Hello there. It’s me.
I’ve spent the last several years bringing an ambitious idea to life.
I escaped gender.
When this idea of escaping gender first came into my mind, even just trying to imagine what it would take scared me shitless. It was mind bending to think about.
Without gender, how would I even live? Who would I be? How does life on this earth in this society even work if you completely ditch gender? I had so many unanswered questions.
I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I knew it would test me beyond anything I’d ever even imagined.
I was just a regular person, raised and conditioned to live as a specific gender just like everyone else. What made me think I was so special that I could live in such a radically different way?
But once the idea got in my head, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least give it a shot.
I had to, because living within the confines of gender just didn’t feel real. It felt like a charade.
If all you really have is this life you’ve been given, then it seems wrong to live it in a way that feels fake.
To me, gender felt fake.
It became obvious that the only way I could feel like I was really here and really alive was if I shook off gender altogether.
So I took a leap of faith.
When I started bringing this vision into reality, I had no idea what it was going to take. All I knew was that I had to test everything I’d been taught about who I was to discern the real from the programmed. I made the commitment not to settle for more acceptable ideas out of convenience. What mattered was what was really there, no matter how inconvenient.
I’ve tested a lot, and learned a lot, and made a lot of changes to how I go about my life. But that process is never-ending, and there’s no arrival point. Who all of us are is infinite, and there’s always something to discover.
I’ve been so focused on that process that I almost forgot to step back and take a look at what’s happened.
It turns out, I did what I set out to do.
I escaped gender.
This thing that I was trained to believe was immutable about my identity.
Me: just a regular person.
It begs the question: what else is possible?
