Gender Impostor Syndrome
By: Stella Luna, They She
Tags: Self, Nonbinary, LGBTQ, Transgender, Life

Gender Impostor Syndrome

The way I feel about gender for everyone else just doesn’t apply to me

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

Many stories of transitions go like this: people realize they’re not cis, and even if they lose everything else, they know that their newfound identity is inalienable. If they have no other support, they have themselves and the hot determination of understanding their authentic self. As much as I’d like to say my journey went this way, I don’t feel like this at all, though.

I thought coming out as trans would turn my life around, but in actuality… it really hasn’t. It’s given me better complications, yes, but the worst is that I feel like I have Gender Impostor Syndrome.

What is “Gender Impostor Syndrome”? Well, that’s a great question. I have no idea exactly what it is, but if I had to give a definition, I’d say that it’s like regular impostor syndrome, but it’s inextricably tied to my gender identity and gender performance.

Despite great strides in changing my appearance, my pronouns, and letting my true femininity shine through, something always feels off. No matter how much soul-searching I do, I always end up in the same place, my tri-monthly (or so) crisis about my gender, how I’m behind in life, yadda yadda yadda. It’s so tiring, but I still can’t seem to move past the same vicious cycle!

All my life, I feel like I’ve just been cheering on friends and strangers who keep passing me by. Seeing them on social media figuring out themselves was honestly a touching and incredible experience. It’s cliché, but it really felt like having a butterfly greenhouse. With every conversation or every post, the life cycle was the same. They started as apprehensive and indecisive caterpillars, eating up support, idols, and stories from the LGBTQ community to get more confident. They finally declared to the world their identity, no matter what letter of the acronym.

With this self-development, their chrysalis shattered. Climbing to the surface on sticky feet, the butterflies all spread their wings and flew off.

A lot of trans people I saw got sparkles dusted on what used to be dead eyes, loving their new bodies. For everyone else, they gained newfound confidence and determination to be who they were. Of course, this process happens many times for some people, but the end result is usually the same. I never felt this way, though. I still feel like I’m struggling to even start my chrysalis despite having come out as nonbinary 3 years ago. I absolutely love to see my friends and people I admire succeeding, but the greenhouse gets lonely when all you do is see other people flying away to better things.

I’m really not sure why I feel this way. Maybe it’s because I had to go back to my childhood home after COVID started. The physical vicinity and association to a place I felt so unlike myself makes it seem like I’m never going to escape my past. What’s more likely, though, is my internalized transphobia and Gender Impostor Syndrome doing its worst.

One of my biggest problems with identifying as nonbinary is my inability to even take my own gender seriously. It’s one of those “if someone else does it, good for them! But it could never work for me” moments. I respect and believe literally anyone else on the planet who says they’re nonbinary, but I just don’t take my own identity seriously. It’s the strangest thing. Why is it that, for the person I have the deepest knowledge of and the most intimate connection to their lived experience, I can’t believe what their obvious truth is? Maybe I’m just a woman, though, or maybe I’ve been a man all along? It’s not just about feelings with no cause, though.

I always second-guess my gender even by the way people refer to me, especially when a man refers to me like we’re friends when I’ve never met them. I can sense the masculine sense of solidarity they’re trying to make, and it’s as if my whole identity is a sham. When I see myself in the mirror and see just how much space I take up somewhere, what I look like in pictures, or even if I hear my voice, it’s like I’ve “given myself away.”

Whether I want to admit it or not, I always feel like my identity is fake because so much of my energy is spent trying to veil my biological sex instead of exploring my feelings.

When you’re cis, your gender identity is static. You can have whatever career you want, whatever outfits you want to wear, or anything else, but you’ll always be the gender you were assigned. Nobody can take that away from you. Even if this is true in principle for trans people, my internalized transphobia makes that hard to believe.

The indoctrination of the biological association to gender identity provokes very toxic thought patterns in regards to passing, feelings, hormones, everything! In every interaction I have with strangers, it starts to feel like a countdown starts to when they’ll say “oh, I meant “sir,” sorry!” or when they just “realize” that I’m “not a real girl.”

Of course, I am a real girl (even if I’m nonbinary… but that’s a whole other discussion). As much as I don’t want to admit it, though, dysphoria makes that feel not true. Whenever I think about dating, I feel like I’m deceiving people. If I think about work, my chest tightens as I think about how people will react to my legal documents not matching my presentation.

It’s things like this that keep me a caterpillar. Instead of focusing on doing what I need to do, I just spend time cheering other people on so I don’t have to work on myself. I hope that soon I’ll switch my habits, but my Gender Impostor Syndrome has made it clear that it’s not going for good anytime soon.