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ievani-e · 5 years

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I’m Genderqueer, I Guess!?

(AKA, My Experiences Accepting — and Then Rejecting — Womanhood)

Over three weeks ago now, on February 4th, I started out wanting to write a random little opinion piece about Disney’s Mulan. I had experienced a personal epiphany, and I wanted to revisit some of the ideas I had had about Mulan in the past, and contrast that with how I felt about it now. But, I realised, there was something else I had to write before I could. I had to write this random thing first, because this post informs that one.

So what this post is going to be about is this: I am genderqueer.

This is not a recent thing. I have not suddenly changed as a person. On the contrary, I’m exactly the same person I have always been. The only thing that has changed is the label itself: a label which, for reasons explained below, I have decided to don.

In order to properly tell you about where I am now, I have to tell you a bit about my past and give you an overview about my experiences growing up. I have to tell you how I first got to this place for my decision to come out as genderqueer/gender non-binary to make sense.

Some backstory, then: While I never directly suffered as a result of my gender identity the same way some others have, I did still struggle with gender dysphoria. I recognise that many trans and queer people have (or have had) it way worse than me, and that I am extremely fortunate to have avoided being bullied or ostracised due to my gender identity, having firmed up and sussed out what it even was only now. But, nevertheless, it was there the whole time.

Growing up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was medically wrong with me: that the doctors must have made some kind of a mistake, and everyone around me treating me as a girl ever since was simply the result of carrying the error forward. I must have had a higher dosage of androgens in my system, or maybe an extra chromosome or something. I must have secretly been intersex and just hadn’t been diagnosed. Surely, something had to have been wrong. I couldn’t have been a girl, because any definition of or expectation for a “girl” I ever heard was something so different from what I was.

As a child, I grew up with a very narrow definition of what it meant to be a girl and what girls could and couldn’t be, because that was what had been spoon-fed to me by the media and the social norms I saw around me. These norms were perpetuated at school, by members of my family, and on TV — with TV standing in as a representative for the world at large. What I saw around me was: girls liked shopping and jewellery. Girls liked fashion and beauty. Girls liked horse-riding and ballet. Girls were vain. Girls were stupid. Girls only cared about wearing pretty pink dresses and chatting about boys. Girls were… <insert other extremely limited, restrictive, two-dimensional female stereotype here>. Those were the conclusions I had come to, based on what the world was showing me and teaching me.

And I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like those girls. I was nuanced, I was complicated; I was intelligent and smart and not at all interested in love and romance, and I much preferred to hang out with boys like I was one of them than try to date any of them. I liked video games and horror films and reading thrillers and action adventures. I was no girly-girl: I was a tomboy, and proud of it.

Nothing I had heard about girls applied to me or appealed to me in any way. (I mean no offense if you are more feminine than I was and you do like that sort of stuff: it’s totally okay to be that way, too! It’s just that I, in particular, wasn’t).

I, the little weirdo that I felt like at the time, had never fit into the picture of the archetypal girl. So, I reasoned, the only logical conclusion was that I must not have been a girl. I must have been a boy. At least, I fit much more comfortably into the definition of a “boy” than I did the definition of a “girl”.

The problem there is, it’s easy to decide that certain characteristics associated with a certain group aren’t compatible with you when the characteristics given to you are so limited in the first place. There was a very specific mental image I had in my head of what a girl should be like, and there didn’t seem to be very much room for discussion. For boys, on the other hand, it seemed like they could be anything except that. That has a whole host of issues all its own — ones I won’t be getting into in depth now — where boys are discouraged from displaying feminine characteristics or emotionality, and this is just as harmful to boys as it is to discourage girls from displaying masculine characteristics. Double-standards do exist, and they are not okay.

But, putting aside that can of worms for now, boys generally had a lot more options than girls did. Of course I would be able to see more similarities between myself and boys when there was a wider range of options to choose from from the start.

Please permit me to be an optimist for a moment and say that I believe that, in an ideal world, all positive characteristics would be embraced and encouraged in children, regardless of whether they were typically “feminine” or “masculine”. We would love unconditionally, and judge each person for their own individual merits and demerits, rather than holding them up to some perceived notion of being “girl” enough or “boy” enough. Doing so is incredibly detrimental to us all because, when we start holding personhood up to some arbitrary standard, it becomes very easy to fall short. And that does not feel good for the many of us who don’t measure up.

But the real world and the ideal world are worlds apart, and social norms did, and do, exist. In any case, I certainly didn’t fit the cookie-cutter mould of what it “meant” to be a “girl”. And that felt like a failure on my part. I felt like I wasn’t enough; like I wasn’t good enough, just the way I was.

I grew up empathising and relating to men in a variety of ways, because in our culture and in our media it is predominantly male characters and male role models that we see. Female role models… Not so much. Female characters in books, video games and TV were few and far between to begin with, and those that did exist tended to be depicted as homemakers, love interests, sex objects and… nope, that’s about it. As a result, I didn’t know that there were more ways to be than just those.

That’s not to say that shows featuring more positive role models didn’t exist — it’s not even to say I didn’t happen across a few of them myself. Rather, it is that those positive influences weren’t numerous enough or prevalent enough for me, as a child, to notice; or to start to change my mind about women as a whole because of them. There weren’t enough positive portrayals of women for those portrayals of women to form part of a larger pattern; certainly not enough to challenge the already-existing patterns of behaviour that were being perpetuated far more prominently and pervasively. There were exceptions, but that’s just it: complex, interesting, autonomous female characters — women such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess — were exceptions; not the rule. (And I’ve never actually even seen Xena: Warrior Princess myself, so…)

One such example that comes to my own mind is that of Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; which isn’t actually about pride and prejudice anywhere near as much as you might think. That, I read when I was 13? 14? 15? as part of my high school’s English Literature course, and Elizabeth Bennet was probably the closest thing I had to a positive female role model in literature at that time. Even then, Elizabeth, too, was posited as the exception, not the rule: even within the book’s own canon. You see, Elizabeth was exceptionally skilled, witty and intelligent; she was particularly sensible, reasonable (even if not open-minded…) and capable of critical thought. Unfortunately, the logical continuation of such a premise leads to the (incorrect) implication that other girls… usually… weren’t. So in the book, we see that Elizabeth wasn’t like other girls. Elizabeth was different.

