Some people

Some people just don't see it.

Some people see tits and think I'm a girl.
Some people see a vagina and think I must be female.

Some people don't understand that sex is not gender.
Some people don't understand that what bodyparts I have does not dictate what I am.
Some people don't understand that boys can have pussies.

Some people think that I chose this.
Some people think I want to be brought to tears by hearing the cries of bigots.
Some people think I want to find out that my friend thinks my "choice" is wrong.

Some people want to believe that I can just "un-choose" this.
Some people want to believe that me being genderqueer is an abomination.

Some people think that what they see on the outside is what I am on the inside. They think that girl they knew still stands in front of them. But in reality that girl they see is a shell, a prison for someone who doesn't fit the stereotypes and the gender binary.

Some people think that sexual reproductive organs dictate gender, that sex and gender are the same thing. But they're not. All too often biology screws us over and plays mix and match with our minds, putting them into the wrong body. And we can change that, we can make our bodies match our minds. For gender is in our head, and gender is socially constructed. I construct who I wish to be, how I want people to see me, and I expect it to be respected. Those who can't are too lost in their own minds to see me as who I am.

Some people think it's okay to gender me, to place their expectations of how the world works on my shoulders. But I already have my own expectations; I have no more room on these shelves for their incorrect assumptions. I cannot stand another minute of hearing that I am an intelligent woman. That phrase is a compliment and an insult all tied up in one, and I can't decide if I should thank them, correct them, or just slip it under the rug quietly like I always do.

Some people, I let them think they aren't hurting me. I let them say "she" and "her," even though those pronouns feel like centipedes crawling all over my body, their feet slicing through my skin and wounding me... a little more every time.

Some people think they understand my plight, that I'm just "confused" or the fact that I'm fat makes me uncomfortable acting feminine, in the way THEY THINK I should be acting. I wish I had the balls to tell them that even if I looked like Giselle fuckin' Bundchen, I would dress the same. Except maybe? I'd be able to wear baggy clothes, and keep my voice low, and maybe, someone would "sir" me.

Some people they want to be my friend, but every second they sit by me and have a civil conversation, I know they see me with the world girl plastered on my face, that they aren't talking to me, but talking to who they make me into in their head so that they're not uncomfortable around me. They want to put me into a box so that I fit into their reality, but their reality crushes me, forces me to be something I'm not, puts me in this feminine prison of pink and bows. With every breath that they take, with every word that they speak, they're invalidating my existence as a human being, because they see the one tattoo I was born with, the one that says regret and shame. It stares them in the face from the center of my too far protruding chest, it says "girl" and I can't afford to get it removed. The procedure is expensive and I'm just a college student. But I can wear a special shirt that covers those mounds of tattooed wrongness.

It only helps marginally.

Some people try to tell me that when I get older, or skinnier, or smarter, that my feelings will change. Every time someone does this, it puts me back in that feminine prison, the walls close around me and make me feel like I can't breathe. I can't breathe in a body that betrays me every second of every day.

Some people want to believe that with therapy, I can be happy in my body. Some people don't know that the therapy I want will make me happy. That what they see: the voice, the tits, the hips, is not what I am inside. They see what they want to see because their minds are too blind and too narrow to realize that gender is more than just a binary, more than a dichotomy, that there's more than just one of the other. Gender is not black and white, gender is a spectrum and it holds all the colors in the rainbow. There are many gray areas to gender, and I am happily living inside that shade of dark grey. I will not change, because this is not a choice that I can unchoose, it is something I have been since the day I was born, no matter what gender the doctors assigned to me.

Some people don't know that it's like a shot to the heart everytime someone "She" or "ma'am"'s me.
Some people don't know how hard it is to have to hide who you are so people don't beat you up or insult you.

Some people just don't see it.

Some people just don't see me.