QAC 75 - Questioning In Silence?: Identity | Self-Discovery | Stigma || Random Thoughts

[@justhowlthankyou]

I'm currently questioning my gender at the moment. I have to say my biggest fear is to be called transtrender or fake trans. Or a fake non-binary. I also noticed a lot of hostility towards non-binary folks and ask myself if I will be able to handle it. I feel like every non-binary person must have a essay ready about how and why they're valid. I ask myself if I am non-binary would I ever want to come out?

[@QueerAsCat]

i've come across so many people voicing similar fears while questioning if they are trans and / or non-binary.... i cannot wait for the day when such fears are proven to be no longer warranted, because we as a society have become more understanding and accepting...

[@mfg2324]

I feel your comment a lot! I know it's an old one... so if you'd like to share, where are you standing now? What path did you step on?

[@justhowlthankyou]

@@mfg2324 Well I fully identify as genderqueer and been on T for about two years. Im proud to call myself trans. And no one and I mean no one can take that away from me. I live a very queer life, which yes makes my life harder, but I can say I'm actually living now. I struggle alot with my mental health, but I try to thrive regardless. Idk if this will make sense to you, but I'm happy that I ultimately embrace myself instead of other people's opinion. I can't tell you if you're trans or not. I can't tell you want gender you are. Or what the right labels fit you best. Only you can. But I can tell you, if you are trans - your community is here for you. ❤ Good luck

[@mfg2324]

@@justhowlthankyou Thank you so much for sharing, your reply is just heartwarming... I wish you all the best! Sending queer hugs (if you consent)

[@michellejones9800]

Thank you for making this video, as a person who has always questioned absolutely everything, including my gender, sexuality, authority figures, as well as religion, science, and my place in the world, I really appreciate someone else putting a dent in the massive silence in regards to acknowledging our own uncertainty in sense of self.

[@QueerAsCat]

it's in the face of uncertainty that we, not only as individuals but as a race, have grown, changed, evolved and attained what we have today. as such, it's incredibly unfortunate that individual uncertainty, as a mere extension of that, is met with the stigma that it is today... i'm thankful for people like yourself who are willing to try and disrupt that silence with me.

[@cacuriouson]

I feel very uncomfortable talking about questioning my transness because cis people use it against us when we change identities. I don’t want to perpetuate that trans people are confused, but hey, sometimes we are

[@QueerAsCat]

this is such a Mood. so much solidarity.

[@torririchardson2817]

I haven't been here for a while and thank you for your videos but side note your voice sounds great.

[@QueerAsCat]

thanks for the kind side note and for checking back in. :)

[@coral2370]

Awesome video ! I've been asking myself quite a lot of questions recently, regarding my gender identity : I can't quite tell yet if I identify more as a cis guy or a demiboy, mostly because I've been familiar with the whole gender spectrum for a few years I never thought of myself as n-b. I don't feel really connected to the male gender and I didn't back then either, but I think what made me question my gender identity is the fact that I am a bit scared to be overwhelmed by the term "non binary", as if I'm aafraid I wouldn't be part of this community enough. But I've been thinking about the questioning process for a while too and now I'm much less worried, as I think it a word is just a fancy label but only I get to describe my identity with the highest accuracy. Which is why I'll be identifying as demiboy henceforward.

[@QueerAsCat]

thanks for sharing. i can relate to feeling apprehensive about taking on a new identity and the fear of not being "enough" and the potential that exists to be overwhelmed... wishing you the best navigating your feelings, experiences and identity.

[@m0rla_]

Thank you. It feels so good to hear this. I have been questioning a lot, even my questioning. But then again I just don't know if I can settle with any of the existing labels, hence I just see myself as a "queer being/human" and I find it astounding that there are people out there who seem to not question the label they have chosen. I am way to skeptical of everything to get comfortable with a label that's too precise, because I haven't found one, and I find queer to be the perfect umbrella (although at the time when I saw your Maverique video approx a year ago I found it very similar to my gut feeling about my gender identity). I would love to hear you talk more about the questioning. I think it's important that you don't think that one label is forever bc you change with whatever happens in your life and it shifts your mentality, etc. There's no end. Also... I don't feel quite comfortable using anything more specific than queer because of aggro cis and elite lgbtqi+ folks... So sad.

