"gender" is something I've always struggled with. from first grade where I noticed I didn't connect with "boy", finding it an uncomfortable title that didn't fit me, to today. back in school I recall trying to ask about gender and its meaning with teachers in health class, and being shut down. that there was "boy" and "girl". there could be no else, no outside nor inbetween. gender and sex must always be a binary. yet, all my life, "binary" simply was an unreal.
the "binary", to put simply, just isn't something my brain computes. which is interesting, as normally humans love to partake in pattern recognition. but for me, I suppose that never clicked. people always had to identify who they were to me before it regestered in my brain. at the time when this became a talking point and struggle of mine, it was summed up as me being a child, until my diagnosis of ADHD and "high functioning" autism. a lot of concepts were taught to me differently then, some becoming a lot more understandable, but some remained the same level of brick wall; unsurpisingly all of them being social concepts. because it's just. weird, how we create the constructs we do, especially on how we force the identities of other people. still to this day, I find myself asking people their pronouns. I've even gotten into trouble for this in the past by the "I don't have pronouns" crowd (note, not folks who are nullpronominal! I'm taking about smartass conservatives who don't know how basic language works) by taking them seriously and only using their name. then when I attempt to explain myself and apologize for the sake of avoiding conflict, I get hit with a decent dose of ableism for being autistc, "yeah, I can tell". like I'm sorry that I'm trying to be a nice person??
but back to the topic, gender and self-identity is something to this day I struggle with understanding. I accept myself and others, and I try to grow with the more knowledge I gain, I just have these struggles. I don't think they're unique, but they're definitely annoying, and the era of identity politics isn't helping!
I dunno how to close this off I guess I just don't get cis people LOOOLLLL