First let me slap a huge caveat on this post. It’s actually a topic I’ve been kicking around a lot. Gender and social norms. And how they affect us. As individuals. This wasn’t triggered by any one event but rather a series of little…huhs and whats?

So I wanted to talk about bits.

Here’s the thing. Gender. Sexuality. All of it.

It’s complicated.

Not just for the people outside but for the person within.

Now I’m going to dial this in and use me as an example… actually, I can really only talk about the noise in my gender because it’s mine. The rest of it? I don’t have a say nor do I have any comprehension about what someone else is truly going through. So, keep that in mind.

My name is Rhys. I spell it that way for writing. It’s spelled Reece for the other parts of my life but regardless of how it is spelled, that is my name.

It’s a noise. It’s a sound.

A sound that oddly enough people have attached genitalia to.

Let me explain.

If I had a dollar for every time someone expressed outrage about my “hiding” my gender behind a male name, I’d…well, be a shit ton richer. Okay maybe not a shit ton. More like a guano heap but still, there you go. And that’s only the people who’ve sent me an email or raged at me through social media.

Over my name. MY name. A sound I’ve used for a hell of a long time to separate me from the person next to me.

I’ve been very honest and open about my self-gender as an author. I am female. I’ve decided I am female. It’s not always been so. I’ve questioned. Been torn. Confused. Debated. Contemplated. And have at times said, maybe no, I’m not.

Then at some point, I’m not sure when, I discovered something—I’m as female as I define it.

In this day and age, our bits don’t define the id. Hell, sometimes even our id doesn’t quite define our id. As some people stretch out or pull inward, it’s a journey. One I’ve made in contemplation but mostly silent. I’ve had years of extreme confusion. Trust me on that. It was not pretty and it was a craptastic way of living. I don’t wish it on anyone. People push and pull and snap and grab at gender, forcing you to choose one way or another. And we get caught up in that maelstrom, sometimes even battered against the rocks…

Sometimes even dying in our confusion.

Here’s the question. What are we using to define male or female? My gut says social norms. Definitions of female or male that are usually social constructs. Hear me out.

According to my family and some friends in the day, I obviously was a lesbian because I am crap for feminine things. Or worse (in their eyes), I was maybe trans. I can’t even go into the subtle and not so subtle ways this perception was taken out on me. It was one of many fucked up contested points of my existence that still to this day, continues in parts of my family.

And oddly enough, no amount of denying this lesbian or trans-maybe state made one fucking bit of difference to those flinging stones. Denying because in my gut it wasn’t me. But see, that didn’t matter. There was blood spilled more than once—my blood—my broken bones—my swollen flesh—all because of how others saw me.

When I was too young to see myself.

The truth is… no one can define me but me. The sound I call myself, I say is just me. I don’t slap a dick or a vagina on it and say, yes that is female or male. It doesn’t matter. Not to me. It shouldn’t to anyone, really. Am I less of a woman because I am not all that into socially female things? I don’t think so. Others do. Loudly. Very loudly. Sometimes violently.

I have male friends who are more social-normative female than I am yet retain their “masculine” identity with the pronoun of he. Why? Because that is what they feel they are. I say I am she even though I love muscle cars, have tattoos, listen to rock, don’t wear skirts, wear Chucks, prefer jeans, really like whiskey and can build out a bathroom in a weekend. Do those things make me male? Does my aggression define that in me? Does my violent nature define my masculinity or is it just wrong wiring in a female body? So many questions on what makes me female… definitive heterosexual female… and who marks off the checklist?

What list are we all using to define Rhys? And why?

If I stand in a room and ask people; Who thinks I am female? Please raise your hand. I am so-so certain I’ll get 85% or more. But see, it shouldn’t take the raising of someone else’s hand to determine who you are.

The only hand raised that should matter is yours. Mine for me. You for yours.

Whether or not I was a lesbian or trans isn’t the point. Or heterosexual and female. None of that matters.

What does matter is how we try to see the person inside of the body and treat them as they wish to be treated…with whatever social template they’re trying to fit into. Or as how they define themselves.

I wish everyone who’s reached out to me to talk about gender and norms and cupcakes to have a good life. To have a happy life. And to have a psychologically healthy one as well. Gender struggles are hard. It goes in line with being gay or straight or bi. One piece of a huge puzzle influenced by factors outside of ourselves, sometimes violently and sometimes fatally. There are times when it gets to be too much and the struggle to continue forward in that maze becomes too hard for people. I wish I could lighten that for them. I do.

We can.

Raise your hand when someone asks… do you see me? That’s when the hand raising counts the most. That’s when a person needs it the most. In the dark, when they are alone and in the cold of their nothingness, that is when they need that hand to be seen above the dark fog they are in.

I wish everyone the best. Truly. No matter what noise you call yourself or what pronoun you use. So long as you find that peace to be. To just…be. That’s all that really matters.