to tense up if anyone tried to hug me as a child through teenage years due to this trauma I have been able to work through that but still struggle with physical touch outside of a hug. It is very frustrated has caused friction between me and my partner, but they have stayed by myside through this. I hope that in future we can take the next step in our relationship, and my body can learn to accept and trust physical touch again.
Who am I? I, I’m my thoughts, My dreams, My aspirations. I’m my name, My looks, My imagination. That’s what I see, When I stare, Into my reflection.
My reflection, Ripples in the river of life, The shallow, Shallow river of life. To the world, I am my reflection: I am only what the world sees, Only what the world decides I am. My body is but a vessel; Why must the world ignore me, But acknowledge the vessel?!
Books, merely objects Are still judged By only their covers, So who am I to demand They not judge me By only what they can see. The inside of a book Is where the value lies But most people don’t bother; It’s easier to judge From the outside
My body is a part of me, It embodies my soul My personality, But it is not all I am. I am not my scars, My disability, I am me, A completely separate entity. I, Me, Not just what you see
If Life is a marathon, Not a sprint, How come then, Everyone is going, So, so fast But I, I’m already behind, And while everyone else, Is having a great day, I toil away
My legs, Slabs beneath me, Holding me up, But barely, My lungs, Burning with every inhale, About to burst, But I cannot stop, I have to keep going, To get to the top, I can’t ever, Ever stop, I want to pause Catch my breath, But that’s not possible, Because the world won’t stop, And the non-existing finish line… Uncrossable
I see them, In the distance, So far, Way ahead of me, Doing better, Crushing this war, Me, however, A nonstarter, I struggle to keep up, Everyone is running, Sprinting, Me, however, A slow trot, Kinda like, A tortoise a lot, In a world full of hares, Speeding by, We both mosey about
I turn my head, I see the hares by me, Wait! I’m not so far behind? I’m actually, Doing kinda fine? My eyes, My mind, They… They deceive me? Why?! How can they not show me reality, When it’s right in front of me
I turn, Timidly, I ask, The hare next to me, How its going, To try and uncover, The secret of her, Great stride, And to my surprise, “I’M SO FAR BEHIND,” She bursts, Impossible. My mind told me I’M the worst! Turns out, I’m not alone, In my pain, and, This hare, Is not a hare, Just a person, And I, I’m not a tortoise
So, I uncover, Life isn’t a sprint, Or a marathon, I figure, It’s a heckin’ triathlon, Ongoing and never-ending And I, I’m not the only one, Who struggles, Because the hares aren’t hares, And my eyes, My eyes lie: I’m doing just fine, Jogging, In my own time
steven universe drifts away into a canopy of yellow stars and a pink and blue sky
Lately, I’ve been realizing just how challenging it is to recognize my own harmful habits and ways of thinking, interrupt them, and embark on a healing process. Although something like this has happened several times in the past, it only took a few deadlines and assignments to launch me into a spiral of over-analysis, self-criticism, anxiety, avoidance, and distraction. All the while, I felt powerless to stop this process, and I really hate that!
You see, what I had been struggling with up to that point was a couple papers, a presentation, replying to emails, doing weekly readings and assignments; all pretty mundane tasks, but ones that can feel like mountains with impossible summits some weeks. Even so, as I start to slip and fall behind, one part of my brain reassures myself that I’ll catch up on everything “over the weekend,” no problem, without the need to ask for help or communicate in any way. Another part is already recognizing the warning signs, pointing out my flaws, and criticizing myself on where I need to do better. The most destructive side deals with all this noise by shutting down completely. Sleeping in until 3pm, skipping meals and classes, being anxious to leave my room, neglecting self-care, and raking up my screen-time on Genshin to do nothing but avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid has indicated there is a bit more than academic stress below the surface.
2020 was a train wreck, a dumpster fire, the roller coaster we weren’t allowed to get off, and it doesn’t take much looking to realize everyone is fed up and burnout from the pandemic, over a year of condensed trauma (whether you or someone you knew got sick or not), incompetent people in power, social justice at the forefront of everywhere, up rooted and cancelled life plans, the world is a dart board with every inch covered in things that will decimate your ability to keep going. But 2021 seems to show that 2020 was just a prelude to what our everyday life will be like from here on out.
Content warning!! Candid mental health talk, sucide and suicidal ideation, and open talk about trauma responses (NO details will be given about the traumatic events).
I don’t think my hands have stopped trembling since move-in day. I’ve always had hand tremors, yet the neuroscientist my concerned mother urged me to visit assured me that it’s merely one of many cases she has seen of physiological tremors. Surprisingly, it’s a phenomenon that is surprisingly very common and one that isn’t dangerous. True, while this isn’t a condition that severely interferes with my life in the day-to-day, it’s often a channel through which emotions manifest in my body. This is where my problem begins.
Growing up as an Asian American, I always had a fast metabolism and never weighed above 100 pounds. No matter how much I tried to eat, I could never gain the weight. If I lost any weight for any reason, it was hard to gain it back. Medical professionals would tell me that I needed to “eat a cheeseburger” because my weight was not considered ‘healthy.’ I was not allowed to donate blood because I did not reach the weight minimum. I was tired of being told how ‘weak and small’ I looked, envying anyone with more noticeable curves or physical strength. I refused to take pictures for months, archiving my entire feed on Instagram and hiding my body as much as I could. I was sick of the body I was in. So in 2019, I began to research ways I can transform the way I look as quickly as possible.
I have failed to work with a system that prioritizes productivity over personhood.
I have chosen moving forward over suffering
I will accept myself to spite a value system that does not want acceptance – but always striving for “better”. If I internalize it, that I am always striving for “better”, then I build a comfortable place for the belief that I will never be enough, to rest upon. Instead, I will build space within myself to be less than ideal.
Unruly Bodies 