So while I saw myself, to a certain extent, in Elizabeth, I also saw the same demonization of — and the desire to distance oneself from — other women which I experienced first-hand, along with the desperation to distinguish oneself from the gender norms as if they were true; not as if they weren’t. The mistake Elizabeth and I both made was that, by thinking of ourselves as “special little snowflakes” and elevating our own status to that of the exception, not the rule, it came at the cost of failing to appreciate the basic humanity and the complexity of other women: women who may, in actuality, have had a lot more in common with us than we first gave them credit for.

Meanwhile, it seemed that (cis) men were allowed to be human, and experience (almost) the full range of thoughts and feelings and ways of life attached to that, in a way that women just weren’t. But, the issue of gender and representation in media is in fact another beast entirely. What is relevant to me throughout all of this is that this all culminated in the fact that I was someone who accepted men exactly the way they were, and could relate to men in a multitude of ways; but, before discovering feminism, despised anything even remotely “female” or “feminine” and discriminated against it, dismissing it or distancing myself from it for one reason or another, despite being female myself. What. The. Fuck.

Now I’m an adult and I know better, I know that the majority of my discomfort with “the feminine” stemmed primarily from good old-fashioned sexism, both internalised and otherwise. I know now that those beliefs — both the ones I had impressed upon me, and the ones I in turn applied to others — are inherently inaccurate and deeply flawed.

Problem solved, then: it’s not that my gender identity or expression was wrong. It’s not that I wasn’t woman enough, despite not feeling like I fit in all my life. It’s that sexism exists, and sexism is the cause for all of my dysphoria, hurray(!)

Or so I thought.

Sexism does still play a part, however, and that’s what has made coming to grips with my gender identity all the more difficult for me. Before I could discern what was really true about myself, first I had to disentangle what was really true about “what it means to be a female/ a woman/ feminine” from all the fallacies, generalisations and mistruths. When I came across feminism several years ago as a young tween and learnt about what it was, it opened a lot of doors for me in terms of coming to a greater understanding of myself and the world around me. Feminism has been a very positive influence in and on my life, and is responsible for a lot of personal growth. But also, in this particular instance, confused me even further. And that’s because, I started to think that… maybe the reason why I didn’t associate myself with the concept of “girlhood” or “womanhood” when I was younger was only because the concept I had in my head had been so completely wrong all along.

Before feminism, all that internalised sexism really did go a long way towards meaning I related more to men than I did to women; or at least, thought I did, because really, I never gave women much of a chance. I had to unlearn a lot of the preconceived notions I had grown up with, and learn everything all over again from the ground up.

The more I learned, the more I came to understand; but even so, the feeling of me being different or not quite fitting in anywhere didn’t go away. It’s just that I started to think that maybe it wasn’t me who was wrong: maybe it was the gender norms themselves that were wrong. It was the idea that “women are like X and men are like Y” — and that this is universally true for all women and all men — that was wrong.

What I had to learn was that women could be anything. And I mean; I already knew that about men — but women, too?! So women can think and act for themselves, and be incredibly intelligent and have their own thoughts and opinions and expertise on a subject, and have a vast array of interests?! It sounds stupid now, especially if you already know it to be true; but it was a much-needed life lesson for the twenty-year-old me. I was already fully accepting of a wide range of personalities and occupations for men, because I saw such a wide range of men and male characters/personalities in the media. It was already a given to me that men could be anything. And yes, there is that whole “…except be feminine” thing I mentioned before, and it is an issue; but I never personally bought into that. I had my fair share of male role models with a sensitive side or more typically feminine character traits as well. What was shocking to me is that I had to learn that the same thing I had always believed to be true of men was true of women, too.

What I had to learn, absurdly for the first time as an adult, was that not every woman had to like the same thing or have the same hobbies or interests. Not all women had to look or dress or behave the same way, or any way in particular at all. Not every woman had the same likes and interests as me: but — and here was the key difference — they could have done. There was, in reality, no logical reason why they couldn’t. I realised that girls can be tomboys and gamers and total nerds and still be girls.

If that was the case, then maybe my own experience and my own expression of self — despite being so far removed from that limited childhood notion of “girl” = “pretty, vain and vapid” — was nevertheless still valid within the wider, broader and more inclusive interpretation of “womanhood”. Maybe, even with my own complete and total lack of femininity and associating myself with more typically-masculine traits and behaviours, maybe I still was a woman: just that the category for womanhood was far broader than I had been led to believe. Perhaps I wasn’t a woman who had fit into those narrow definitions I had held as true in the past; but a woman nonetheless, who could still meet the definition of a woman if only I broadened those definitions up.

No two women are the same; and as such, it makes no sense to think that there is such thing as a universal expression of that womanhood. Every single woman is a unique individual, with her own skills and experiences and her own story to tell. Just because my own experience didn’t have much in common with the experiences of those around me, that didn’t necessarily mean that I wasn’t a woman, or couldn’t have been a woman, or that I was some abhorrent anomaly. I might have been three standard deviations away from the mean; but that doesn’t mean that I was not, nevertheless, a valid data point.

So I got confused.

The feminist within me wanted me to think of myself as, and identify as, a woman. After all, I had just truly come to understand and to appreciate that being a woman was okay. I had just come to understand that “femininity” existed on a wide spectrum, and even oddballs like me could be included within that. Besides, if I was a feminist and believed in women’s rights (as a targeted approach to believing in equal rights in general), then wasn’t I supposed to be proud to be a woman? Wasn’t I meant to further the cause and #represent? If being a woman was no inferior to being a man, and if women came in all shapes and shades and were allowed to claim and celebrate their own individuality as they saw fit, regardless of the norms, then why would I need to be anything else? Was “woman” not sufficient? How could I be a feminist and yet still feel a reluctance and general disdain towards identifying as a woman?

That was one side of the confusion.

The other side of it was: well, if I wasn’t a woman, what else would I be? As a child, I had felt I fit in more with boys; but I had no all-consuming desire to be a boy or to be thought of as one myself. What I wanted was simply to be myself. I didn’t think of myself as a boy, hanging out with other boys. I thought of myself as myself, hanging out with other boys. As an adult, I feel no more and no less an affinity for one gender than the other. There is no affinity for either; and likewise, no antipathy for either. I feel empathy for everyone; a general relation towards all individuals, regardless of their gender. I don’t come down on one side or the other.