[@QueerAsCat]

sad indeed, but also incredibly relatable. for that and other reasons, i feel like Queer will forever be The Most Important and Relevant of my sexual/gender identities, but as you rightfully pointed out, change is a fact of life and there's no guarantee that anything will be forever. i wish there was more acceptance and awareness of the fact that not everyone can or does settle on anything, let alone labels-- and that that is more than "OK", it's a fact of life.

[@blu_edic4730]

Thank you so much for doing this. Even in being settled in the identity I am currently identifying as I still question things about it and let go of certain things when I don't find answers (rarely) but at the same because everyone else is confused as to where I fall no matter how many times I give answers about who I am and the peace I feel as this identity I keep getting slammed back in the closet, only to be out as something else.. so I appreciate you talking about this.🤗

[@QueerAsCat]

i appreciate you sharing and wish you the best with everything. no matter how tough it may get, you're not alone.

[@Alina_Schmidt]

Questioning can also apply backwards (too): If you question now if you had been A in the past (and it changed and you're fluid in that way) or you were B all along. Difficult, since A and B may often not be easy to distinguish and experiences you have can apply to different orientations (and genders I guess, but I don't have that experience). You could, just after coming in to yourself as something, have an experience that isn't typical for what you came in as. You may not be that, you may just be at another space on a spectrum, you could still be. Next thing to question is how your orientation or parts of it is / are influenced by society.

[@QueerAsCat]

YAS! that is such an important point that i can't believe i forgot to mention, since questioning backwards speaks more to my personal experience than questioning forward does. thank you for pointing that out.

[@noalequinoa]

I am a transguy but I used to identify as nonbinary and have tried a lot of labels (even if I mostly kept it to myself) but I don't feel comfortable telling anyone around me I used to identify as such, because some of my friends have mocked nonbinary identities a lot, really insisting on making offensive jokes and stuff, and I've internalized a lot of it. In fact I still kinda think I am nonbinary, at least partly, but the fear of being mocked or being associated with their own vision of what nonbinary means is just too much and I'd rather distance myself from this identity and maybe come back to it one day in a few years -or maybe not. Not sure that was really on theme, whoops

[@QueerAsCat]

it's totally relevant and i appreciate you sharing. the situation you find yourself in with your friends sounds incredibly uncomfortable and i'm sorry that you (or anyone, for that matter) have found yourself in such a situation. i hope against hope that an educational opportunity will present itself to them so that they can learn and do better...

[@Fallenfantasy174]

Personally for me I don't think I'll ever be able to say which between nature and nurture I am. I'm AFAB but raised with only boys as friends in an enviroment where there wasn't many expectations based on my gender. What ever the cause is the result is I don't particularly care about my gender and I'll probably just stick with somewhat a woman and leave it at that. Until I have a check list that includes points that aren't heavily effected by other factors/insecurities in my life then I doubt I'll ever know. I've always been the sort to be able to give a straight forward answer to aspects of myself, so I'm fairly content to leave the whole area of gender as a '?' until I have a reason to change it. It's a unknown but I'm not questioning it. I don't know if there's a word for that. (I might be using the wrong words for things, still new to exploring gender/sexuality, I hope I make sense.)

[@ManubibiWalsh]

