You can call me… Cat

I identify as… a bio-fem gender-fluid androgyne/girl. I definitely feel as if I’m non-binary, but not completely neutral—I don’t call myself genderqueer because as someone who still identifies as female half the time that would feel like appropriation. “Female” is not necessarily an incorrect description of me when it comes to gender, but certainly an incomplete one. In other words, people might say to me, “Well, you’re just a straight girl,” and I’d reply, “Well, yes…some of the time. Other times I feel like no gender at all.” In fact, I’ve intuitively known ever since I was little that there’s a part of me that isn’t quite binary—only when I was five years old, that part of me was a rabbit! (As shown by the name I go by here, even though it’s a variant of my real name, there’s still more than a touch of the furry in me, ha.) As I normally oscillate, unpredictably, between feminine and androgynous identities, I don’t really have a masculine side per se, but I do quite like the idea of being a recreational drag king at some point, especially if it involves Victorian period clothing!

As far as third-person pronouns go, … Well, I’ve been called she/her all my life, and as I still am half feminine I don’t object to that, but ze/hir is fine too—then again, I think in theory everyone, not just non-binary folk, ought to be comfortable with ze/hir in order for it to be truly gender-neutral. As for he/him, I’d only like to be called that once I unleash my drag king alter ego, Charlie Ross, on the world—and I promise pictures of both me and my boyfriend in drag when that comes to pass!

I’m attracted to… My boyfriend. <3 Sexually I’m almost exclusively attracted to androgynous/femme guys and always have been (which means over the years I’ve had numerous unrequited crushes on gay males! D:) so I feel lucky that my partner is into gender fluidity as well. But I consider myself pan-aesthetic, which means I can find anyone beautiful—and since sexuality as well as gender can change for whatever reasons throughout life, I try not to pin myself down to anything. Other than that, on a purely platonic level, anyone who can carry on an eloquent, knowledgeable, humorous and animated conversation is like catnip (heh heh) to me. Also, fellow autistics—I’m an Aspie—have a particular capacity to click with me, as we function on a similar wavelength.

When people talk about me, I want them to… see the shades of gray in things. Yeah, this sounds a little weird coming from someone whose mental wiring defaults to literalism and black/white dichotomies (which I’m trying to break out of without compromising my mental makeup!) but humanity is just so diverse—in not just gender/sexuality, in pretty much every category imaginable—that nobody can be pigeonholed into one particular group.

I want people to understand… that androgyny is not necessarily eschewing all gendered conventions—it’s questioning them and subverting them. I want to confound people. Sure, right now I have a pixie cut and mostly neutral clothing, but at times I fantasize about growing my hair really long, fixing it into an elaborate updo and swanning about in an outrageously colored dress; donning a cravat and top hat, affixing fake facial hair and making my debut as a 19th-century gentleman; or just splitting the difference between the two extremes and dressing up like Adam Ant. If I had magic powers my ultimate dream would be to be a shape-shifter who could take on any body or appearance at will, but since that’s sadly biologically impossible I’ll do the next best thing and just treat gender as a toy rather than anything really Important and Serious.

About Cat
Cat is a 19 (soon to be 20)-year-old student originally from Illinois but who attends university in New York state. Besides being rebellious against gender norms and autistic, Cat is a massive linguistics nerd, a blogger (h[e/i]r writings can be found at theinkdonor.wordpress.com), a music obsessive, a twee kid, a dreamer, a debater, a Francophone, and many other things Cat doesn’t even know (sh/z)e doesn’t even know about yet.

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