Hello! In this article, I examine my gender identity in such a needlessly specific way that I thought I'd leave an upfront disclaimer about it. Unless you share an interest in the question of "what is my gender, really", this article won't be very useful to you. If you just want to know how to refer to me, my identity has such intense overlap with the identity of "woman" that from an outside perspective there would be no reason to make the distinction. As such, I fully expect (and hope) that people will continue to treat me as a woman without worrying about that bothering me in any way.

With that out of the way, let's get started!

The Problem

If someone were to ask me to describe my gender identity to them, I think I'd be completely stumped on what to say. If you were to draw a Venn diagram with two circles, whatever a woman is, and whatever I am, I'm convinced such a graph might as well look like a solar eclipse! Even drawing upon awful stereotypes to fill the "woman" circle still wouldn't manage to shove my circle any further out. In my day-to-day life, I present femininely, I use she/her pronouns, I'm treated as a woman in every way. Despite this, I just can't conceptualize myself as a woman. It's as if, even though both circles might as well be one in the same, there's still some factor that has me feeling bizzare about calling them equivalent. In this article, I want to explore what that distinguishing factor might be. I don't have a definitive answer, of course, but I at the very least want to interrogate a few hypotheses to see what I can gather about my own identity. Along the way, I hope to discover some way to describe my identity without invoking the word "woman", and to justify my feelings in some way.

So, to get us started, please forget all that you know about me, if you know anything at all. Let us assume neutrality in the corner of some pool of gender expression, and we'll swim around until we find comfortable waters.

Comfortable Waters

In the corner of the pool of gender expression, my immediate inclination is to stay exactly where I am. Or rather, I get the sense that I don't really want to settle in one place. From the centre, I can reach every combiniation of masculinity and femininity at my leisure, stay there a while, rein it in, or whatever appeals at that particular moment. Although, I do get the sense that I'd rather hang out closer to the feminine corner. In this, we discover an important part of my identity right at the outset. In an environment without a designated role, Ella Beaulieu is entirely comfortable exploring the entire pool of gender expression. So what, the entire pool is comfortable? Or, at the very least, different parts of the pool are comfortable at different times? With this, we seem no closer to grasping a concrete idea of identity, so let's add in some societal expectations to the pool via some currents!

The Gender Binary

Aha! Now we're getting somewhere. In this pool of gender expression, we now have two strong currents pulling towards opposing corners. No longer is hyperfemininity plus hypermasculinity an option, nor is neutrality. Suddenly, the netural corner isn't so comfortable anymore, and exploration is much more of a commitment. If I were to try to stay in the neutral corner, I'd continue to get tossed around as I tried to resist the battling expressions like a rope in a game of gender tug'o'war. If I chose to swim towards either the masculine or feminine corner, I'd be hopelessly trapped there and unable to swim back against the mounting current. Now, my inclination is screaming to swim towards the feminine corner of the pool! Interesting, right? The entire pool was alluring and comfortable at varying times, but forcing a permanent, binary choice makes an overwhelming preference emerge.

With gender as categorization of human identity, the insinuation of a binary immediately locks me into the category of a woman because I willingly relinquished my right to masculinity by following the feminine current. So, under a binary gender system, Ella Beaulieu is a woman.

So, that's it right? I live in a society, and that society says gender is binary, so Ella Beaulieu is a woman within it. This choice is consensual; given the option between man and woman, I chose woman.

Ella Beaulieu is a Woman

Yeaaaaaaah, no. I don't buy it. I get that gender is socially constructed, but to suggest that my self-concept is beholden to social pressure kinda pisses me off. I'm not so pliable that the insinuation of a binary should be enough to change my conception of myself, right?

However, I do present overwhelmingly feminine, and I do use exclusively feminine pronouns. I refer to myself as a woman, I'm fine with being treated as one, but I refuse to identify as one. So, what gives?

If Ella Beaulieu is supposedly comfortable with exploring the pool of gender expression, wanting to be at times feminine, masculine, both, neither, then why do I willingly hide in the circle of "woman" while denying the label?

Did you catch it? It's been there the whole time! The pool of gender expression. We assigned me the category of "woman" on the pretense that gender expression reflected gender identity, but is that even true? I mean, think of tomboys, femboys, the entire concept of drag; does any of that necessarily reflect on someone's gender identity? We haven't proved that I am a woman, all we've proved is that I act like one and am treated like one. Maybe that distinction isn't that important to you, but it's still interesting, right?

