🎙️ I dunno, like. I'm starting to realize that even if 'girl' is still a useful shorthand, our transition has been more about 'ending pain' than 'finding joy.' I don't quite experience gender euphoria from pure femininity, but I know I do experience a sense of like, profound relief from NOT being masculine. I still love being a girl, but it's not where the euphoria comes from. That all comes from the weird kinky furry stuff.

I don't think anyone is 'fake' for this, for the record. Sometimes you have to make the pain of forcing yourself to conform to the expectations of others stop before you can figure out what happiness looks like. The pain is real, even if like, 'gender' is just one facet. What I really want is for people to see me.

It's weird to say, but like. I think sometimes maybe people get too stuck on needing their gender experience to be something specific, like 'girl' or 'boy' or 'woman' or 'man' is the thing they need to be happy. But maybe happiness comes from elsewhere. Girl is my baseline, but it's a resting state, like, it has no emotional momentum on its own. 'Girl' isn't complete unless it's 'raccoon girl.' And that feels less exciting without 'toon' or 'elastic' or all my other little weird signifiers. And maybe the labels don't matter at all because all they're trying to communicate, really, is 'me,' how I feel about myself, and some part of that gulf is always gonna be hard to cross but what matters is we all try to cross it in our own ways. What I really want to say when I say all this junk is 'I'm Alex.'

So... hi.

I'm Alex.