The Pronoun Puzzle — Navigating Gender Identity
For the longest time, I’ve struggled with being able to pinpoint or put a label on how I identify gender-wise.
I know some people say ‘labels are for clothes’ and I wholly believe that in regards to everyone but me. It makes me really happy to see when people do not believe they have to categorise themself for someone else's benefit and are happy just floating in this massive pool of binaries and concrete identities.
However not knowing these types of things makes me panic sometimes. As someone who grew up with technology, having the answer to everything has been inherent due to having the internet but you can’t just look up what gender identity or pronouns you individually want to use. Sure you can look at websites like Stonewall for infographics and articles on pronoun use or how to understand gender identity however it doesn’t give you a definitive answer.
It is more of a personal journey aided by these sources as opposed to being told. Some people are able to confidently say they identify as cis or trans or gender-fluid and then there are some people who just float in the in-between as I mentioned above.
After lots of research, I have come to accept that might be it for me, and that is always rather daunting, purely not knowing how to fit in a certain category but every day with more people in the media relating to this I am slowly but surely undoing all this doubt surrounding not identifying with a certain gender. It is hard when it comes to accepting this sense of gender apathy because of this repetition of you're either a man or a woman nailed into our heads by society, but I think if you yourself are confident (or even if you aren’t) in how you identify that is good enough.
Happy Exploring!
Freya (they/them/any)
