is National Coming Out Day a good excuse to randomly talk about how most of the reason I'm still nervous about officially making my pronouns "she" is because in my heart of hearts I really know that I want a neopronoun

probably shi, maybe xie, I haven't even made up my mind which, but like—I want a pronoun that leans feminine but also wears genderqueerness on my sleeve

but it seems like it's already enough of a stretch just getting people to apply 'he' and 'she' correctly on trans folks, and 'they' on enby folks—telling them "I'm too bigender for 'she' but too feminine for 'they' so here's a whole other word" just seems hopeless

if I have to have one of the Big Three, it's like:

—"they" feels neutral to me, it feels like lacking either gender, which is an upsetting thought when I think about it being applied to me; I'm BOTH, not neither.

(And I'm not saying it has to mean that! Bigender folks can use 'they'. But that's just where it registers in my gut, personally? I dunno if I should be working on changing how I feel about 'they', or accepting that it'd probably send the wrong message to other people too?)

—"she" feels mostly great. I am definitely more feminine than anything. Of these three it's wildly the closest to "accurate". But it also makes me worry that people are gonna think that I'm trying to pass, when like…

I spent thirty years trying to pass as a man and hating it… trying to pass as a woman would be much more comfortable than *that*, but the MOST comfortable would be giving up on "passing" ALTOGETHER.

I would rather just be a queer pretty weirdo who fits in with women but doesn't make people think they have to worry about patronizing me by pretending not to know I'm trans

—and so ironically, while I'm no huge fan of "he", the one thing that I DO like about it is, if I could wear dresses and makeup and have breasts, but ALSO be called "he" while all that is happening, at least that would broadcast my open genderqueerness? Which is something?

I don't think I like that idea enough on its own to actually stick with "he" for real, but that is the one aspect of it that sticks out to me as nice, and makes me want to find some way to do that while also making it clear that I'm a genderqueer woman, not a genderqueer man.

If any of that makes any sense. Maybe this is just some lingering vestige of me feeling like I don't deserve to be a woman still, and feeling like I have to reject myself before someone else gets the chance to reject me. bleh.

@RavenWorks i feel you 100% and while 'they' works well for me, it's a very specific feeling.

which is kind of ironic for a "general" pronoun?

but you hit the nail when you mentioned worry that 'she' would make people think you were JUST a woman. that's the feeling i get when (unprompted) i've gotten 'she' in the wild. equal parts elation that it's not AGAB, and chagrin that that's what people assume. hrrrrNNG PRONOUN MOODS

@heytanuki hahah, yeah… I certainly don't mind being a "she" at first glance—I'd prefer it to "he" by a mile—but I kinda wanna be able to be more specific when I'm asked?

@heytanuki and yeah, to be clear, I definitely don't mind someone who doesn't know my pronouns defaulting to "they" in the generic sense! That "they" is for everybody. But personally I wouldn't want to use the specific "they" as a *personal* pronoun; I'd need something with at least SOME femininity, I have a very strong lean to that side that's specifically important to me.

@RavenWorks what my brain wants to do for you: mash up she and they,

she/her/hers + they/them/theirs =

shey/ther/thers

"shay"/"thurr"/"thurrs"

my brain tries real hard to be helpful =S