Chauvinistic

I'm a chauvinistic feminist, another oxymoron, I know, but it is true, and sometimes I worry that I re-enforce the binary myself. I try to act masculine sometimes to live up to a role and fit in with the guys sometimes, and I do the same with women. I get ignored when I'm looking feminine and so everything I say tends to be blazed by men that would otherwise talk to me like a friend. 

To my horror, I was chatting to a girl online and she said ‘you know that I'm not really girly right?’ and later discovered, only after she cut her hair short, that she was somewhat genderfluid. I'm not sure to what extent, but I saw that some of her posts talked about gender anarchy on facebook. Anyway, I had done to someone what I hate people doing to me; I had assumed her gender, and therefore her gender role and preferences.

I hated myself, and what society had instilled into me, just how I hated the way that society had taught me to gossip and work racist or homophobic slang into my language when words hurt more than most physical pains i was so sorry for doing that to her and sorry to myself for what I had became. I was so obsessed with being read as male at one point I forgot what it was to be myself and that there is no shame in being a woman either. While I think that I should be super militant queer and think, ‘If girls don’t want to be my friend because I look like a man then they aren’t true friends’, I should also think ‘If guys don’t want to be my friend because I look like a girl then they aren’t true friends’ too.

I realised I had been changing myself to fit in, but on another end of the scale, which is just as bad as being in the closet. Then I realised I needed not to hide my leg hair or painted toenails when I'm at the beach with a group of like minded, friendly individuals, because if I am to identify as gender-less, then I should judge others accordingly until proven otherwise.