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"html": "<p>recently one of my friends asked me about my gender experience when i was a child. she’s a woman of a certain experience herself and because of *gestures vaguely at the concept of a commonality between a lot of afab trans people* she kind of assumed my experience would be similar to other afab trans people she’s met. but i’m kind of a huge weirdo, and i’m full of surprises.</p>\n<p>so a lot of my gender experience as a child is informed by the fact that i was also being abused by my caretakers from the age of 8 (or perhaps earlier), which, for a socially slow-to-develop autistic child, might have been when i was naturally beginning to discern a difference in genders of the people around me and to figure out what my own place in that was.</p>\n<p><em><strong>if reading about misogynist child abuse would trigger you, please don’t continue.</strong></em></p>\n<p>up to that point, i hadn’t really thought much about gender. i had only sisters, and most of the people in my mom’s family were women, at least most of the people she brought us around. men were rare oddities, nothing so common as to be worried about. when i got into school there were boys, but those weren’t <em>men</em>, they were more like me. kid-gender, if anything.</p>\n<p>when my mom married her first husband and we moved to where his family lived, things changed. his family was mostly men, and the women in his family seemed to enjoy upholding misogyny. my step-dad’s sister, my aunt, would watch us kids while my mom and her husband worked full time, and she spent her days psychologically tormenting me in various ways. my refuge was engaging with things she liked, which were usually more masculine interests like metal music and horror movies*. she would often mock women in the movies and shows we watched, and i was expected to at least laugh, if not join in. she and her brother would mock my mother to me relentlessly, and i was expected to accept and join in too. when my older sister started wearing makeup, that was ridiculed (even though my aunt herself wore makeup from time to time) and again, i was expected to comply.</p>\n<p>(* yes, i understand that metal music and horror movies can be enjoyed by anyone. i currently like metal music quite a lot! they are still both masculine-coded and male-dominated spaces, and the way my aunt engaged with them (and the way i was forced to as well) involved misogyny. she liked them because they were made by men and avoided woman-made art, such as female fronted metal bands.)</p>\n<p>i was encouraged and praised for becoming more masculine. i was forced into sports. i was encouraged to play violent video games and listen to angry music. coupled with the intense and persistent mental and physical abuse, i truly feel these people ripped away whatever my innate gender would have been, and i have been reconstructing myself ever since.</p>\n<p>for a very long time i have related to my resulting gender construction as a transgender experience, ever since i learned what trans people were and understood that for whatever the reason happens to be, “not the same gender as the one assigned at birth” very much applies to me. i labeled myself as simply nonbinary for many years and it has suited me well. i do feel my gender still encompasses a nonbinary experience. it’s also fluid; my gender changes and fluctuates from time to time.</p>\n<p>in recent years i have been slowly coming more to womanhood. a new coworker used “she” for me, and for the first time in a long time <em>it didn’t feel wrong</em>. i started questioning my relationship to my body and its various parts. i started feeling right in myself, and changing what i didn’t like (coloring my hair, adding piercings and tattoos, dressing differently, wearing makeup i actually like). i feel like, understanding myself as a nonbinary woman, i am more me now than i ever have been.</p>\n<p>and i think, despite my agab, the concept of coming into your womanhood in your 30s is something maybe a lot of women can relate to.</p>"
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"description": "recently one of my friends asked me about my gender experience when i was a child. she's a woman of a certain experience herself and because of *gestures vaguely at the concept of a commonality between a lot of afab trans people* she kind of assumed my experience would be similar to other afab trans people she's met. but i'm kind of a huge weirdo, and i'm full of surprises.",
"path": "/2026/07/what-even-is-a-gender-we-still-dont-know/",
"publishedAt": "2026-07-02T23:19:56.000Z",
"site": "at://did:plc:nsnibpyx6vbpqbpi3lipondk/site.standard.publication/3mow7r2ykaos3",
"tags": [
"child abuse",
"misogyny",
"transgender",
"about me",
"journal prompts"
],
"textContent": "recently one of my friends asked me about my gender experience when i was a child. she’s a woman of a certain experience herself and because of *gestures vaguely at the concept of a commonality between a lot of afab trans people* she kind of assumed my experience would be similar to other afab trans people she’s met. but i’m kind of a huge weirdo, and i’m full of surprises. so a lot of my gender experience as a child is informed by the fact that i was also being abused by my caretakers from the age of 8 (or perhaps earlier), which, for a socially slow-to-develop autistic child, might have been when i was naturally beginning to discern a difference in genders of the people around me and to figure out what my own place in that was. if reading about misogynist child abuse would trigger you, please don’t continue. up to that point, i hadn’t really thought much about gender. i had only sisters, and most of the people in my mom’s family were women, at least most of the people she brought us around. men were rare oddities, nothing so common as to be worried about. when i got into school there were boys, but those weren’t men, they were more like me. kid-gender, if anything. when my mom married her first husband and we moved to where his family lived, things changed. his family was mostly men, and the women in his family seemed to enjoy upholding misogyny. my step-dad’s sister, my aunt, would watch us kids while my mom and her husband worked full time, and she spent her days psychologically tormenting me in various ways. my refuge was engaging with things she liked, which were usually more masculine interests like metal music and horror movies*. she would often mock women in the movies and shows we watched, and i was expected to at least laugh, if not join in. she and her brother would mock my mother to me relentlessly, and i was expected to accept and join in too. when my older sister started wearing makeup, that was ridiculed (even though my aunt herself wore makeup from time to time) and again, i was expected to comply. (* yes, i understand that metal music and horror movies can be enjoyed by anyone. i currently like metal music quite a lot! they are still both masculine-coded and male-dominated spaces, and the way my aunt engaged with them (and the way i was forced to as well) involved misogyny. she liked them because they were made by men and avoided woman-made art, such as female fronted metal bands.) i was encouraged and praised for becoming more masculine. i was forced into sports. i was encouraged to play violent video games and listen to angry music. coupled with the intense and persistent mental and physical abuse, i truly feel these people ripped away whatever my innate gender would have been, and i have been reconstructing myself ever since. for a very long time i have related to my resulting gender construction as a transgender experience, ever since i learned what trans people were and understood that for whatever the reason happens to be, “not the same gender as the one assigned at birth” very much applies to me. i labeled myself as simply nonbinary for many years and it has suited me well. i do feel my gender still encompasses a nonbinary experience. it’s also fluid; my gender changes and fluctuates from time to time. in recent years i have been slowly coming more to womanhood. a new coworker used “she” for me, and for the first time in a long time it didn’t feel wrong. i started questioning my relationship to my body and its various parts. i started feeling right in myself, and changing what i didn’t like (coloring my hair, adding piercings and tattoos, dressing differently, wearing makeup i actually like). i feel like, understanding myself as a nonbinary woman, i am more me now than i ever have been. and i think, despite my agab, the concept of coming into your womanhood in your 30s is something maybe a lot of women can relate to.",
"title": "what even is a gender? we still don’t know"
}