Hello there everyone. A bit of context:
I’ve kinda known I’ve been genderqueer for the majority of my life. My wife and I just got married a little over a year ago after being together for 10 years (aww high school sweethearts). I’ve really only told her about my sexuality and gender stuff as shes been the only person I’ve ever been able to be myself around. She was a little weird when I told her I was bi a few years ago (consider myself pan now) but was fine with it and said she was as well. After that I started opening up about gender and that’s when everything got weird and we would stop talking about it besides a few times here and there throughout the years.
Over the weekend she brought it back up saying I could use they/them if I wanted, but she thinks “we need more guys like you” in the world. I guess if I change my pronouns and don’t identify as my agab I’ll be wasting the potential as a guy who stands for humane rights. Shit just fucking sucks.
I feel like part of it is being an interracial couple in the Midwest and she sees it as just another struggle we have to go through. She’s talked about that and I get it but it doesn’t make me feel better.
Sorry for venting, but it’s just so frustrating. Like is this normal for couples who go through this situation? I’m just really pissed hearing my wife say “I understand, but most guys sucks so you should be the example” when I don’t feel like a guy.
first, congrats on being genderqueer & thinking about new pronouns!!
i personally tried to hold on way too long as a “positive example of masculinity”. eventually i realized that even though im awesome, i was never going to be a positive example of a man since i wasn’t a dude to begin with.
i think your wife might just need some time to adapt / learn more about transness / gender queerness.
Thank you. The sexuality part was hard to bring up/talk about at first but we’re doing fine on that front now. I brought up gender shortly after and that’s been kind of an on and off again conversation for a few years now. Tbh I feel like she’s trying to protect me from my own family, some of hers and just the area we live in. One of her cousins came out as NB recently and that’s been a weird topic of discussion at family events when they aren’t around.
It just hurts to hear that my principles and way I’ve been going about life are lessened because of how I identify. Feels like I have to be a poster child for “Let people love people” instead of loving myself.
It sounds like you’re a couple of steps ahead of where I’m at. As a masc presenting AMAB, I’m treated like a man and that doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel any dysphoria associating myself with the gender label. I am disgusted by a lot of the behavior Masculinity is used as an excuse for though. Hmm. The vaccines might be making my frogs gay, I’ll need to think more about this so I can line my words up in a row that makes sense next time.
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This sounds like an intense struggle, you’re told you should have a duty to be strong and do whatever but while recognizing the value of that whatever you don’t want that to be your problem to solve.
This is a reasonable frustration. It isn’t your responsibility to solve this.
I want to gently encourage you by pointing out standing as an example of what a man should be doesn’t require you to be a "Man"TM. As a person whose gender others will assume, in the cases they assume you to be a straight cis male, you will conflict with their expectations by choosing not to be a dick.
Perhaps I guess too much, as I feel I recognize similarities to my own life. I identify as a “man” I guess. My whole life all the way through my early adulthood, as an undiagnosed autistic person, I never felt like I was like other men. My siblings were especially direct at tormenting my lack of masculinity. Eventually I left the home and the stunted parts of myself had a chance to grow. I would notice these many parts of traditional masculinity that were disgusting and repellent. I would decide I didn’t want to associate myself with them even if that made me less of a “man”.
In recent years, there are some few remarks I value highly, where a person has told me my actions weren’t typical of a “man”.
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I think for me, it was less about changing anything than letting myself accept myself as I was.
Really vibe with what @[email protected] said elsewhere in this thread
i personally tried to hold on way too long as a “positive example of masculinity”. eventually i realized that even though im awesome, i was never going to be a positive example of a man since i wasn’t a dude to begin with
Except as a nonbinary person. Rather than spending time making sense out of how to fit a round peg in a square hole, I could just be and make sense as I already am.
I stopped myself from coming out as agender for like a year after I basically realized I was (or something like that), cuz I worried about stuff like “am I being selfish by renouncing being a man rather than being a good man,” etc. It wasn’t good, and I’m a lot happier now. There is a lot of (correct) pushback against individualism around here, but somethings literally are about you - and how you identify is one of those things. We’re not Jesus or some shit, it’s not our job to take on and suffer the sins of men.
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