It was around the same time that I started batting around the idea of being genderfluid; but ultimately decided against exploring it any further or even acknowledging it in any real way, because it “didn’t matter, really”. I don’t know why nothing came of that back then. I guess I didn’t have the courage to pursue it, nor was there the same motivation to do so as now. I thought private thoughts: I often joked/ seriously heartfully felt that I was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body; but I also felt like a gay woman trapped in a woman’s body. And, because I felt like both a gay man and a gay woman, I reasoned that, maybe, if I looked at it a certain way, that was almost like having elements of both a straight man and a straight woman instead. Either way, I was bisexual! (Which I am, by the way.)

I tried to use my own sexuality against me; I tried to twist it around, and pressured myself to act more like a “straight woman”, or how I thought a straight woman should be. And, no, there does not seem to be much logic to that train of thought: it was just me oppressing myself, trying to knock myself back down into a more “acceptable” way of being, even if that meant flattening myself in the process. It’s weird to see how, in this way, I was still equating “straight” with “normal”, even though I was bisexual myself. This is why queer representation is so important!!

That particular mental interpretation was lacking, for many reasons. And something I didn’t think about at the time was that either way, I wasn’t cis. Either way, there was that overlap of masculinity and femininity in me: I had elements of both, but neither were quite the way convention might have you expect. I felt like I approached femininity from a male perspective: I was “feminine”, but in the same way that (some, not all) gay men are “feminine” without being women. Likewise, I approached masculinity from a female perspective: I was “masculine”, but in the same way (some, not all) lesbians are “masculine” without being men. I had traits of both within me, but even then, they were crossed over; associating my inner “male self” with the “feminine” and my inner “female self” with the “masculine”.

So maybe now, as I write this, it’s more obvious why I didn’t fit in. Everyone else around me associated “male” with “macho” and “female” with “femme”. Such extreme interpretations were at direct odds with mine, and left no room for the many variants of gender identity and gender expression in between. It was, society said, one or the other. And I wasn’t either.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t something I came to understand until much more recently, or else I might have been able to place myself sooner.

But even those past times I did question my gender, those thoughts stayed only thoughts. And in any case, because I didn’t feel like I most definitely, most assuredly wanted to be/become a man, I thought that meant that I had to be a woman by default.

So, I thought, if I can’t commit to not being a woman, I guess I will just remain a “woman”. I guess I will just stand and be counted as one of the many women who do not fit the cookie-cutter mould dictated to us by gender norms, as many women don’t. I will be just one of the many examples of why the mould is rubbish: of why putting men and women in boxes does not work, because we do not all fit in neatly. I will hold my head up as a woman and say, “I do not follow the rules, but I am not the exception. It’s the rules themselves that are jank.”

And the feminist in me was appeased. After all, this way, simply by being myself I could prove patriarchy was wrong, or something to that effect. I was proof the norms were not catch-all, be-all and end-all. I could live with being a woman; just one that defies typical social norms. And those norms ought to be questioned and defied, anyway — so I comforted myself into thinking I was doing someone some good, maybe, somehow, by acknowledging the expectations for my gender but then subverting them; and that, in so doing, it might contribute towards shattering the preconceptions themselves.

I still didn’t feel comfortable in and of myself, but I shrugged it off. I was like, “okay, maybe this is fine.” In the wise, wise words of Lindsay Ellis: “This is fine. This is fine. This is fine, guys. This is fine.”

Of course, there were still times when I felt the incongruence more keenly than at others; my wedding and the times when I get compared to my sisters were particularly triggering experiences for me. But when it was just my husband and me, together and alone, there was no incongruence. There was no discomfort. We accepted each other, and loved each other, exactly the way we were. When it was just the two of us, we could just be the two of us. When we knew each other as well as we did, on that close and personal basis, then there was no need for labels.

And so, I had privately settled the dispute of my own gender. I had mentally filed it away under “agree not to agree; it doesn’t really matter, anyway. Putting a name to it doesn’t actively change who I am.” I had told myself that that was good enough; and I had kept on living my life, continuing with things just the way they were.

I had accepted womanhood, and resigned myself to it.

And that was that.

Cue hbomberguy’s “Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream”.

For those who missed it and the surrounding controversy involving TV writer Graham Linehan (#thanksgraham), hbomberguy (real name Harry Brewis) is a YouTuber who makes sensible — okay, maybe not “sensible” —, well-thought out videos addressing a variety of topics in modern media: usually video games, film or television series, but he also commentates on social trends and ideologies, as well.

Link to hbomberguy’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClt01z1wHHT7c5lKcU8pxRQ

My husband first knew him from his LetsPlays, and I became a fan too because of his game, film and television analyses. (Someone who overthinks and overanalyses works of fiction for all possible meanings and real-life takeaways?? Here’s a man after my own heart!)

So when he announced he was going to do a livestream of the classic Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64 in order to raise money for the organisation Mermaids — a charity offering support groups, education, and crisis hotlines for transgender individuals and their families, as well as training for corporations to raise trans awareness — we were very interested in watching it.

Link to Mermaids’ website here: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/

Unfortunately, my husband and I weren’t able to watch the stream as it went up live; but we did watch through the archived footage after the fact. And boy, did it hit hard. So many feels were had. So many feels.

My husband isn’t as informed on social justice issues as I am, so a lot of the overarching context that was old-hat to me was brand-new to him. But bless him, he is learning. I, on the other hand, thought going in that I was just going to be watching a stream of a dude we liked from YouTube playing a game, and raising some money for a good cause while he was at it. What I wasn’t expecting was that some of what I heard would hit me so hard in the heart.

To pick out just a few key moments from what was truly an epic event the whole way through, Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids herself, appeared in the stream — and, let me just say, she is so effing awesome. I have an aunt called Susie Green, too, who is also one of the most kick-ass ladies I know, so awesomeness must come with the territory or something.

Anyway, among other things, Susie Green (the CEO, not my aunt) was saying (and I paraphrase) that one of the best ways to support trans people is just to let them know that they can be safe around you.

