At some point I need to get my brain to stop interrogating me every time I decide I'm enjoying something. Especially things that I picked up a while back that are even vaguely masculine. You now, things like wars games, fps games, sports, being competitive, the color blue, being emotionally innacessible.... yes I'm being silly, but you get the point.
You're prolly thinking, "that's ridiculous, you know that, right?" Oh, I know. I know. But you know what else I know? I spent the first 35 years of my life trying to conform to what I assumed my family, and general society, wanted me to be. You know, a dude. I'm not a dude, but, well... I mean, I was confused about what was important, okay?
Still, you may wonder, how are these things intersecting in your brain Jae?
TL;DR - I don't trust anything that happened to me between 0 and 35, including every like that I picked up along the way. Part of me is always worried that I only picked it up because I was being shoved in that direction...
And it goes a level deeper. I can feel, deep down, that a fearful part of me still exists regarding societies reaction to my identity.. It exerts an odd power on me, it's the voice in my head that see's me buying pink booty shorts for my PJs and just flips the heck out because it's worried someone else will find out and think I'm hella weird.
I worry about the force it exerts on the things I like. I worry that it leads me back to interests that will help me come across as more acceptable. As an example, I was a huge WWII nerd when I was a teenager, just thought the topic was really interesting and read a lot about it. Sooo, something I picked up when I was closeted and something that, traditionally, is considered masculine.
Then, in the last few days I discovered an RTS game called "Steel Division 2". The game covers the eastern front (something I know little about) and it looks really fun!! I haven't really read about WWII for a while so why not dive into it again? It can be fun to learn about! Right?!
squints deep into brain
Hey, brain...are you trying to trick me into acting like a dude again? I mean, like, 99.9% of the player base is dudes, you trying to be a dude? You trying to dude me up? I don't want to do that, so is that what you are doing because IF IT IS YOU FECKINGNEEDTOCUTITOUTOHMYGAWDPLEASESTAAAAAAAHP!!!"
...so on and so forth.
For every interest I developed in my first 35 years.
Over and over and over and over and over.....
...
...and over again.
It's a unique kind of paranoia, though I'm sure some of you have felt the same way.
It's this weird place where cultural gender identity and personal gender identity are at odds. I def identify female, I don't question that for a moment. But I was raised as a guy and, as it turns out, being exposed to interesting things (without society telling me, "uh, that's not for girls") allows you to develop interest in said things without much second guessing of yourself. It's almost like society should just always be that way, but I digress.
Of course, that cuts in both directions and there were certainly things I wanted to put more effort into that I was made fun off for...but that's not what this post is about.
Really, this is just me venting and speaking out incase other folks are feeling the same way. I think we all know the answer in the end: it doesn't really matter why you like things, just try and enjoy them! As time goes by, I think I get better at it.
And I think I'd also add on that...yeah, it's difficult to trust your instincts when you allowed yourself to sit in the closet for 35 years or so. But you know what? Once you're out, you're out. Just the simple fact that you've told your friends and family should be evidence enough that you, more likely than not, aren't going to backslide into the closet again.
So have some faith in yourself and just do the things you want to do :).

