When our value as people, our acceptance into our social groups and families, and our safety, be it bodily or otherwise, is tied to conformity, especially along gender lines, being confronted with anything remotely different, anything that might call into question what has been for decades a comfortable piece of reality as unchanging as gravity, can bring up within us inadequecy, fear, anger, shame, jealousy, envy, disgust, judgment....
Change that leads to the unknown is terrifying enough.
How much more terrifying must be a change that we know the results of, that we see happening to others, or have even participated in denying acceptance towards.
Sometimes what we feel is envy or jealousy. "Ugh," we sometimes say, "this person is better at being a woman/man than I am, and that's not even what they were born as/what they are!" Because maybe we were measured and found lacking.
And then the disgust. You're really feeling envy towards that? "I can't believe they actually live their life like that. They're actually going to act like that? In fucking public??" Because maybe we faced punishment for trying something similar, or saw others facing punishment. And who hasn't been afraid of ostracization? The world is lonely enough as is. Why make it lonelier? And when the cost isn't as small as no one wanting to date you in highschool or sitting alone at lunch, when the cost becomes another unanswered job application, or another person glaring at you in the store, or another landlord making excuses, another bill being drafted, then who on earth would feel jealous of that? Who would choose to bring that upon themselves? Curiosity killed the cat and whatever satisfaction some freak gets from playing a victim won't get the bills payed. This isn't a book. It's not a videogame. It's pretend. It's fucking life!
So we start making snide comments. We get angry. "If I had tried to do something like that when I was their age I would have been thrown on the streets in a flash," we say.
And fucking hell, isn't that sad? Do we value ourselves less than the people we're facing off from?
Did someone threaten us?
When we were kids?
When we were helpless?
Are we scared? Do we see ourselves abandoned for asking a question? Back then? Now?
We carry it all with us, every fucking day of the week, day in and day fucking out, looking at people that Don't Think Like Us, people that we want to be pathetic and weak and weird and childish even though they're able to stir up so much fucking emotion just by daring to exist, daring to talk. It's exhausting. So much of it comes down to fear, and fuck if that won't make us feel weak instead.
Because the reality is, even having something as boxed and constrained as a third gender in our worldviews will change how some of us view ourselves, will view womanhood as women and manhood as men. Hell, even taking the small step into viewing gender as a social construct may mean you've gone out of your fucking mind, at least from our social groups' perspectives. And those two things, the ways our social groups react to us and the way we conceptualize of ourselves and our in-groups, those are a big part of gender fuckery. This doesn't just change our perceptions of folks that were going to be outsiders from the start. It doesn't just impact the people going through some Big Realizations about themselves. It impacts how we see our own groups, even if we've always been a part of them, even if they "haven't been changed" by the addition of someone else.
When they've been a part of our lives for so long, we carry those "remnants" of binaries with us, even if we stop thinking in them.
But sometimes, they are changed.
Sometimes when we aren't even looking.
We go back and ask again, "How the hell is this person so good at masculinity/femininity when that's not what they are? Have I failed as a woman/man?" We feel inadequate. Gender becomes a whole new axis to compare ourselves to others on, and one that might not just be a trick of fate or luck like we assumed before.
We ask again, "How can this person live their life like that, when I can barely put on eyeliner in the morning or work up the courage to talk to the chick two cubicles over from me? If I was supposed to be brave or pretty, or have these traits of my gender, or know these things, or be good at something because I'm a man or a woman, then why does it seem like someone outside my gender is doing better than I'll ever hope to achieve?"
"Why do I want to compare myself?"
"Why am I scared?"
And this is going to sound real fucking rich coming from some queer stranger on the fucking queer gender website, but it's okay to feel.
Hell, you have to feel.
Sometimes accepting the existence of drag queens means working through some hang ups that that man in his 20s is going to be better at hair, makeup, and fashion than you. Sometimes it means accepting that the butch lesbians are going to know more "manly man" skills than you, your dad, and your grandpappy combined. Sometimes it means coming to terms with the fact that the genderqueer genderfucks are going to be every shade of weird you were denied growing up and denied others, and that some people will even go as far as to celebrate them.
And you've gotta feel.
Doesn't matter if you're in your 70s and still using dial-up and having to disconnect ever two minutes to call up your grandkids and ask another question about what this word means or what that joke is. You, too, have to feel.
Take your time.
Ask your questions.
Did someone threaten you?
Did someone look at you and find you lacking?
When you were different from your peers, did the judgment that followed have consequences too?
Were you told to stop asking questions?
Were you treated like your questions didn't have weight?
Were you treated like you weren't good enough?