Yup. It’s gender’s turn on the Perennial-Fru-Topic-O-Rama. I just can’t wrap my head around gender. But lately, I’ve been getting angry about it.

Who gave society the right to demand a label of me? I refuse to suppress any part of myself just to make myself easier to categorize. And that most definitely includes gender.

As far as I know, there is no gender label for me. Even “genderfluid” (when was the last time you checked your genderfluid levels?) is wrong, and you’d think a label that vague would cover everyone.

But you’d be wrong. I don’t feel like my gender is fluid. I might feel more M or more F at one moment or another, but I don’t feel like I become those things then. No matter how M or F I feel, I still refuse to be labeled.

My gender goes much deeper than that. I feel like I am always both, in large amounts. A mental hermaphrodite, in a way. Or possible an inchoate chimera of some sort. I don’t know.

I prefer to think of myself as a brand new beast, a one-off creation, something wild and original and fabulous. A rare specimen that puzzles scientists and is a big hit on the talk show circuit.

So, Jay, is this the first time you’ve talked to an animal, or just the first time it’s talked back?

I won’t claim it is easy to forsake labels, though. Individualism teaches us to seek our own identities and one of the ways we do that is through labels. A label can make you feel less alone by powerfully suggesting the existence of others like you, and that means there actually is a group to which you belong. You might never meet them, but you know they exist.

So part of me is sad that there is no word for what I am. Various other labels, like “gay” and “nerd” and “depressive”, have helped me a lot in figuring out who I am and where I stand. If there was a word for what I am, that might help too.

Something like “double gendered”, maybe. Or “supergendered” Or maybe “Gender X”.

Nah. That sounds like a third rate X-men clone from the Mutant Mania era. One with transgendered mutants. Their mutant power is that they are men and women trapped in the bodies of women and men!

Meh. I keep wanting to fall back on “I’m a me. ” Not that most people would understand that. But then again, maybe I should not worry so much about being understood and concentrate on being true to myself and what I am.

Whatever that might be. Honestly, sometimes the question itself bores me to tears. Who am I, who am I? Who the fuck cares. You are who you are. You’re the only one of you there is, and there is no need to try to become someone else.

It won’t work, anyhow. You can’t become a copy of the people you admire. You can only use their examples to aid you in the quest for who you really are, if that’s what you’re into.

I dunno. Maybe I am stuck with this identity quest because I am trying as hard as I can do finally go through emotional puberty, and that involves the seeking phase that all teenagers go through. Why should I be any different?

Apart from the fact that I usually am.

The perils of being too much of an individual for even the most individualist culture, I suppose. Conforming has never been a goal of mine. I have tried to connect with people and get along with them, but as myself. Like I have said before, I can honestly say that changing myself to conform to people’s expectations never even occurred to me.

Maybe it should have, at least in passing. I might have learned better social skills that way. But I am who I am, a weird creature that grew in the dark, like a bizarre bioluminescent creature from the deep, deep ocean.

The thing is, despite not changing to conform, I was still desperately lonely and in need of friends. I was scared a lot of the time, and I tried to make friends with others, I just had too little in common with normal, regular children who thought and acted like… well, normal, regular children.

And like I always say…. things grow strange in the dark.

Looking back, even when I had sort-of friends, I was usually in a state of high social anxiety when I was around them, especially when I was in their homes. And that kind of anxiety and the retreat into oneself that results tends to paralyze you inside, no matter how hard you try to seem calm and cool on the outside.

Interesting thought : I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been on Paxil way back then. It’s often the fear and not the social skills that really make someone awkward. It’s hard to be smooth when a million alarms are ringing in your head and you feel like you might pass out or puke or both, hopefully not in that order.

I have had anxiety make me so lightheaded and dizzy that I had trouble looking directly at anything because my eyes (and head) couldn’t hold still for long enough. I have had it make my heart and respiration rates go up so high that I thought I was having a heart attack (which did not help). And don’t even get me started on the nausea and indigestion and bowel issues.

But from now on, I am going to stop trying to hold back the tide of anxiety and instead, I am going to throw the doors wide open and scream “Give it to me! Give me all the anxiety you got! I can take it! You don’t fucking own me!”

Ride the storm. Dare it to come at you. And when it’s given you its worst, scream “Is that all you got, you pussy? Well then FUCK YOU! Go back to your mama, you punk ass BITCH!”

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.