The bush that burns but is not consumed.

The hail that burns but does not melt.

Those who pass but do not die.

The seen thunder and the heard lightning.

The cows that eat but do not grow.

The jug that spills but never empties.

The Temple courtyard that never crowds.

Just wanted to discuss something briefly about my particular gender situation.

I am a nonbinary birdboy in an afab body. That's enough to make me trans in itself.

But the main reason I identify as trans is because for the first ten or so years of my life, I was seen as female. Had the feminine form of my name, Varena. (Spelled in Zeranhan as Varaena, to make the middle vowel a long e). My creator, Jas, used feminine pronouns for me, and I wasn't independent enough to complain.

When we discovered the plural community, one of the first things I did when deciding to become more independent, was to break away from the feminine role that had been chosen for me. I changed my name from the feminine to the eh'he form - nonbinary, in the neither-and-also-both variety. I decided, in English at least, to use masculine pronouns and young male descriptors. (So, boy is fine, man is not.)

I feel that makes me more trans in my identity than being a birdboy in an afab body does. Not that I'm not for the latter, only that I feel more strongly trans from the former.

one of the things i have a new perspective on, looking back at my time in high school, is the strangely urgent way i tried to tell my male friends it was safe to have emotions around me.

i didnt realize, and they couldn’t have known, that i was trying to create a safe space for male solidarity. i wanted to be one of them and still be emotional, and i wanted them to be themselves and be emotional and not feel emasculated, and those were twin sides of the same desire. but i didn’t know what that meant to me at the time. there was no way they could have known either, so the whole endeavor felt kind of unsatisfying and i never could place why.

Obviously some people may have stuff that simply goes wrong, like a surgery that ends with complications or bad side effects that make the person wonder if it was worth it - that's true of any medical treatment.

Other people may have exaggerated expectations of what it will achieve - perhaps they won't have dysphoria (as much) anymore and can look more happily in the mirror, but pre-existing depression, anxiety and PTSD from years of mistreatment (and shitty people still being shitty) probably won't be so easily solved.

But I think some people also get fucked over by the notion of gender being binary. They know their AGAB doesn't fit, so society makes them think (if anything) they must be the 'opposite'. So they put themselves through all of the treatments and surgeries to fit that ideal... to discover that also does not fit them. And then they think the grass must have been greener back on the other side and/or they were young and stupid when they chose to transition (and potentially jump to the conclusion that all trans people are similarly wrong to transition 👀).

But in actual fact, neither was good, they just needed to find the right place between/outside of those. To listen to their bodies and minds about what they needed to be content, not just follow roadmaps created by others. Whether that involved hormones or not, surgery or not.

Like me, for example: I don't feel like a woman, I don't feel like a man. I'll often go along with woman stuff out of being accustomed to that and too tired to fight, but my ideal body would probably be entirely sexless. And with my extensive health problems I'm not about to add hormones and surgery that won't fix them. So I just do what I can and want to with what I have.

Admittedly it'll be difficult for others, especially where other people gatekeep their options, like if doctors will only let you have <x> if you also do <y>, but listening to yourself instead of societal expectations is typically going to be one of the best ways to curate your own happiness and contentment in life.