I originally wrote this essay almost two years ago, so some of its contents may be dated. However, I have decided to publish it anyways as a testament of how I started to figure out my gender identity. This is titled "Part 1" because I may eventually write a followup essay.

What is it like to examine layers of self-repression?🔗

It all began when your hair started to grow out. Initially, you are just lazy and don't want to set aside time to get a haircut. As time passes though, you find that you actually like your hair longer. Through trial and error, you start to figure out how to use a hair dryer to style your hair to your liking.

You start to find yourself caring more about your appearance in general, joking with your parents about this change which seemed to come from out of the blue. They sometimes call you "Oscar", after Oscar Wilde, and you think about his prosecution for being gay, drag queens, and how gay men are sometimes effeminate. You mentally note however, at the same time, that you've had crushes on women before, so you know that you are not a gay man.

You run into clickbait articles that proclaim, "scientifically", that male people tend to have certain thought patterns and that female people tend to have different, opposing thought patterns. Although you understand that all of these statements are overly broad generalizations, and that there are plenty of counterexamples on both sides, you still ponder how often you fit into the patterns considered "female", and wonder if that actually means anything. You also notice in your news feed articles and ads specifically written for women, such as "The Lily" from The Washington Post.

You think about the experiences of transgender people and note to yourself that you don't suffer from dysphoria. You hear the term "nonbinary" for the first time and turn the idea over in your head for a while afterwards, trying to figure out what exactly it means.

You try to dismiss lingering uncertainties in the back of your head by reminding yourself that you are biologically male and that you aren't homosexual, but this rapidly becomes untenable.

What is it like to be queer without feeling queer?🔗

You decide to finally pick up A Separate Peace, after it was recommended to you a long time ago as a tale of friendship. Once you start reading, you immediately think that you've never felt any urges to display male bravado the way these characters do. Other people's behavior makes more sense, and your vague notions of not being "manly" like other men suddenly crystallize into clarity as you better understand what passes as "typical male behavior". You start to feel like you're the normal one and that all the male people around you are the strange ones, and that you may technically satisfy some dictionary definition for "queer" without feeling like your gender identity should be anything unusual.

Even as you start to distance yourself from typical manhood, you think that you still present as male and haven't really suffered gender-based discrimination. You don't feel like you can join groups like oSTEM and benefit from resources that would be better allocated to those who have suffered more.

You gradually come to the understanding that gender can be distinct from sexual identity, and the word "nonbinary" begins to make more sense.

What is it like to listen and participate in discussions about gender when you are questioning?🔗

#MeToo makes its way into the news, and you better understand how sexism is a rampant problem and why it has remained hidden. You wonder what it would be like to have a cataclysmic weight of sexism drop on your head, and then remember that roughly half of the world's population is still putting up with this kind of thing constantly.

You run into a female friend talking to a trans friend as she is transitioning. You hear your trans friend say something indistinct in a disappointed tone, to which she replies "Welcome to the world of being a girl."

At your university's student orientation, a student theatre group performs various skits about safe sex and healthy relationships, followed by a poll asking various questions about sexual experiences. You distinctly remember that most people have experienced or know someone who experienced sexual assult, and that around 30% of people in the room thought that rape accusations from women were only a way to get back at a man after an unsatisfying relationship.

You mention to your orientation guide how the organizers quickly hid poll results and that most people have a direct connection to someone who was assulted, and he tells you sadly, "We didn't want people to get upset at the results" and "Yeah, I know two."

At another part of the orientation, there is a collection of speakers discussing their identity. There is a concluding performance in which a few performers recite identity statements like "I'm pansexual" and "I'm from Vietnam as a first-generation college student", concluding in unison with statements like "What do we have in common? We all welcome you to our university!" Even if it is better with five people reciting the lines instead of a single person, you question whether they have the right to speak for everyone and whether these identites are merely being used to generate a good public image.