Why do I present almost exclusively femininely, though? Well the pool tells us! When provided with the binary options of presenting femininely or presenting masculinely, instinct screamed to present femininely! I enjoyed the masculine corner of the pool, I enjoyed the neutral part of the pool, but now I avoid it. As such, something must have changed that made masculinity or neutrality seem negative when we introduced the binary currents. The change of course, is the false assumption that gender expression reflects gender identity! I am a transgender person, after all. I came to the conclusion that being a man was painful, and that I wanted to be a woman. It's no wonder that I'd then believe that I couldn't afford to be ambigious, or masculine, lest my identity as a woman be questioned.

That confidence has eroded as I've begun to pass more and more, and as the reality of my life as a trans person falls by the wayside, feeling like it might as well be a dream.

I want to be a woman? Really? I'm not so sure anymore.

I dont want to be a woman; I'm just not a man.

Ella Beaulieu is not a Man

Coming into writing this article, I've had a certain phrase rattling around in my head. I talked about the specifics of my gender identity with my partner, and came to the conclusion that, in a vacuum, I would be a "feminine-leaning non-man". Though, try explaining that to the average person. "Oh yeah, I act like a woman, I want you to treat me like a woman, but like, I'm not a woman, I'm a feminine-leaning non-man." Pretty funny, right?

Under that explanation, I suppose it wouldn't be incorrect to consider me non-binary. In an ideal world, one without the examination of identity based on expression, I'd be fine being called by any name, any pronouns. Just, whatever, you know? Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in. If I were to tell the people of today that I was fine with whatever, it's just granting people license to put me in whatever box makes them most comfortable. It just doesn't seem possible for someone to confidently grasp the idea that I'm not something tangible, something concrete that they can nail down and treat accordingly. If I dress and act like a man, use masculine pronouns, how should the average person be able to come to terms with the fact that Ella Beaulieu is not a man?

I simply refuse to be put in that box labelled "man", and I don't long to be masculine in the same way I used to long for femininity.

So, being a woman is fine, pretty good actually, but it's not really me. In truth, Ella Beaulieu is just not a man.

Ella Beaulieu is not not a Woman

And here's where we get to the real ambigious stuff! It feels uncomfortable for me to say that I'm not a woman. As if, by doing so, I'm denying some part of my identity. That's something I can't really ignore, right? So, what does this tell us? I refuse to completely identify with being a woman, but I refuse to completely seperate myself from the identity of "woman" either. Here's my take: Ella Beaulieu is only sorta a woman.

Well, that makes this all sorta useless, no?

Maybe, but I still find some comfort in it. I feel as if I lie solidly in the camp of "woman", but with the desire and ability to freely explore any combiniation of expressions or identities without feeling like something has to change about me at my core. Being a feminine woman is comforting, but it's not the full picture. The identity of "woman" anchors me to a set of behaviours, expectations, values that closely align with my own, and that's not uncomfortable whatsoever. However, the category of "woman" is binding, incomplete at describing me. I am not always the same person; my identity is fluid, but my core is not. Does that make any sense? At my core, I am a woman, but my identity floats above that, exploring the vast sea of identity and expression that can't be represented with a dinky 2D pool model.

So, at my core I am a woman. However, on the concious surface I am a nebulous identity content with exploring the possibilities of gender and gender expression.

As well, one thing is abundantly clear. I am not a man.

Final Thoughts

I'm not sure how much I agree with my final conclusion here, and there's plenty of parts I take issue with. One thing I haven't really argued against here is the idea that this might be a case of interalized transphobia. As in, I'm subconciously denying my trans identity, and so I refuse to accept the label of "woman". There's also not a lot of rigour here in distinguishing between identities and expression. This article was very "in the heat of the moment", and I'd like to come back and re-examine my points here and see if I can't disprove some of my claims or clarify some feelings after sleeping on it. I think I overstate my disconnect from the identity of "woman", and overstate my overlap with the "woman" circle in the Venn diagram. I don't think it's fair to say that I present uniformly feminine, but that requires defining what presenting feminine even means in this context. In short, don't take this article too seriously. Just let it be a look into my mind, with its various self-contradictions and logical leaps.

Anyway, that's all from me for tonight. Halfway through the first section I could already feel myself nodding off, but I just wanted to have something to read on this site as it goes up. Pretty sure I'm moments away from passing out at my desk!

Have a great night, love you!