On fluidity and void in gender

During early teenage years, around 11-13, I remember finding out about a bunch of different labels relating to gender. I noted down everything on little colourful cards and started calling myself genderfluid. That is, I wasn't a big fan of girl on most days, but I enjoyed it on others. I'd gravitate toward a bunch of different expressions, although I couldn't tell you if I was trying to find what suited me best or if I was changing on a day-to-day basis; I don't think trying to reanalyse this in hindsight is relevant. I'd rather it stay as I used to find myself in the label. Then, as you might know, grooming got the best of me and I was pushed back into the closet in that regard. But that or the hurtful comments I've heard following that are beyond the point today.

I shut down my own expression for years. Back then, my understanding of the concept was very prescriptive, just like my understanding of different labels was all in all. In a way, it was freeing because I was finally getting to see words for different things, but also very restrictive in the way that even though I was happy with knowing hundreds of microlabels, I also couldn't see further than each individual definition. Even then, I could find myself in the definitions of genderfluidity I had found.

Not that long ago, by which I mean, maybe a few years ago still, I went back around to considering the label again. I have the flag on one of my walls, which I bought in part for my partner in crime at the time, but also because I wanted a flag and out of the ones that I could buy, this one felt the most relevant. Even then, it never really felt right, honestly. By that time, I had already a different understanding of genderfluidity, less prescriptivist. I did see some sort of changing nature within me, mostly with the way I'd never liked staying with one label or pronoun or name for too long. When I'd get tired of it, I'd start thinking these don't fit me no more, and I'd change for something else. A new name, a new set of pronouns, a new identity. Rince and repeat.

In even more recent times, about a year ago, I have considered a difference between core and façade and metaphorically saw gender in myself as something layered, or perhaps a soft cake with fragile frosting. The unchanging, hardly possible to describe core of being a femme, which I came to terms with after reading interviews of lesbians and feeling seen in a way that made me cry (my story with sexuality is obviously not entirely separate from my relation to gender, but my story with lesbianism would be out of the scope of what I'm getting at today); however, I also said I'd find that on top of this inner identity, I also had a more changing "outer identity". That didn't mean gender expression to me, nor really did it purely mean gender role. Really, it was a matter of layers, and the outer was further away from my core self, but still my self. That was like, during the one (1) week I found some echo in butch experiences while still acknowledging I was femme at core. And because it's never a bad time to slander my evil white ex, that singular week was enough for her to justify misgendering me still months later. Anyway!

So even in there, there was definitely an idea of something that's not entirely set in stone, yet with the idea still of something more static at its core. When it comes to my relation to genderfluidity, "something fluid is something liquid" is something that's crossed my mind. It's not unheard of when many intra-joke community will be about drinking the gender fluid and whatnot, you know. But being around myself more with some honesty and reflection, reading people's experiences and even reading friends' relation to fluidity made me come to an interesting conclusion. I find echo in the idea of fluidity not because my gender is fluid as in changing, but because I associate this idea of liquidity to it which is, something you can't catch.

In fact, it is true, today, I am not any close to being genderfluid. I might be at best a non-newtonian fluid (lol); all over the place but solid to the touch. Hence that layered cake metaphor was the beginning of something making sense to me. But really, it's more about the lack of words to contain me than the changes through time. At the same time, this fully relates to my relation to names when it comes to self. People ask what to call me; I do not blame them, but it doesn't feel good for me to name myself. When I put an x in shxn, it's explicitly for can be replaced by a vowel of your choice. I can write names for myself but hearing them often feels wrong; that doesn't mean I particularly want to be left unnamed. Think of it that way: you witness an entity that won't/can't give you a name and need to talk about it, so you find a way to refer to it. I'm not against names, I just don't like hearing self-names most of the time. Though of course I do have a veto right on what you end up calling me on your own.

Rather than fluid, I'm void and voided. The voided part here refers more to the aspects of my self that have particularly been constructed on "failing" at gender ("Je n'ai jamais été femme car lesbienne. Je ne serai jamais homme car trans."This wording here is directly taken from a poem I wrote in french at some point, echoing things I've heard here and there when discussing gender. It roughly translates to "I have never been woman because (I am a) lesbian. I will never man because (I am) trans".; and just look at me, I'm obviously very much still failing at it; one of the specific violences I've been through many times and still regularly go through is the ungendering of me. So, voided, yes, I built my self on that. If I've never been a woman or a man, I've very much been a trans and un trav'Slang and short for "travelot", french slur which could roughly translate to "transvestite".

That part is inextricable from the rest of my gender, I only separated it to be able to express myself better. In general, that voided is part of the bigger void in my gender. But even the void can be understood in many ways, and the complexity of the void is intrinsically part of how I feel about gender. An important part of it, however, is that I do not, ever, mean anything close to "neutral"; nothing close to "androgynous" or being in the middle of something either. I am a very specific genre of uniquely observable nothing. Highly recognisable; not possible to define; unchanging.

[As a side-note I'm thinking of when I talk about void, I also think of the stars and of black holes (which are not voids at all, but since we're not necessarily speaking in scientific terms, could be seen as "emptiness" ergo *in a way*, void). I know I associate myself with stars a lot but I think it's important to understand that I *am* not stars. Yet at the same time I am very protective of the idea in a way that, even if it's silly, I will fully admit that I have a hard time being around other people who associate or identify with stars. And you know, in the end, as long as we stay in our lanes, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So I'm not stars but I collect them, I allow their expression through me, I swallow them perhaps. I possess them like they possess me; something spiritual, something ghostly. We feed on each other.]

Now there's this blurry line between those different ideas of void as a gender, of gender (concept) being void, of being genderless, agender, of gender not existing. I wouldn't exactly settle for one, to be honest. I can tell you, however, that genderless is wrong in my case because it feels (to my ears purely) as if it implies missing gender. I might be doing gender wrong, but I'm not missing anything. Whatever that void is, it is never defined by a lack. If anything, rather than genderless, I could be genderfree (lol). Void as a gender doesn't feel right to me either because although it's very abstract and vague, it feels like it becomes a full explanation whereas the inability to capture my self is important to me.

The difficulty with hanging around the void is that there's another blurry line in here; that is, the fine line between the violence of reification and the euphoria of understanding by genre of "concrete abstract". Take "creature" for example. In the mouth of someone that gets it, it's gentle and friendly; in the mouth of others, it is a very brutal punch. Although hard to express, take that wording if you can see what I mean: I am something but I am not a thing.

September 17th

8:02 PM - 10:17 PM