I'm so tired of pretending to be what other people expect and ignoring so much about the real me. I'm tired of hearing things like 'you're just confused', 'it's just a phase', 'you just have have negative self-esteem', 'gender-fluid isn't a real thing'. And yet I feel guilty even complaining about it because I'm not getting hormones or surgery (I need to be a shape-shifter) so maybe it isn't a 'real' problem after all and I am just being whiny.

I can't afford multiple wardrobes (and omg the drama I get already with how I dress) and I can't find a haircut that really fits me in all modes. I can't even wear a binder because I have severe lung issues and compressing my ribs, even that much, makes it hard to breathe. It's frustrating that the perception is that the only way to be androgynous is to dress masculine if you were born in a female body, or feminine if you were born in a male body. Or with male/female genetics or... I don't even know how to say what I mean.

My body offends me every time I look in a mirror or any reflective surface. It's not masculine, it's not neutral, it's not even feminine enough. It's just this thing that I hate having to wear and I hate even worse that it defines me whether I want it to or not. Some days I think that hormones and top surgery would fix so much, but then a few days (or weeks) later I don't know how I could ever have thought that. Deep down I know that I would still hate my body no matter what I did with it.

It's hurts a little every time I have to choose which box to check, male or female, and I feel like I'm lying whichever one I pick. And that I'm denying my identity by not making a fuss about not having more boxes to choose from but being pretty sure that wouldn't do any good even if I did. I'm starting to feel that it's not really ok to just keep accepting the default pronouns like I always have but I can't ask people who don't think I have a 'real' (not made up for attention or maybe delusional) reason for wanting a different pronoun.

Alright, done venting now. It felt good to say all that and tomorrow morning I can go back to being whatever everyone else sees when they look at me.