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wanna work on the railroad

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Posted by a. broad

Lately I've been thinking about insides and outsides and how confusing and frustrating it is when there are incongruities between those two things. Obviously this is a major part of genderqueer identity much of the time, and that's been something I've been thinking about a lot too. What does it mean to be genderqueer exactly? How is that different from being queer queer? Is it? Am I? How? If I can't put that into words, does it still exist? (Short answer: yes, but in an existentially frustrating way.) Is my personal identity semi-irritation related to genderqueerness? How do I talk about my own (very interior and private) frustration while acknowledging that this is nothing compared to what visibly genderqueer people experience (internally and externally) constantly?
I've always felt that who I am inside is different from the way I present myself. On the outside I feel like I'm too quiet, too nice, too polite, a good girl sitting with my hands folded watching the debate with squinted eyes. But inside sometimes (especially lately) I feel loud, powerful, maybe a little crazy but hopefully not in a bad way. I feel sparkly, interested in everything, a little frenetic but also so excited by everything (ideas! books! music! conversations!) that I can't sit still. I feel like I'm vibrating with desire to do and feel and think and talk and write. I worry that those things aren't making it through the good-girl shell with enough regularity. One-on-one I'm worlds away from where I used to be, but in groups especially I'm still silent. Why? I sometimes feel myself acting in ways I don't like because they fit the "girl" image and it is so upsetting; I worry that so much of my personal presentation is directly tied to a bullshit system of categorization and social enforcement.
I'm trying to put all of these pieces together, an identity that questions gender and gets all worked up about a new idea and wants to go all new places all the time, and the fact that if you met me on the street I probably wouldn't make much of an impression. I fucking hate that. I feel like I'm split into (at least) two different people. I worry that that split makes it much harder for me to meet and interact with some of the people that excite me the most, intellectually and otherwise. I worry that I'm not having the life that I would be having if the pieces matched up better.
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