And that broke my fucking heart, because fuck. Because LGBTQ+ people could be safe around me: but if I myself wasn’t out and proud — if I myself wasn’t visible, or open about my own situation — how the fuck would they know that?

That idea (built upon by CaseyExplosion when she said just to be a friend to trans people you know) deeply resonated with me because of past personal conversations I have had with some members of the gaming group I’m a part of. In private messages, there were people I spoke to at length about gender and about sexuality. The thing is, I was never the one initiating these conversations. Due to my own experiences and empathy, whenever they brought up that they were struggling, I would listen and I would relate and I would tell them a bit about my own experiences, too. And something that came up in one of those conversations was how difficult it was to know who you can talk to about gender and sexuality stuff, because you don’t know how people will respond or who you can trust.

One of my dear friends talked to me about his struggle with sexuality and being gay, and I could understand and empathise and listen to him without judgment because, although it isn’t exactly the same, I am bi and have my own experiences with making the personal journey of coming to understand and accept your own sexual identity, and the struggles along the way. Another friend confided in me she was having confusing feelings for another woman, and she didn’t know what to do. Again, I shared with her that I could understand because I was bi, and we talked for a long time about how she was feeling. She said later I was one of the few people she could trust to talk to about this, because she knew I wouldn’t judge her.

I know people who struggle with their own experiences, and I also know people who are so far removed from those struggles in their own personal lives that they can come across a little insensitive and non-inclusive in their speech or actions; not due to malice, but sincere lack of experience, lack of information, and lack of awareness. One such friend of mine gets very confused over what is “sex” and what is “gender” and frequently conflates the two, and tends to be very dismissive of the social issues going on around him or the community’s attempts to address those issues. And again, this is not because he is an uncaring or unkind person, because he is usually exceptionally caring and kind. But in these particular instances, because he is young and uninformed and he is not part of those circles himself (nor knows others who are immediately affected), there is no reason why he would know more about it. There is no reason why he would understand.

Still, he recognises that he doesn’t understand, and he does try to learn more and keep himself open to learning more. Thus, I unofficially took it upon myself to educate him, to try and foster that understanding; and I talked to him a lot about my own gender identity, too, to kind of serve as my own example for him of what the gender spectrum was. I told him a lot about my own experiences, eventually summarising my situation as, “I don’t agree with the gender norms and I don’t fit into them myself, but I don’t really know what I what I would fit into. I’m not comfortable being a woman, but I don’t know what I would consider myself as instead, so… … …”

On each of these occasions, and many more besides, I was fortunate enough to have these incredibly deep and meaningful conversations with real people all over the world; some of whom were struggling to find understanding and acceptance at a time when they really didn’t know who they could turn to. I’m so incredibly lucky to have them in my life, and that I could learn from all of them and know their unwavering love and support. Our friendship has enriched my life, and I have been exposed to so much love and positivity and really grown as a person because of it. I’m so grateful and glad that they found me, and that I could likewise be a positive figure for them in their time of need.

But that’s just it: they found me. They took a leap of faith, not knowing the outcome, because they needed someone to talk to and they didn’t know for sure if I would be accepting or understanding: it was just that, based on our group conversations, I seemed like the kind of person who might be. They demonstrated an incredible amount of trust and faith in me, and I am extremely grateful for that. But it’s something that they should not have had to do. They should have known that they were safe from the get-go; I should have made them feel safe. I should have been more open, more inclusive; more forthcoming with my own experiences and beliefs, so that they knew they would find a kindred spirit in me, without needing to take that risk. And that is a failing on my part.

Remember how I said about how it even came up in one of those conversations that it’s difficult to know who you can talk to about gender and sexuality, because you don’t know how people will respond or who you can trust? Well, back then, my response to that was something along the lines of: “I would hate it if someone was struggling with this stuff and they felt like they couldn’t talk to me about it, just because they didn’t know that I was queer too.”

And yet…

To my shame and my dismay, although I did share my own experiences with others one-on-one once they had already started talking about it with me, I was never the first to say, “hey, I’m LGBTQ+, and if you’re LGBTQ+ too, that’s A-okay!” I was never the first to bring it up; and in so doing, I’m worried that I might have inadvertently created an atmosphere within our gaming group where LGBTQ+ members feel like they might not have been welcomed or represented.

Because our gaming group is online, everyone is totally anonymous, and no-one has to reveal more about themselves than they want to: including their appearance, their sexuality, or their gender. Still, I wonder if maybe there are some members, new or old, who are LGBTQ+ or who are internally struggling with their own self-identity, who look around and do not seem to see anyone like them. The atmosphere in our group, as is the case with society as a whole, is one where it’s assumed cis/hetero-normative by default. Topics of gender and sexuality rarely come up in the group chat; the more in-depth ones take place in private messaging instead, where they are invisible to the others.

So, by all appearances, straight and cis is the norm… even when it isn’t.

(Update: I am very happy to announce that, since I began writing this, this has now changed! Although it was my intention to come out to my gaming group after posting this, I ended up outing myself to the group early, which initiated exactly the kind of conversations about gender, sexuality, and inclusivity we should have been having all along. Our gaming group has now officially adopted “other” as a third gender option when we are asking members to introduce themselves, along with asking for preferred pronouns! I hope this change, minor though it may seem, goes a long way to helping every member feel more comfortable when disclosing their gender and their pronouns, should they choose to disclose at all.)

Getting back to the point, Susie Green saying that something you can do is to simply help trans people feel safe… That really struck a chord with me. If even people like me who do struggle with their gender and sexuality don’t say that they do, how would anybody else know? What chance do we have of finding each other? What choice is there but to feel different and alone, even if you actually aren’t?

And in my case especially, it is very, very easy to assume I am cis and straight, even though I’m not. I’m very obviously female (thanks, big boobs), and I’m married to my husband — so that makes us a straight couple, man and wife. Luckily, my sexuality was much easier (relatively) to come to terms with for me, and I have been proud to say that I am bi the few times it does come up, as I have known that about myself in that particular regard since I was 13. Even so, because it is so easy for everyone else to assume that, because I married a man, I therefore must be straight, it doesn’t come up that often.

