Dear diary, I am considering some kind of divergence from my usual personal, emotional focus on gender and instead, I want to think more holistically/intuitively about how gender, in my opinion, becomes embodied in humanity generally.
It is insufficient to say that there is no one universal standard for what constitues gender. There is something constant, something essential - something intimately human underpinned by religions and philosophical systems like Taoism. Too often a notion of a binary gender system keeps resurfacing in a way that of course can reinforce discriminatory behaviour of powers that be, but that pattern in itself may be reflective of a phenomenon we shouldn't ignore.
That is to say, quite directly, that there is an essential aspect to gender that comes down to the biological differences in the both sexes, generally speaking. On a population level, differences can be observed which is reflected even by things like Big 5 traits. On an individual level, though, gender ought not to be determined by assignment at birth - while gender and understanding of it is indeed tied to biology, our resonance with one side or the other (or neither) lies in a wholly different domain not limited to what genitals or secondary sex characteristics we have. At birth some choice has to be made, of course - but we should tolerate nonconformity. In more peculiar cases, it is completely fine for somebody assigned male at birth to be a female deep down to the soul - even when they're imagining themselves in a place of paradise and they see themselves as a woman, not a man. Somehow, something so intimately biological like sex comes to shape something internal, something psychic we coin as 'gender', and that has a vast psychological, essential and spiritual aspect that is no longer bound by and reducible to the body's preference to penetrate or be penetrated.
According to my insight, gender is a very necessary social construct from the perspective of a soul that is trying to determine itself. Gender is something we should recognize and discover, and utilize - with the openness that no one will conform perfectly and that some people will themselves be the gender other than the one suggested at birth. Yes, suggested - it's not a given, not an identity that should be enforced.
Anyway, did somebody write a book about gender?
Ah yes, Judith Butler.
Maybe I'll read something more on it instead of assuming I already know everything?
That's of course, an unhealthy trait of an INFJ (Ni-Ti). But, honestly, it's better to have an opinion than to not have it. And, well, I have thought about this stuff previously in my life. So, yeah, I'm not clueless - certainly not somebody like me who's thinking if they're a girl instead of a boy. I know my shit.
Time for some deeper questions about my energy make-up(!).
- When you were younger—before gender roles became sharply defined—did you already feel the feminine as your emotional center? Or did that emerge later, in contrast to imposed masculinity?
From what I recall, I already felt like I was more in tune with my intuition more than anything. When I was 8 years old, I was looking back upon my past and I thought to myself that "there was a different spirit inhabiting the past me". That is in the context of me not understanding why I did the things I did before I turned 8. In terms of how I explicitly viewed myself, I think I was rather intuitive, but also quite outgoing and careless. I didn't really fear the world. If anything, I felt I related to girls a bit more than to boys, it seemed kind of weird how I had to relate to boys more because they look more like me. Would that mean that my emotional center was more feminine? Maybe, I recall I also had quite sophisticated thoughts, a very active imagination and a general disinterest in things, I cared more about people. That was still early childhood before 9 years old, when I felt that gender roles were defined, but subtly - not as sharply.
If anything, later on as I was turning 10 years old, I was feeling quite girly and I thought I had a big butt (which it was... and still is - Sir Mix-A-Lot be watching!), and I felt that with it came some kind of aversion to femininity. This attitude, however, was not overtly loud, it was just kind of there: dormant, but not absent, as it was shaping my self-perception. It lasted up until I was about 13.5 years old when I started to feel explicit discomfort with parts of my developing male body. I really didn't like how I had a penis that was sometimes going erect when in the shower, it seemed terrifying to me to have that. In general, between 10 and 13 years old I probably didn't care about gender, although I guess I was more of a boy and identifying with that.
- What happens to your sense of self when you do manifest masculine energy (leadership, detachment, command)? Do you feel hollow, armored, performative—or something else?
During times of manifesting such a masculine energy I feel some kind of dissonance, like some second force is coming in and harming me on some deeper, soulful level. I feel like I'm being turned hollow from performing explicit masculinity like being detached and commanding. It's not really my forte.