Oh, sure! I do feel like there's an unspoken feeling of shame that's common with people who are questioning or can't neatly be shoved into one labeled box. That's because I've always had the impression vagueness makes people uncomfortable so they fight against it, which means all uncertainty or ambiguity gets to be pushed to the back of other people's minds. Because yadda yadda, people are uncomfortable with not being able to pinpoint other people and all that, but I also feel like there is real, legitimate shame and insecurity that comes with identifying a certain way and then realizing that's not really specifically who you are. I went through this a few times, first when I simply identified as bisexual in high school (which was when I actually realized my attraction was extremely complicated but generally I had sexual feelings about bodies of a certain non-specified kind), but then I also realized I was fine with not seeking out sex and the moment I happened across the word "asexual" and especially the experiences attached to it, they all rang 100% true to me. So I dove head on in asexuality, in the asexual community, ace discourse and generally into the whole wider discussion about asexuality, also in my country (I live in Italy). And I learnt a lot in this sense, especially ace discourse was very educational for me even though from an emotional point of view it stressed me the fuck out and that's why I noped out of that, still it did somewhat give me some positive lessons specifically when I read inclusionist essays and generally asexual thoughts and experiences. So I invested a lot of emotional energy and, being outspoken as an asexual inclusionist, I realized I was clinging to the label for dear life because, at some point, I realized there was still bisexuality at play during my social interactions. I did not want to let go of asexuality as a label and of the asexual community, specifically for the reason you talked about: not wanting to hurt the ace community by making it look like asexuals are lying or asexuality is "just a phase". I still do feel somewhat asexual, if anything in a broad sense, but I also feel like it's important for me to state that I'm bisexual too, which is how I reached my current identifier of "gray-ace bisexual aromantic", which kind of makes sense. But yes, I did struggle with questioning as a sort of liminal identity that gave me quite a bit of issues with myself and how I wanted to be perceived. Of course I didn't stop talking about asexuality or reading asexual essays and all that, but I'm also widening my interest in less represented queer identities. But I feel less engaged with it, since a lot of the asexual community seems to exist in the public sphere as a monolith and frequently the only definition that's allowed is in regards of "no attraction at all" which cuts out the whole spectrum of identities that doesn't fit in neatly within that box, and realizing I'm not indeed "entirely" asexual also made me realize there is some kind of slight push towards respectability politics, which I think is caused by ace discourse and exclusionists pushing us to define ourselves as unambiguously as possible and the ace community falling in the trap of "justifying" our existence and our reasons to belong in the LGBT+ community. In this sense, I do think ace discourse and the way it was carried on was extremely detrimental to questioning aces and gray/flux/demi asexuals other than to asexuals as a whole. To make it clear, I'm not blaming ace people for forfeiting a lot of the complex factors in the ace spectrum, I'm just angry that exclusionists succeeded in pushing us to doing that to begin with, through a lot of manipulation. It feels like they played us and we didn't even notice. And then of course, in my country there is barely any conversation about asexuality at all (or bisexuality, for that matter, we're at least a decade behind and your average joe will still think there's only gay and straight and literally no other sexual orientation), so asexual groups are just now starting to emerge so of course they'll use that "no attraction" definition out of necessity, and the common notion non-asexuals have of us is "people who don't have sex" which... yikes. We're very much behind, which is really disheartening. So even in Italian asexual groups it's hard to find conversations about the gray area and I routinely have to explain to other aces that asexuality is not about sex or that asexuality isn't a monolith. It's exhausting. Maybe it's just my own biased point of view, but I really do feel a bit disconnected from the ace community now, whereas before I felt like I was fully part of it, which wasn't a problem when I only identified as asexual and aromantic and ignored the bisexual part of my own inner discussion.

[@QueerAsCat]

thank you for sharing! i found myself strongly relating to / agreeing with some of the things that you said, especially in regards to discourse, disconnect from the ace community and navigating asexuality in a country where ace communities are in a different place developmentally than what they are in online English-speaking spaces. also, as an ace who also identifies as being [open-endedly] bi as well, i can also relate to navigating being simultaneously bi and ace and how there can be a disconnect there.... i can't speak for everyone, but i very much appreciate you sharing your experiences and thoughts. thanks again and best wishes. :)

[@MissVindicat]

I’m questioning and I hardly ever talk about it. It feels good right now. There have been times when I was desperate to figure myself out. I think I might be aromantic and asexual, which is somewhat complicated since I don’t feel all that welcome in queer communities. Take care.

[@QueerAsCat]

Thanks for watching and sharing. Navigating your relationship to certain communities in addition to your relationship with your own identity is tough and I wish you all the best with that.

[@siginotmylastname3969]

This is why being genderfluid fits me. I don't really strongly identify with a particular gender long term, but feel drawn more to one or another as well as to masculinity, femininity and sometimes androgyneity at different times. But to be honest the main reason I've had anyone to discuss it with at all is because I have two trans friends who also identify as genderfluid in different ways. I even came out as transmasc with students to make it easier... especially since I want to medically transition, sheesh that worries me! Certainty in your identity seems almost compulsory, it's also reflected in how the only narrative offered for being LGBT+ is that you're born this way, which I also don't relate to even though I understand its reasoning. There's so much which could be discussed!