(Even my husband sometimes forgets. We often joke around with each other about the things we say, deliberately taking innocuous things out of context and saying, “That’s racist!” or “That’s homophobic!” One time, we were joking about something — I can’t even remember what — and I teased him about something he had said by exclaiming in mock-indignation, “Hey! That’s homophobic!” His response? “Well, can you really be homophobic against someone who’s heterosexual?” And I’m just like “…”)

It’s easy to assume a woman who is married to a man is straight. It’s easy to assume everyone is cis by default, because most people are. But that shouldn’t be the default. It shouldn’t be the norm to think, “Well, I’m just going to assume everyone is cis unless they specifically say otherwise.” All that does is create the idea that everyone really is cis, because after all, not many people (dare to) say otherwise; which in turn stunts efforts to spread awareness as many people who might have identified as trans if they had had the resources to know more about it don’t have those resources in the first place. And sticking to that as the norm creates the expectation to conform. It creates the idea that people, even those who aren’t cis, need to be cis, or at least pretend to be; because that is the norm and such thinking inherently comes with pressure to adhere to it.

Assuming cis by default makes it that much harder for trans people to say anything to the contrary, because they don’t see very many people who have the same experiences they do and may not necessarily know if it is safe to talk about it. If everyone assumes that everyone else is cis unless they make a big fuss about it, trans people may very understandably not want to make a big fuss. Maybe they’ll feel, like I did, that the only thing they can do is quietly fade into the background; to try and hide, and try not to draw too much attention to themselves, or out themselves as anything other than “the norm”.

What we all need to do is be more welcoming and inclusive, right off the bat; not because we know for certain that there are LGBTQ+ individuals in our midst, but because we recognise the possibility that there could be. Because we, as a society, recognise that there are many different expressions of gender and sexuality, and all are legitimate and valid.

I don’t want to fade quietly into the background. I don’t want to not be seen, not even by other LGBTQ+ people — those who should be my fellows. That sounds incredibly egotistical, but what I really mean is that I don’t want other LGBTQ+ people to look out at the world and not see themselves reflected in it and think that they are alone; the way I did before the charity stream began.

You are not alone. We are here. We are queer. And we should be proud of it.

For me, Susie Green’s line about simply letting trans people know that they are safe around you resonated with me deeply. For me, it was a call to action. I couldn’t hide any longer, privately satisfied with my own answer that I guess I just won’t bother defining who I am. That approach didn’t sit right with me after that. I want to be known; not for my own sake, because I’m an asocial fuck who couldn’t care less what other people think of me. But hopefully to be recognised; for someone else to see themselves in me and think, “Hey, maybe that person could relate to me. Maybe they know a thing or two about gender dysphoria and would be willing to listen to me. Maybe that’s a person I could talk to.”

That was what motivated me to come out. But I’m writing about my decision to come out as if it was a very simple process. It wasn’t. I make it sound as if I was just getting on with my life; then I happened to see the charity stream; and that inspired me to come out, and so, I did. In reality, gender issues have been interwoven with my psyche my whole life. Videos and discussions on social justice, representation and important issues within marginalised communities are something I actively seek out. And even when I felt like I really wanted to come out — to show others that they would be safe with me, and that I would welcome them and refrain from judgment — there were still things getting in the way there, too. And it was difficult.

The first time I heard Susie Green’s story on the stream, about her and her daughter and how things could be made better for today’s youth, I cried a lot. I thought about it a lot. I watched nothing but Donkey Kong for days on end, and dreamt about it too: not necessarily about the game itself (but also about the game itself), but the people, and their voices and their thoughts and their stories. I was trying to make sense of it all. For over a whole month now — ever since my husband and I started watching the stream — my head has been filled with thoughts on gender. It has overtaken my entire life ever since, and that’s because I want to do more, be more — and even this first step of simply coming out of the closet myself has taken a lot of preparation. Far more than I thought it would, actually.

For over a month, I have lived, breathed and dreamed gender non-stop. And thinking non-stop about such emotionally heavy, difficult issues does take its toll; especially when you include the multiple conversations I had about coming out with multiple people, multiple times.

But those difficulties I experienced with coming out weren’t what was getting in the way of coming out. The real difficulty there was giving myself permission to be anything but “woman” in the first place.

Remember feminism? Remember that feeling I had that, if I were truly a feminist, I would be proud to be a woman — not actively wishing womanhood away. I had unlearnt and relearnt a great many things about what it truly meant to be a woman; and ultimately, what it meant was to be human, just the same way as men were human. But even so, I did not know where matters of discrimination based on sex ended, and matters of individuality began. When it came to how I felt about myself, how much of it was to do with my sex? How much of that, in turn, was due to sexism? How exactly did I feel about myself, on the individual level, if, hypothetically, sex and sexism had (and had had) no part to play in it?

I didn’t exactly know.

Fortunately, my subconscious had the answer, even when my conscious mind did not. Some of the dreams I had about the Donkey Kong stream were mindless, repetitive, and nonsensical; just as the Donkey Kong 64 game itself is mindless, repetitive, and nonsensical. I dreamt only of hbomberguy getting endlessly stuck on puzzles and wandering around in circles — not so different from the real stream, then(!) When he cleared one level, he was faced with another, and another, and another; the game stretching endlessly on, in the way that dreams do. But the final dream I had about the stream was far more emotionally significant.

In that dream, I dreamt not about the game, but the stream itself. I dreamt about the chat, and the Discord channel for other YouTubers and allies that had been set up there. In my dream, for whatever reason, I had been accepted to join the mic call. I was able to talk directly to Harry himself and the guest stars; I was able to be a part of the stream as it went out live over the internet. I was able to talk to them all first-hand. I wept at the opportunity, and I thanked them all so much for doing this; I wanted them to know how much it meant, for them to be so open and so brave and for standing up for what was right. I told them how wonderful it was to hear them talk about their own experiences and their identities, because I was still struggling with mine. I told them about my dysphoria and my disillusionment with being “a woman”; but how I lacked the certainty and the conviction to do anything about it. I also told them about the guilt I felt as a feminist; that pursuing an identity as anything other than “woman” felt like it would be very un-feminist of me.