- When you connect emotionally with others, especially in nurturing or attuned ways, does that feel like a return to your ‘default’ state? Or do you feel you're reaching outward into the world with something deeply internal?
It feels like I'm returning to something more deeply true for me, I do prefer doing that which is why I'm choosing a more people-oriented career. Emotional connections seem like home to me and I prefer to have them and foster them by presenting a kind of self that others would deem feminine. I don't operate well when my priority is something solely objective ridden from the subjective, the personal.
- Are there versions of masculinity—mythical, literary, real—that have ever felt resonant with you? Or has the masculine always felt external and alien to your essence?
Actually, I don't really recall having any versions of masculinity that ever felt exactly resonant with me. Maybe there was David Goggins, who for me at age 17 was the symbol of persevering through even the worst things in life to achieve one's personal goals, including spiritual. To me, his personal story was especially moving and, at the time when I was performing masculinity through discipline and focus, gave me some kind of belief that I could pull off even the hard things in life, if I were ready to confront the uncomfortable. So, maybe, it was resonant, and a case could be made for that. Yet at the same time I was having proto-fascist tendencies so in general I was off-edge and I was keeping myself from more deeper feminine energy by being excessively performative, and Goggins was the crutch.
19th April 2025 - session with my subconscious.
I am on an open field. An arid, gravel desert, above it dark nimbostratus clouds - especially dark, with a lot of contrasts in them. Like a storm perhaps coming. I stand alone in the desert, seeing my body like normal. I ask for a person to show himself/herself to me.
I hear a wind blowing, perhaps the desert is becoming less arid, maybe some greenery is showing up like little bushes or spots of high grass. As if the desert is turning into some kind of steppe. Now there are more and more grasses around me, to the point that... the desert has transformed, I'm becoming covered with the arid steppe-ish grass. It feels I'm becoming surrounded. The clouds, nonetheless, remain, like just before a storm when the sun hits parts of them, but some parts remain incredibly dark.
I can feel a slight tap on my right shoulder. I can hear a woman gently saying "Hey", with a slow and mellow voice. I turn around and I see her - her big, light blue eyes, chocolate-coloured hair reaching a bit below her shoulders, her modest expression, as her eyes are pointed forwards, not towards me. She resembles me to some extent, yet she does appear a little different. I feel somehow comforted by her presence.
"Hello" - I reply back. I feel the weight of her somehow that's keeping her eyesight heavy, and herself seemingly concerned about something.
"Is everything alright?" She continues to not move her head, replying: "I feel something for you."
With that response rekindling some kind of fire within me, I say: "What is it?"
She looks up to me with her melancholic sky-blue eyes, saying: "I love your presence. You being with me here, alone together, in this world where we don't know where civilization is. It's just us. And I love you. We stand together."
I feel quite surprised, but at the same time I'm comforted, because I'd expected she would say something like this. I say: "It makes me feel at home to hear you speak like this. I don't even know... who you really are, but you look like somebody I know, I can recognize you from somewhere." To be honest, I don't really know what to say to her, I'm just staying there. I have those feelings I can't really express, I'm just... comforted, and waiting for what she has to say.
"Don't be scared, I love you even when you don't speak. Your presence matters. My love is not superficial nor dependent on how you perform before me. The way you are, how you exist, that's lovable to me."
I'm comforted by her words. "Thank you, dear. It matters so much to me when you let me know this. But... who are you really, even if I feel I recognize you?"
"You deserve love, to be loved, to give love, through me you know you have spirit."
I reply: "I guess I do. Honestly, you're so beautiful, your look, your eyes make me feel like home again. You seem so wonderful."
She says with a slight sense of embarrassment: "Thank you for saying this, to have your love feels like I can be at home too, having you with me, you with yourself."
I reply: "That's so sweet to my ears, dear. Please, tell me... who you are."
She looks up at me again with some kind of detachment, maybe self-reflection: "You may think I'm separate from you, like some different being, but I'm just an alternate expression of your energy - your energy as it is when it goes a different direction. I am a mirror of you, like your twin sibling, I'm not separate from you."
I'm not separate from you.