Gender Journeys

There is a particular kind of freedom that comes from realizing I don’t have to know exactly who I am.

For a long time, I think I understood gender as something I was supposed to figure out. Something I was supposed to know early, name confidently, and eventually feel certain about. We are given boxes, pronouns, expectations, and ideas about what it means to move through the world. Over time, those things can become so familiar that we stop asking whether they actually fit us.

But for me, gender has become much more of a journey.

Not because something is wrong with me. Not because I am confused. And not because I necessarily believe there is some final destination where I will eventually arrive and have everything figured out.

Sometimes, I am simply realizing that the language I was given doesn't fully capture my experience.

I identify as gender nonconforming, and I use they/them pronouns. Even writing that feels complicated in ways that are difficult to explain.

There are moments when being called they/them feels deeply affirming. There is something about hearing those pronouns that can make me feel seen…. like someone is meeting me where I actually am.

And then there are moments when using those pronouns doesn't feel safe. I've had to learn that this is part of my gender journey, too. Safety can complicate identity.

There are spaces where I feel able to be fully myself, and there are others where being visible in that way carries a different weight. There are relationships where I can speak openly about who I am, and others where I find myself choosing my words more carefully. Sometimes I can move between those worlds within the same day.

I don't believe that makes my identity any less real.

If anything, it has made me think more deeply about what it means to be a person. We don't experience ourselves in isolation. We’re always experiencing ourselves through our relationships with the people and world around us.

Gender is not only an internal experience.

When I think about my own gender exploration, I think about much more than pronouns or labels. I think about my body, and the difference between the body I have and what feels more aligned with the way I experience myself. I think about my family and what they might think or feel. I think about friends, culture, and the expectations that can be passed down through generations without anyone necessarily stopping to question them.

I think about belonging.

Where do I feel like I belong? Where do I feel myself becoming less recognizable to the people around me? What happens when becoming more myself also means becoming different from what others expected me to be?

As a Greek queer person and a child of immigrants, I know what it feels like to belong to more than one world at once.

There is so much tenderness in that experience. There is love, gratitude, history, and connection. But there can also be tension. I can deeply appreciate where I come from while also recognizing that some of the ways I was taught to understand myself no longer fit who I am becoming.

I don't see those things as contradictions. Maybe part of growing is learning that we can hold both.

We can love our families and still question what we inherited from them. We can feel grateful for our culture while recognizing that some of its expectations don't leave much room for the complexity of who we are. We can want belonging without wanting to disappear ourselves in order to have it.

For me, gender exploration has brought all of these layers into focus.

Sometimes the question isn't simply, “What is my gender?”

Sometimes the questions are much more personal:

“Who am I allowed to be?”

“What happens if I change?”

“Will I still belong?”