At that, I could very clearly imagine Harry’s face and hear his voice as he gave a bewildered, “What?!” And, to be honest, it’s probably the same reaction I would have had as well, if someone else had told me the same thing. And that’s because, as Dream Harry went on to say, that’s not what feminism is about. Feminism is not about forcing yourself to be a certain way, or about trying to be what you think someone else wants you to be regardless of the personal cost to yourself — so much so that you end up disempowering yourself in the process. Feminism, rather, is about empowerment. It’s about giving a voice to the marginalised and, in the case of trans rights and gay rights, telling them that who they are is real, and that they are worthy, too.

The stream itself is proof of that. It’s an example of the community coming together to support trans rights and recognising that transgender identities are valid identities too. No-one should be forced into a box that does not fit them, but allowed to define themselves for themselves. That included me, too.

And it was weird when I imagined the YouTubers telling me this in the dream, because it made me think about how I would respond if it was somebody else telling me they were trans. And if someone else came to me saying they were trans, I would accept them straight away, exactly as they were. I’d encourage them to be true to themselves and do what feels right for them, whatever form that may take. My own personal beliefs are that trans women are real women; trans men are real men; non-binary people are real people (even though I didn’t know that non-binary identities even existed until recently); and that feminism is about raising everyone up and empowering them, and accepting and embracing everyone as they really are. I would never tell anyone else they were being un-feminist just for being themselves; indeed, I would fight for their right to be themselves. I would regard them with unconditional love, and respect what they were telling me about themselves; accepting it as true without question. I would never tell them that their identity was wrong.

But it took hbomberguy telling me the same thing in a dream for me to actually apply those principles to myself, too.

Until experiencing the stream and hearing the personal accounts of other trans people first-hand, I had still been tied down into thinking that being for women’s rights meant that I was locked into being a woman myself; or that I was doing some kind of disservice to the cause if I were to acknowledge myself as anything else. But, for everyone to be free to be themselves and to be accepted without hate and without prejudice is the cause.

That was a conclusion that maybe I should have been able to come to on my own; but either I couldn’t, or just didn’t. It took hearing all of the wonderful people participating in the Donkey Kong stream talking about their experiences for me to realise that, maybe I was okay the way I was, too.

Discovering feminism and learning that I could be exactly the way I was and still be a woman had been an important step for me. But it was not the end of my journey. I had to go a step beyond that. Knowing that I could identify as a woman, with no degradation to myself, was one thing; but learning that I could also not identify as a woman if I so chose was also an important milestone. There are more options in life than the arbitrary one we get assigned to us at birth; and for me, being so uncomfortable with mine, I saw no reason to try and force it upon myself any longer.

I hadn’t been at all sure at first where the line was between respecting women and recognising that I myself was not a woman. But now, with the help of feminism, the Nightmare Stream and the dream that it inspired, all the amazing people who participated, and even just the knowledge that an amazing charity like Mermaids even exists and is doing great work in the world… I think I’ve disentangled myself and disavowed myself from enough sexist notions that I know that it’s not that I don’t believe in being a woman. It’s that I do believe in being an individual. And as an individual, speaking on the personal level, not only do I not follow the stereotypes and/or the mandated patterns of behaviour prescribed for my sex; I don’t want to, either. There is still something to be said for how maybe those stereotypes ought not to exist in the first place, and maybe then I wouldn’t mind so much what my sex was or what my gender was. But they do, and so I do, and I know the path that has been laid out for me is not the one I want to walk down.

And I also know that, if I hadn’t’ve been motivated to come out now, even after hearing all those brave and courageous voices; even after hearing all those incredible stories of personal tragedy, triumph, and strength; even after experiencing something which, even though I was only an onlooker, nevertheless felt made me feel like there was a space for me after all, and made me feel like I was home… then I was probably never going to come out. Ever. If even that experience, which moved me so much, could not bring me to accept myself, then it would probably have never happened.

What Mermaids and the Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream gave me was something invaluable: they gave me permission to give myself permission to be who I was all along. It taught me that I was allowed to be who I was; and that who I was was okay. That’s why the work Mermaids does is so valuable: so that no child has to go through this all alone, navigating complex topics without the words to properly explain it. Mermaids gives love and support and important information and resources, so that each child can come to terms with themselves and accept themselves the way they are. And that’s much more preferable than being a grown-ass adult trying to get your shit together when you have no clue what you’re doing; scrambling to put the broken pieces back together when really, you were never broken at all.

So, that leads me to writing this declaration:

I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable with the gender norms thrust upon you because of your sex.

I know what it’s like when your internal experiences of yourself are incongruent with said norms and other external expectations.

I know what it’s like to feel like you are wrong just for being yourself, and like an outsider in your own skin.

I know what it’s like when you are forced to acknowledge your assigned gender and a piece of you dies because that’s not who you are, and it starts to feel like you never can be who you really are as long as the world keeps reminding you otherwise.

I know what it’s like when even simple things, such as which box to tick on a form, can be a deeply divisive topic rife with internal conflict and strife. And I know and I loathe how, in my case, I have to opt for “woman” anyway, on account of my being female and there being no better option.

And I also know how I have struggled to come up with a satisfying answer about what a better option would have been, though I have found my answer now. (Although, going back to speaking more generally, simply including the simple and unassuming option “other” would be a start!)

I don’t know what the fuck I am. But I know I’m not a cis woman.

Thankfully, there’s a catch-all term for that, and that’s genderqueer. That’s why I wanted to write this post: to come to terms with myself as my new identity, and re-introduce myself as genderqueer.

And actually, the above line about not knowing what I am is no longer true, and that’s because I can get more specific than that now. Unlike when I first started writing this, I can now say that I do know what I am. Three weeks down the line, I can now say that recognising myself as genderqueer was the start of something beautiful. Through the process of writing this post — and having many, many private conversations and coming out many, many different times to many different people — I have been learning more and more about genderqueerness all the time; and, in doing so, myself.

Through those conversations and through watching and listening to the YouTube channels of other trans and non-binary individuals, I’m becoming more and more sure of myself. I’ve realised that I am very happy to identify as non-binary; and that non-binary suits me and my own situation very well. So now, it’s not that I don’t know what I am other than “not cis” and am relying on a catch-all umbrella term to cover me anyway; it’s that I know myself to be non-binary. It’s a far more accurate of a term for how I feel myself to be than “woman” ever was.

