Gender status 2026-03-03 19:00
I feel an over-enthusiastic support over my transmasculine gender by outsiders, almost infantilizing in nature. I'm a growing American boy being handed a rifle before his first hunt with his father. There is predisposition that the weapons of masculinity will affirm me. However, I was not born in the US, this "boy" is in his late 20s, and I never wanted to kill another animal.
In 2024, I made a comic in a similar vein, about the trappings of my AFAB upbringing alienating me in the masculine-dominant gaming space.
While many trans folk shared my sentiment, many also pushed video game IPs to my dining table like a treatment plan. I tried Halo with a few trusted friends. It was meaningful, yet not life changing. The sentiment stuck because of my friends and not the game itself (which I admittedly grew quickly bored of). The reality is that its too late for me to experience the microcosm of playing a silly shooter from a thumb drive with my fellow tween boys.
Honestly, that's fine! I never regret my experiences that made me the trans freak I am today! Ultimately, I wished more people had realized my true thesis: I might crave participation, but I need the systems that pressure my participation to be eradicated.
I discuss this with my he/they spouse and we agree that man stings on the tongue. Man is a cruel mold assigned sons are crushed into. Man is a tool to cruelly dominate the non-consenting other and force you to refer to him as "sir". I am not affirmed by inheriting this loaded gun.
We have to be better than this. I need to look down the tunnel, not the barrel, and see a version of myself that not only survives, but is something to aspire towards. An environmental reclamation to this awful death spiral that I've been the victim of countless times. I want to see its disgusting body swallowed by flowering vines, just as all those wonderful butches have planted before me. I repeat, I need something to look forward to.
I do not owe you a diagnosis of my ever-changing gender experience, but you may peer into its light at your own discretion.