You notice that almost all of your friends are not male, and you feel that many groups of male friends seem "off" somehow. This starts as an intellectual feminist rejection of asserting dominance and disrespecting of women, but morphs into a gut feeling that manifests instinctively, even when there is nothing disrespectful about the behavior that you see. You find yourself starting to use the gender-neutral versions of emojis when applicable.

You've always considered yourself an ally to LGBTQ+ people, but you now feel like you aren't really straight either. You sympathize with a vaguely defined "female point of view", which, like the previous feeling, starts as intellectual reasoning but grows into something deeper. You question initially whether this is what it means to feel attracted to women, but you quickly decide that this is something else. The phrase "part woman" eventually occurs to you as another valid descriptor of your identity.

You begin to realize that you view gendered issues from multiple viewpoints, and that you've been utilizing these varied perspectives for most of your life without consciously realizing it.

What is it like to come out to friends and family when you are still questioning?🔗

In the library, you come across a collection of badges for people to take, with various pronouns printed on them. Initially, you grab a "He, Him" badge, thinking that you may as well show solidarity with queer people by declaring your own pronouns. Later on, though, you come back for a "They, Them" badge as well. If this turns out not to describe me, I can always return it, you think at the time. Nevertheless, taking that badge and consciously choosing pronouns feels like finally recognizing a hidden part of you that you never properly acknowledged before.

You tell your trans friend that you may be demi-boy nonbinary, using the word "boy" instead of "man" to distance yourself from social expectations of "becoming a man". She tells you "Yeah, most people like you end up being like that" and isn't surprised at all.

"Remember, everything is up to you except your own feelings," another friend reassures you when you confide in her.

You continue to feel like an impostor of sorts, questioning whether or not you can really count as "queer" even if you don't feel that you fit into models of "straight"ness. You ask yourself whether you have the right to claim labels that others have fought so hard for, when you haven't even really suffered yourself in the process of uncovering your own identity. Although you satisfy the definitions of the labels you apply to yourself, you don't think you wouldn't have an answer if someone were to press you on this.

When you come out to your parents, they are initially confused about what you mean by using he/they pronouns. You explain for a while before they begin to understand what you mean. While they aren't dismissive, they don't fully understand why it is so important to you.

"Don't force yourself to think about this too much or fit into a preconception of yourself, and you'll be fine", your parents tell you.

I have the luxury of not constantly thinking about it, which others may not have, you thought at the time.

What is it like to gradually grow into a new identity?🔗

One day, when you are waiting for a bus, you find yourself drifting off into thoughts about who you are, and realize that you are stewing in your own queerness. You think back to when you came out to your parents and understand that you no longer have that luxury of not having your identity constantly in the back of your head, ready to thrust itself into your thoughts randomly. Just like your personality, it often manifests itself subtly in your thinking, even things that have nothing to do with gender and identity. You are newly thankful that you only had to confront external expectations of masculinity occasionally and that you are a bit more free to explore other forms of gender presentation.

As you form a new identity, there remains a nagging uncertainty, as you sometimes feel more queer than is described by the pronouns "he/they". Occasionally, you feel that someone referring to you with "she/her" pronouns wouldn't be misgendering you, and that you could go by "he/they/she" or even "she/they". Other times, you briefly consider yourself a regular male who simply doesn't express masculinity as strongly as some other people, and question whether "they/them" really describes you.

You try to draw out little charts, starting with 1D male-female and later having independent male and female axes, in order to figure out where you are on these spectra in relation to other people. You think, semi-mathematically, about constructing some "average" of masculinity and femininity from pop culture to calibrate a scale for these axes. You laugh at yourself at trying to quantify the unquantifiable, while simultaneously thinking that some kind of numerical representation is far more precise than the soup of words that other queer people are creating to come to a new consensus about societal representation. You understand, sadly, that imprecise words and language are the best that people have for communicating with one another, and that quantified scales also fail to capture other aspects of gender.

You come out to another group of friends, telling them that you are "using he/they pronouns (for now, may switch to they/them depending on stuff)" as you puzzle out what the remaining "stuff" may be. Later, you decide to switch to "they/she/he" pronouns.

You look back at your journey so far and wonder what lies ahead.