So, while I may at first have picked up the genderqueer umbrella due solely to its all-encompassing nature, only knowing at that time that I was “not cis”, it has nevertheless led to a journey of self-discovery where I’ve realised that, hey, I actually really fucking love this umbrella. And it’s a much more comfortable umbrella for me to fit under than the “woman” umbrella had been for me. It’s so much roomier under here!!

So anyway, that’s what I wanted to say. I am bi; I am genderqueer/gender non-binary; and I am still questioning. I am B and T and Q; and LGBTQ+ folks, you are safe with me.

fin

P.S. Thank you, everyone who read it this far. Thank you for tolerating my self-indulgent trite as I waffle on about my own life when, all things considered, I have enjoyed an immense amount of “comfort” — or rather, the avoidance of misfortune — because of being able to pass. I have enjoyed a lot of love and support from the people closest to me and the ones I love the most, and that is why sitting down and definitively defining my gender — when really, it is something so personal to the individual — didn’t seem to make much difference to me as an individual before now. But it might just make all the difference to someone. I’m planning on expanding my thoughts on this (namely, gender identities vs individual identities) in a future piece of writing.

That said, if you are a LGBTQ+ person reading this (or someone who is unsure, or questioning) and you are not currently out, then despite my encouragement to make ourselves seen and our voices heard, please, please, please don’t come out if you feel it is not safe for you to do so. I am only coming out now myself because it is safe for me to do so; it was just inconvenient for me before, and that’s why I didn’t do it until now. Your safety and your well-being is the number one priority, so please, do not do anything you feel uncomfortable with or which you feel might put you at risk.

P.P.S. To serve as something of a glossary: “Genderqueer” is just an umbrella term meaning “not exclusively masculine or feminine”; which falls within the umbrella term “transgender” meaning “anyone whose gender is different from that of their assigned sex”; which itself falls within the umbrella term “queer” meaning “anyone who is not exclusively heterosexual and cisgender”. There are several layers deep to this, and getting further down is just a matter of specificity.

For example, someone who is gender non-binary is genderqueer, who is trans, who is queer. Someone who is a “trans woman” or a “trans man” (as opposed to “trans” on its own) is someone who identifies as the binary identity woman or man, but were born male or female respectively. Thus, trans women and trans men obviously come under the umbrella of “trans”, but are not “genderqueer”, though they are “queer”. The Q in LGBTQ+ can thus be seen as a kind of tautology, because all LGBT individuals are by definition not heterosexual and/or cisgender, and therefore are all queer. But while all LGBT individuals are queer, not all Q+ individuals are LGBT, as they might identify as something else entirely not covered by its own letter. The Q can also stand for “questioning”. In this way, the Q catches all individuals who are unsure of where they fit in but who do not identify specifically as LGBT, and the + denotes the inclusion of all communities and identities not covered by their own letter (of which intersex, pansexual and aromantic/asexual, to name only a few, are examples).

The website OK2BME has a great page on this. Link here: https://ok2bme.ca/resources/kids-teens/what-does-lgbtq-mean/

P.P.P.S. Interested in supporting trans rights yourself? To once again paraphrase Susie Green, Mermaids CEO, a good way to support trans rights is to support trans people themselves. Look up your local trans charities, donate or volunteer if you can, call out casual transphobia when you see it, and just generally be a friend. A number of trans individuals have crowdfunding campaigns active to try and help them cover the cost of transitioning, so that is an option as well.

YouTuber and Twitter user Mama Math (link here: https://twitter.com/hellomamamath) made a spreadsheet with links to some of the guests on the Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream who consented to be listed with the details of their websites or where to follow them. The spreadsheet also includes whether or not that person is trans. If you are interested in learning more about trans rights and what it means to be trans, simply listening to the stories of those who are trans and supporting the content they make is a great place to start. Link to the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sdavyrGPnsrNdTxWBILoulCKxvIvzMkMaJoXPjNQcOI/edit#gid=0

If you are interested in watching the Donkey Kong Nightmare Steam yourself, here are the links to the parts:

Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/365966431

Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/366901309

Part 3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367450055

Part 4: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/369226467

P.P.P.P.S. (Okay, this is getting ridiculous now. This is the last post script, I swear!) In case you’re wondering, as I haven’t actually addressed it at all above, my preferred pronouns are “they/them”, as I consider “they/them” the most neutral and free of assumption. While I am not agender, I nevertheless prefer gender-neutral nouns and pronouns. I consider my own gender to be more fluid, and sometimes, “she/her” or “he/him” will feel right to me; but sometimes, they won’t. For example, if someone refers to me as “he/him” online, I won’t feel compelled to correct them and actually enjoy being referred to as such. I do not have the same euphoric reaction to “she/her”, though I understand that many people will fall into old habits and believe that it is the more “correct” term to use, even though actually it’s my least favoured out of the three. My point is that, sometimes, using “she/her” or “he/him” to refer to me may be acceptable; but using “they/them” is preferable and will always be applicable, so that is what I ask for you to use.

However, I do still have a feminine side to me, and as such, I will still relate with some feminine terminologies; but I am not “a woman”, nor do I relate exclusively to women. In this specific instance, I do ask for you to avoid calling me “a woman” and refer to me as “a person” instead.

I’m considered as something of the “mum” within the online gaming group, with others teasingly and lovingly calling me “mother”, and I love that. A very important person to me calls me “sis” or “sissy”, short for “sister”, and I wouldn’t want to change that, either. To my husband, I am still his “wife”. (I recently discovered I have a major aversion to “princess”, though, so that one’s definitely out…)

I am not truly gender-neutral, which is why I do not identify as agender; but rather, I encompass both masculine and feminine traits, and therefore I will adopt both feminine and masculine terms where they seem applicable. Some days I’ll feel more in touch with my feminine side, and some days I’ll feel more in touch with my masculine side. That doesn’t necessarily mean I want to reject all gendered terms completely, and certainly not all of the time. But I do want to introduce some gender-neutral ones into the mix, so that gender-neutrality is recognised as an option. Again, I am stating a preference, with my preference being for the gender-neutral.

As for my preferred name… well, I go by my online handle “Evani” within most game-related things, and I’m perfectly happy with that. In my mind, I know that the name “Evani” is short for “Evan-Evani”: an original character of mine who has both male and female selves (better known as the Animus and the Anima, à la Jungian psychology). Those selves are named Evan and Evani respectively, and thus they are collectively referred to as both names, even when they present as one whole and not as the two halves. I’m comfortable with my online name and don’t feel the need to change things there.