[@malinakoschier3874]

I just recently discovered how afraid of vulnerability I really am & that me not talking to people about my struggles/questioning for the sake of keeping up a "strong" and "mysterious" appearance actually hurts myself lol

[@sunmarsh]

I used to identify as gay, now I’m ace, but if someone were to ask I would probably still tell them I’m gay. It’s just easier to explain to people I don’t really care about. I still question my aceness because I feel like I don’t really fit into the ace community. That and because I have a few sexual kinks that have made me question my identity and whether or not I’m ‘ace enough’.

[@QueerAsCat]

thank you for sharing. regardless of where your experiences and feelings ultimately take you, i hope that you're able to find others who help you feel like you are 'enough' the way you are. on a side note, i know of a couple of blogs related to being both ace and kinky, if you're interested. you're definitely not alone there.

[@nnkirukaa]

@@QueerAsCat just discovering this comment and wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing the ace+kink communities you mention here? ty

[@legitboring]

I think this is sooo sooo important!!! Honestly, I think about this often so I'm grateful you made a video about it. I try not to avoid my identity prior to questioning because I very much consider my identity as a whole an evolution so I wouldn't have who I am now without who I was then. There are some instances when I've been wrong of course and had to correct myself after some thinking. I try not to speak from the perspective of an identity that I'm not entirely sure of but ones I once identified with are fair game to me with the caveat that I no longer identify with them. I see a lot of people only talk about past identities as source dysphoria and discomfort and they very much can be but I find that there is a lot of comfort in accepting the uncomfortable and weird parts of the journey. That being said, there is some blurring of the lines to the layperson or to people who are critical of gender identity but I can only be who I am and augmenting the message makes me feel like I'm being insincere with myself. I don't do too well with elephants in the room so I talk freely about once IDing as a ciswoman and what that meant to me then and what it means to me now. I talk about issues often seen as "girl" problems because while for me now they are agender problems they still exist and shouldn't be ignored just because someone may think "oh you must be afab" or "oh you're confused". Hell even being dismissed by other queer people is a problem. And I mean it sucks to be misgendered and/or dismissed but I feel like, similarly to what you said, my silence doesn't help the issue.

[@QueerAsCat]

"I very much consider my identity as a whole an evolution so I wouldn't have who I am now without who I was then." mmm, this is an interesting way of thinking about identity. i know that people (myself included) have made similar statements about other aspects of themselves (e.g. "i wouldn't change anything about my past because it's what makes me who i am today" etc), but i've never applied that same line of thought to my identity. hearing you do so is intriguing, at least for me. it's something to think about. and yeah.... i feel you on problems being gendered, being misgendered and/or dismissed by others in your community. it's definitely a hard place to be in..... thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts & experiences. :)

[@WolfMoonWings]

This is a good topic. I used to id as androgyne and... Recently I realized I’m Solarian (male-aligned nonbinary). I believe androgyne (or to me, what it always really represented, androgyny) is still a big part of my identity. but I realized I’m androgynous skewed towards masculine. I’m still uncertain though... sometimes I feel like I’m just a fucking liar and yet other times I feel very euphoric about being called masculine pronouns and words. Throw in fluctuating dysphoria and you have my experience. Sometimes it all gets to be too much and I can’t think about gender at all. And then I’m filled with anxiety and doubt about coming out, trying to explain (no, justify) it when I barely can to myself (sorry, off topic). Romantic and sexual attraction I recently figured out better, too. I’m recipromantic and demisexual. I’m very certain about demi; recipro may be weird because I only have one data point but it matches so perfectly. So I’m just going to id as it unless its proven wrong.

