DECONFORMING
Just a genderless person trying to be myself in a gendered society
Recent articles
5 things I’ve learned since coming out as trans
I publicly came out as transgender on January 1, 2019. (To be more specific, I’m agender.) If you ever want to challenge yourself to see how you handle scrutiny and judgment, come out as trans. Trust me, it will change your life, whether you’re ready for it or...
Is it belief, or is it conformity?
It’s one thing to believe something and do your best to live it out. It’s another thing to live among people who accept you only on the condition that you act like you believe certain non-negotiable things. Those two experiences couldn't be more different. But they're...
Bisexual vs. pansexual: what’s the difference?
In the culture I live in, we usually treat people as though they are straight and cisgender. But these labels are often incorrectly applied to people that they don't actually fit—people who have different gender identities and different orientations. A person's...
DFAB, AMAB, DSAB, AGAB? The birth sex acronyms
Whether or not you realize it, you were probably assigned a sex and a gender when you were born. This assignment would have been based on what doctors observed about your body, and the conclusions they drew from their observations (whether accurate or not). Once that...
Why can trans people choose their labels, but not cis people?
I've been asked a question that has taken various shapes & forms in conversations about trans rights. This question is typically asked as a sort of "gotcha" logic trap, though it can be asked out of a genuine desire to understand. Here's the question: Why do trans...
Is “cisgender” a slur? (The answer is no.)
Since I started down this strange and exhausting (but ultimately rewarding) path of openly talking about what it's like to try to just exist in this society as a transgender person, I've gotten lectured a lot by people who don't like what I'm saying. While I never...
The big list of gender identities (+ vocab to know)
The labels we use to describe gender identities are growing and expanding, because, as humans, our ability to understand each other is also growing and expanding. Here's a list of these gender identity labels with quick definitions of each. But before we jump in, one...
What does it mean to be genderfluid?
Genderfluid is when someone's sense of gender shifts in a fluid way. It covers a huge range of different gender experiences. There are countless ways for a person to be genderfluid. Some genderfluid people shift from female to male and back again within the span of a...
Trigger warnings: what they are and how to use them
Trigger warnings get a lot of flack. I started seeing them show up around the internet before I had any clue about what they were or why they existed. They're often used on social media with the abbreviation "TW" to designate that what follows may include triggering...
Gender dysphoria: what is it, and what does it feel like?
Gender dysphoria is a nightmarish state that’s really difficult to describe, but in this post, I’m going to do my best to describe it. It has to do with the sense that who you really are is being distorted into something different and wrong. Many (but not all)...