gender rambles

I was born in the spaces between, assigned girl at birth, three years in dresses, three years in rooms painted soft, until my mother noticed something only a mother could. Since then, I’ve grown into boyhood like a second skin, and it fits, mostly. But beneath the fabric, there’s a seam I didn’t choose. Being intersex means your reflection doesn’t always reflect your thoughts. It means absence in language and silence in sex ed class. It means learning to understand yourself when the world has no name for who you are. I am a boy. I know that. But still, what parts of me are mine, and what parts were decided by someone else’s hands? And to grieve someone you once were..or someone you never really were..is to mourn an unfinished story, a folded chapter that no one ever came back to. Small hands, soft skin, a name that felt like someone else’s favorite story. I think about her when sleep doesn’t come, wondering what might’ve been if the trajectory hadn’t shifted. Would she have grown into something whole, or would she still have felt that same seam that’s stitched wrong?

Some days i feel guilty. My mother lost something she’s always yearned for. I can’t help but feel like I erased what she loved. 

And still, she looks at me like she’s trying to find her, hidden under new layers. And maybe she does. She treats me softer than she treats my brothers. As if gentleness can save me from revision. 

In biology, the mother cell splits and creates a daughter, an exact replica. Every part of her is expected to match. It’s the body’s way of keeping order, of repeating what already worked. Safety lies in likeness. 

But sometimes a pattern is broken and we call it a mistake. Sometimes we call it cancer. Because to change is to disrupt.