[@QueerAsCat]

In the past, I've questioned the legitimacy of my own experiences and feelings regarding gender... It's all too easy to do when there are so many people eager to help you do it. It sounds like things have been rough for you (massive understatement?), but at the same time it sounds like you've found at least some closure in your sexual orientation and I personally know how hard that can be to come by, especially having only one data point. Wishing you all the best with everything going forward. Thanks for watching and commenting! :)

[@user-rs1wc9qs3n]

I've been questioning my gender identity for the past 7/8 years. Because it's something that for me as a more (generally) non binary person comes in waves and because I personally identify as a kind of effeminate transman, transmasculine I guess would be the term, it's a difficult identity. I like effeminate things, clothes, makeup, nail art, etc but I know I am not female as I've been assigned at birth and have had wave like yet consistent feelings that I want to appear and be perceived by society as being more masculine. There have been times where I've wondered if my identity as trans was even real, but it keeps coming back which means that I guess it is real. Living in a place where I feel I cannot easily transition and having to deal with that reality for several years to come into the future might make me feel less grounded or sure about my identity as well because there are no steps I can take towards realizing it. But I guess I'll just have to do what I can now and wait it out until I can take steps. So for now I have been and am still questioning I suppose (while closeted for ease of navigating society, friendships and relationships) though I feel more sure as to what I am and what I want to do to realize who I am. In the meantime I'm not sure if I'm living the truth.

[@QueerAsCat]

my heart goes out to you as i read this... i can imagine the difficulty-- as inadequate a word as that is-- that you have had to / are endur(ing)... thank you for sharing your experiences with me/us. i wish you the strength and fortitude to persevere through adversity and make it to where you truly want to be in life; to your Truth, whatever that may be.

[@LeslieSpeights]

This is such an important video. Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable. The 50-11 options really resonated with me. These are important conversations that need to be had.

[@QueerAsCat]

thank you for watching. much appreciated. :)

[@OtakuGunsoNY]

I think questioning is a tough thing because a lot of people get the wrong idea. I knew a genderqueer person who first thought they were trans and then ended up falling out with the whole trans community they were in as a result of coming out as genderqueer. They said people called them a liar and said they pretended to be trans ... -.-;;;

[@QueerAsCat]

i'm really sorry to hear about your friend's experience... it's hard enough dealing with criticism/scrutiny from those outside of the community without the same coming from within it-- especially as the latter hurts so much worse... fear of being met with such negativity is enough to make anyone weary of openly questioning or changing their identity for sure... :/

[@OtakuGunsoNY]

@@QueerAsCat Actually I fell out with that person over racial stuff so they're not a "friend" by any means. Just someone I knew at one time. Can't say too much of myself since I kinda always claimed the genderqueer title since my early 20s since it was the easiest. At one point I was more bigender, at another point I was more agender but genderqueer is still the easiest because it covers everything.

[@zaydenelliot9339]

Vesper! Another fantastic conversation as always. Thank you for always expressing these difficult concepts and feelings so eloquently and straight forward. I've always always appreciated this about you and I've been following you for a long time. I have absolutely gone through stages where I was cemented in an identity and then came to learn later that I was never that identity, I also think that there is still a gray area here. I don't think at any point I was straight, but if I look back I would say I was straight because I lived that life and I believed that was who I was at that time. I don't feel it is so simple as saying I wasn't actually straight I just thought I was so therefore this is not something I ever was. At best I would say this was a transitional period, a lengthy state of being in flux, but isn't that what all of life is as humans? I turned 30 at the end of 2018 and in 30 years I've learned that the only constant in life is change, changing of your situation and the people around you and yourself alike. So was I straight, or was I never straight and just living that way at that point in time? It's semantics, really. I LIVED as a straight person therefore I experienced that state of being as if it were the full truth, weather or not it was. I think if we could grasp that idea, the issue of discussing past states of being or identities or however you choose to word it would become less of an issue because it validates the experience that you had at that point. All that being said I am more than equally guilty of not talking about "past states of being" for a myriad of reasons but I think the one that is the biggest sticking point for me is always the fear that others will invalidate both my past experience and my current one. People do suck, but I think they don't suck nearly as much as we tend to wont to picture them in our minds. I need to work more on simply being honest and true to myself with the faith that genuinely caring humans will recognize that and not mind, and if they do mind then they are one of the aforementioned sucky humans.

[@QueerAsCat]

thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts / experiences. it was interesting reading them, particularly the part about how you would not say that you were never straight and your thoughts behind that. while we differ in that regard, it's still an interesting line of thought when i think of it that way in relation to my own past experiences. best wishes to you past, present and future.