My “real” name, however… After a lot of thinking about it and batting around about a million different names and variations, I finally settled on one I was happy with: “Ievan”. (Pronounced just the same as “Evan”.)

I had been looking at all kinds of different names; starting with those which were variations on my birth name, to names which looked similar or shared the same letters, to ones which had the same semantic meaning. I couldn’t find any I liked, until a friend asked me what it was that spoke to my soul. At that point, I realised I had been trying to find a name “in keeping” with my birth name, “Stacey”; not for myself but to make the perceived adjustment easier on others around me.

But to be honest, I had never, ever liked the name “Stacey”; and changing how I spelled it to “Stacie” may have made it more tolerable, but even then, I still did not like it. I had been trying to find a new name I liked, based on an old one I didn’t. No wonder I had been having such difficulty!

Recognising that, it made no sense to base my new name for my new identity on my old one. The point of coming out as non-binary was to feel more comfortable with myself and my own identity; and adhering to my past name ran counter to that.

So, with my friend to bounce ideas off of, I took the search away from “Stacey” — the name I had never liked — and back to “Evani” — the name I had already adopted for myself some years prior and had used for myself ever since, albeit only in online settings.

I choose “Ievan” instead of “Evan”, which is perhaps the more obvious choice, because it’s an anagram of “Evani”. It also meant that, by slightly changing my online name from “Evani” to “Ievani”, I could create an amalgamation of both names. “Ievani” included both the names “Ievan” and “Evani” within it, symbolising the dual nature of the masculine and the feminine and the great deal of overlap between the two; just as I experience an overlap and a merging of the masculine and the feminine within myself. I appreciated the symbolism, as well as the fact that “Ievani” captured the same meaning to it as “Evan-Evani” did; only much more elegantly, representing “Ievan-Evani” but with much fewer letters. Having taken to “Ievani” as I did, my choice of name for “Ievan”, as opposed to “Evan”, became an easy one to make.

Plus, by spelling the name as “Ievan” with the extra “i” and not as “Evan” (even though they are both pronounced the same) meant I could have the best of both worlds: I could have a name which sounded masculine, but looked feminine. It was a blend of both, and gave me a lot of versatility and adaptability to play around with as well, owing to the fact that you can draw a lot of different nicknames and short-forms out of it. Some examples: Ieva, Eva, Ev, Evi, Evie, Eve, Iev, Ieve…Now I can basically be called whatever I feel like being called, and friends and those around me can pick out their own personally-preferred nickname for me! It grants a lot of freedom and customisation, which I love. Now, when people call me by my name, I smile instead of cringe.

(As a side-note: yes, this does make me “Ievan Evans”, and you are right, it is repetitive! But I love the peculiarity. It’s been a running gag of mine to have characters in my stories whose surname is a repeat of their first name; the first one being “Evan Evans” — the aforementioned Animus — and another one called “Luca Lucas”, though the latter is technically an assumed identity deliberately made to parallel “Evan Evans”. Now I can be a part of the joke myself, too!)

Realistically speaking, I don’t expect everyone to switch over to “Ievan” straight away. Not everyone is going to read this post, and I’m not going to choose to tell everyone who doesn’t. It’s fairly common within the queer community to not come out to everyone, and not all at once. So I accept that, to certain people, I will still be “Stacie”. And that is fine. As long as I am happy with my own identity and the way I live my own life, I can make my peace with it if I will still be “Stacie” to them.

So, if you still want to call me “Stacie”, that’s fine. I won’t fight you over it. I just might not be fine with it; but even then, it’s fine.

In regards to my writing and my self-published works: my past works were published under the name “Stacie Evans” and, in that particular regard, I think I will keep it that way going forward as well. “Stacie Evans” can be my pseudonym as an author! (Which is ironic, because usually it’s the pen name that’s supposed to be the fictitious one…) While I could legally change my name, it would be a hassle; and right now, I’m happy just adopting it for myself and testing it out.

In short, I’ll be using: Ievan for real life (including Facebook, which is more personal); Evani for games; Ievani for other social media (which I consider a mix of both); and Stacie Evans for works of poetry or fiction, as well as with those who are uncomfortable calling me Ievan.

Feeling confused? Don’t worry. You can always ask to make sure! (Which is a good idea in general, about anything; and you can apply it with pronouns, too! I personally love it when people ask my pronouns, as it confers a sense of understanding, compassion and respect.) All questions are welcome, because I believe there is no such thing as a stupid question. All questions are a chance to learn more. (But please, keep it considerate.)

Useful resources:

(not an exhaustive list; these are the things I have come across and have found helpful myself, so I am sharing them here too)

Mermaids, a UK-based charity providing support for transgender children/ young adults and their families, as well as crisis hotlines, online forums and interventions: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/

The January Donkey Kong Nightmare Stream to raise money for Memaids:

Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/365966431

Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/366901309

Part 3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367450055

Part 4: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/369226467

Spreadsheet of the participants in the Donkey Kong Nightmare Steam, with links to their Twitter and YouTube accounts: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sdavyrGPnsrNdTxWBILoulCKxvIvzMkMaJoXPjNQcOI/edit#gid=0

Let’s Queer Things Up!, a blog about all things queer: https://letsqueerthingsup.com/

More from LQTU! content creator: https://samdylanfinch.contently.com/

Specific article linked to on the above about what it means to be genderqueer: https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/genderqueer

Specific article linked to on the above about what it means to be gender non-binary: https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/nonbinary

Genderqueer Me, a website with featured voices from transgender individuals and their families, as well as online talks about trans issues and information regarding transition: https://genderqueer.me/

OK2BME, supportive services for the LGBTQ+ community: https://ok2bme.ca/

Private YouTube playlist I made of videos I have watched, discussing transgender and non-binary experiences and identities, which are of personal relevance to me in some way or which discuss things which are particularly useful or important when it comes to developing an understanding of the transgender spectrum (also not an exhaustive list; I plan to keep adding videos as I find them): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv7NUhc6gDOr1AW13CmlZujWAEo2Msyh

#genderqueer #nonbinary #coming out #queer #queers on tumblr

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