I was socialized as a girl and had to learn to undo the thinking and processes that held me back from being myself as since I was taught to fit in the role of “girl” from a young age. I was a performer in ballet and Irish Dance, and praised as a good one at that by both adults and my peers. Simultaneously, I became an expert at performing my assigned gender. That’s what my life was, dance and being a girl and a daughter and a niece and a sister– and femme. I didn’t know any different. I didn’t see myself as being able to be any different. I only did, said, dressed, and convinced myself to feel like a “girl” would. I had played so far into being a “girl” that I completely disconnected with my body and lost myself. I never considered who I wanted to be. The modality of femininity, ‘Discontinuous Unity,’ observed by Iris Mariam Young in “Throwing Like a Girl” perfectly describes how I felt in my adolescence with femininity. I felt like I was constantly in a spotlight– viewed by a crowd I couldn’t see, critiqued for not pointing my feet enough, and convinced my body must play the role of “girl” correctly.

It was years until I realized that I had been struggling with internal homophobia and transphobia. It was okay for others to be LGBTQ+, but not for myself? The convincing wasn’t good enough though, because as the world around me crumbled with my first sense of self-realization, I saw that nonbinary lesbian inside of me. It took me 16 years to understand that I wasn’t straight, and another 3 to realize I wasn’t a part of the gender binary. Those last 3 years were the toughest. Validating myself was one of the hardest things I’ve done and continue to do daily. It feels so crazy looking back and sometimes it feels so unequivocally dumb that I couldn’t find myself and still doubt myself, but this is what happened to me and I’m still trying to accept it. I see a sense of femininity still lingering in the jewelry I wear, my short hair that I can’t ever seem to like even when it’s an inch from my head, and the mannerisms I can’t seem to shake. I hope to use these parts of me to empower myself rather than promote disunity of my mind and body. This has been my personal journey from “Discontinuous Unity” to “Ambiguous Transcendence,” where I can freely be myself regardless of others’ views of me.

TLDR; Society pushed me into a role without my consent that led me to disassociate and play pretend as a straight girl until I learned I had free will.