[@tyrabjurman3584]

Questioning is a tough process, for me, it takes a lot of hard thought and introspektion. I was very deeply occupied in thoughts for the better part of 4 months and then it became a little bit more clear but I a year on and I am still thinking about my identity, body and sexuality on a daily basis.

[@QueerAsCat]

being in the thick of it can be exhausting indeed. best wishes with it, and don't forget that self-care / TLC can help a lot during times like this.

[@shiningdalek7185]

As a teen I wasn't sure if I was gay or bi. Then, I started to use the "gay" label but it never felt right. Then I identified as pan, and then I disovered the ace and aro spectrum, and now I identify as bi aro and ace. Also lots of labels of the A spectrum fit me. Basically I'm almost totally ace and aro except a very few attirances sometimes in specific circumstances, and when there IS attirance it can be towards people of several genders), but socially I mostly tell people "I'm bi" because I don't want to embark on a long and complicated explanation about my complicated identity or about ace, aro and bi identities. The only drawback is that most people think being bi is only "Like equally men and women" which isn't my case, it's more complicated

[@QueerAsCat]

it can feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place when if you don't go into detail, people will misunderstand you, but going into detail doesn't guarantee understanding or acceptance either. ugh. thank you for watching and sharing. :)

[@shiningdalek7185]

@@QueerAsCat Oh and I just forgot, I'm polyamorous, too, which makes it even more complicated to explain as it feeds into the "bi = poly" stereotype (I don't care about respectability politics but people will still make annoying assumptions) and supposedly "contradicts" being ace and aro (of course it doesn't, I have very few attirances but can have for several people at the same time and don't mind my partners/QPRs having other relations) Not to mention going into detail means basically teach people, explain a lot, answer to questions (both generic and personal)... So a lot of unpaid WORK. And while I don't mind personally to do activism work on the Internet (when I decide to), I don't want this in my daily life (just like I don't want a paid job to invade my private life either). Of course this problem affects all minorities and marginalized people to some extent but especially if your identity is complicated and/or erased... On the other hand, sometimes I would want to highlight my ace aro side so that people don't assume I might be into them or their partners or "into everyone" and then feel uneased or threatened or think I can never be "just friends" with them etc etc (because bi poly)... Basically I'd prefer people (in almost all situations) to not see me as a sexual being. But then it will be too confusing. (Obviously even allo bi and/or poly people aren't "into literally everyone", that's not what I mean). Like you said, rock and hard place

[@QueerAsCat]

...ahh, intersectionality. our intersections may differ, but I empathize wholeheartedly.

[@sailorcat]

I'm questioning my romantic orientation. I identified e.g. as aromantic or heteroromantic and was sure it fits me, but there are questioning times again and again. My feeling are a big mess at the moment. xD Some labels I "kinda maybe" identify with are cupioromantic, recipromantic, hyporomantic and quoiromantic, but I don't know if it's one of them. It sucks xD I know, it's not that important to have a label, but it's really hard to not know and for me it's important. I did talk on youtube about having identified as aromantic and questioning. I also made a video about it being totally fine to change labels and questioning (only in German). At the moment feel I never were the labels I had before, but I still identify with them a little bit, because I habe once.

[@QueerAsCat]

Labels and knowing how they do or don't or could possibly fit you can be (and often are) without a doubt very important. It's understandable that not knowing or having a word to put to how you feel can be really stressful / anxiety-inducing, and I hope that things improve for you in that regard... Wishing you all the best...! And wishing I understood German so I could check out your videos. lol

[@sailorcat]

@@QueerAsCat Thank you for answering!^^ I also hope it gets better. It seems as I do feel romantic attraction, but not very strong. And also maybe only if the other person has a crush on me first - so basically recipromantic, but I'm not sure. It's complicated. Thanks for your wishes^^ (I made a few videos with subs, but they are about Sailor Moon xD)

[@quasi8180]

I thought i was trans at one point but non binary just felt more and more like me the more i thought about it as well as bi and now possibly asexual.

[@theoboule-prassl7980]

Do you still identify as maverique ?

[@QueerAsCat]

yes.