Thoughts about girlhood
Date written: 2024.06.27
Girlhood is a concept that truly fascinates me, that I feel drawn towards, and at the same time one that I have not yet fully finished unpacking in my mind. I was born a woman and have been treated as such my entire life, regardless of my internal perception of myself. Moreover, legal issues surrounding nonbinary identities in Poland aside (such being that it’s impossible to have your gender be officially recognized), I was raised speaking a language which is extremely gendered and which does not truly allow for a comfortably nonbinary approach: not only are you forced to gender yourself even while speaking in first person, but also the grammatical gender you’re using is determined by a vowel in the verb, therefore limiting the options you have.
byłam – I was (feminine)
byłem – I was (masculine)
byłom – I was (neutral)
The neutral option is the equivalent of the English it/its pronouns. It’s used mainly for objects. There are no problems with that on its own, of course, but good luck trying to survive in a conservative society while using it/its pronouns for yourself, and I will emphasize it again, while using them in first person, constantly. Good luck finding a job. Actually, fuck it – good luck not getting hatecrimed.
That forces most people into a binary box. You have to align yourself with one of the two genders. It doesn’t matter if you’re bigender or agender or any other gender – if you’re not a small percentage of extremely brave individuals who are fighting to normalize the usage of it/its pronouns despite the danger of it, you will be forced to choose a side.
So I had a girlhood and I have a girlhood. Me discovering my trans identity did not prevent me from continuing to live as a girl in this society. And, faced with the choices that are available for me, I don’t mind it anymore. I’ve grown used to it. I don’t have a boyhood (although I may call myself a boy sometimes); I don’t truly have the nonbinary equivalent of it, if such a thing exists somewhere in the world. I am not a girl, but girlhood is something that I have been experiencing my entire life, and as I am slowly unpacking all of my complicated gender feelings I’m starting to realize that I am actually… quite attached to it. It’s mine, after all. It’s the only reality I’ve ever known.
When I hear cis and trans women talk about girlhood, I cannot fully relate to them, even if I agree with their words. It’s not about what they’re saying, it’s about the feeling itself. They are girls and women – I am not. Simultaneously, I cannot for the life of me relate to some transmasc’s opinions on the matter either – a lot of them detest girlhood, some denying they had it, others agreeing that they had it but considering it to be a cage they need(ed) to escape from. They are transitioning away from it; I am not. There is nothing for me to transition to.
Girlhood is not something I would have chosen for myself if I had been given a choice; it’s prickly and unfitting and wrong. Acknowledging its importance in my life is dysphoric: it makes my brain light up in horror, ready to hit me with the “WATCH OUT! THIS SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE REPRESSING YOUR TRUE GENDER IDENTITY” warning. But I have the right to a past and a present. I am not transitioning to male. I will never be a man, I will never be treated as a man, and I’m okay with that. There is no boyhood for me. And there is no nonbinary equivalent – not here. In a heavily gendered society, I still exist – and so, too, I am gendered. Why would I close my eyes and pretend it isn’t so?
Two realities can co-exist simultaneously: the one in which I am nonbinary, and the one in which I am seen and treated as a woman. And I will not deny myself my past and my present in the name of being a “valid” nonbinary person. Because the little me, unaware of the concept of gender altogether, wasn’t a boy and certainly wasn’t nothing – I was living the life of a little girl. And I have the right to not only acknowledge it, but also to embrace it and make peace with it. I am allowed not to be miserable about it. I am allowed to love it, even. This is not me trying to fool myself into ignoring my dysphoria and pretending I am cis – this is me coping with the life I was given.
But also, and this is important: in the world where there the only options are yuri and yaoi, I am always going to be yuri. God bless
Written by: Aleks 🌌