AriaXoria

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

  • They/Any

Horny bat. Smells bad. You know me if you recognize the name.


I'm admittedly not super secure in my gender identity, and have been talking with my therapist about my feelings regarding gender. I had a major breakthrough during my last session and thought I would write out my feelings concerning it to clear up any questions people may have on it.

So basically, a lot of this harkens back to my mom; when I came out to her in February, I came out to her as nonbinary(All that really means to me is that I don't strictly adhere to the gender roles and identities of male or female). She, unfortunately, didn't understand that concept and categorized me as a trans woman and I kinda sorta never corrected her. Regardless, she was very excited to have another daughter nonetheless.

She died a week later, most likely to a heart attack. However, before she passed away, she did out me to the rest of my family as a trans woman because I got some messages from my brothers that mom told them. Thankfully, my family is super supportive and accepted me right out the gate. So that was good.

However, since her passing, I've felt this odd... Obligation to live up to being the woman she thought I was. I don't know if it was a way to honor her memory, but I kinda just went along with it. I had already been on hormones for a year and a half at that point, what was the harm in just a switch in presentation?

Initially, I transitioned because I was unsatisfied with the gender roles and expectations of being a man. But it turns out, being a woman had its own set of harsh expectations and roles to adhere to. While I was happier than I was being a guy, holding myself to these expectations(in addition to being transgender in a country that already demonizes trans women) was very pressuring!

This desire to confirm to societal norms of beauty standards, while looking the way I did due to the effects of testosterone coursing through my veins for 15 years, only made my dysphoria a terrible monster that I could barely manage without feeling like surgical intervention was the only avenue to surmounting it. I have big, broad shoulders. I'm tall, with a deep voice, and a perceived masculine face. It's hard to fit in when all the women you see around you are small, petite, "traditionally feminine."

Basically, with transition, I broke out of the box labeled "male" just to trap myself in a box labeled "female." Both boxes had things I liked and disliked about them, but it was the obligation that I abhorred from either of them; the idea that the roles of these genders are rigid, static, and unchanging.

Eventually, it became too much for me to handle. I was basically slipping into some form of delusional psychosis because I felt I could not physically perform these roles that didn't even want to fully commit too. Hell, my therapist even signed off on a gender designation change form to update the marker on my license. But I just couldn't bring myself to bring it to the license office for processing. It felt too final, too rigid, too... Not me. (Admittedly, I don't really care what marker is on my documents; a letter doesn't define me.)

That's when I decided to start soul searching a little bit, introspecting about what it was about gender presentation that I liked so much. I basically worked myself into such a tizzy over presenting as a woman, I forgot to do what I needed to do for myself to make me happy.

So slowly, I started opening myself up to other avenues of thinking. Hell, maybe I'm not a woman. But if I'm not a woman, how do I reconcile these feelings that I've been having about myself in regards to masculinity and femininity? Where do I go from here? Because I sure as hell didn't feel like a man either. I don't even know what a gender is supposed to FEEL like. I just kind of.. Am.

When I first started exploring gender and hormone therapy, I tried my best to get as far away from masculinity as I could. I thought it was my enemy, something to be shunned from myself. I thought that hiding under the guise of femininity would fix my problems. It fixed SOME of them, but not the underlying problem. I've come to learn that masculinity, or my own masculinity, was never the problem. It's forever a part of me that I needed to accept, just like I needed to accept my feminine side. I needed to let her out, and let him back in.

The process, of course, was a tumultuous task, but one I needed to accomplish, but it turns out the solution for me was staring me in the face the whole time. It was to just let it go; I had to stop worrying about what others thought about me, and start worrying about doing things that made me happy instead.

Things like talking with my regular voice, letting my facial hair grow out a bit, as well as wearing make up and women's clothes. Just little things that brought joy to me without trying to contextualize my actions into a category of "male" or "female," but rather into the category of "Aria." Aria does it because Aria likes it.

It turned out, just changing that thought process was the most therapeutic thing I could have done for myself. Face dysphoria? Gone. My hatred for what my body wasn't has been replaced by a newfound appreciation for what my body is. Hell, I even stopped caring about what pronouns people perceived me to use. Normally I'd be visibly upset if anyone used anything but she/her but now? Every pronoun under the sun just feels GOOD. Naturally, there is a slight preference for they/them.

That is why the concept of nonbinary is so alluring, and I dare say, a perfect match for a person like me. There's no precedent, there's no "expected gender roles" that are needed to be performed from nonbinary people. My ability to express myself opened up vastly, and I don't have to worry about conforming to a role. I can just do something because I like to do it. Make up? Sure thing. Working on cars? Hell yeah. Who's going to stop me, or tell me I can't do that?

I don't want this to be read as me "detransitioning" or anything like that. I still block my testosterone and stab estrogen into my leg every week. It will end when I end.

Furthermore, I hate that term when applied to trans people. It makes it sound like de-transitioning is just a reversal of ones gender journey, and going back to the way things were.

Even if I were to go off hormones, and go back to being a guy, I would be approaching my birth gender with a more intimate sense of intent. I'd know just how expansive the male gender can truly be, which is not something I would have realized without embarking on this journey. The only way for me is forward.

I still want a pussy though.