as Enby
I was assigned male at birth (AMAB). I lived identifying as male for more than 35 years. Though I did not begin to question this identification for a long time, eventually things shifted and I realized I would be happier if I could let go of this label. For years I would secretly crossdress, trying on some of my spouse’s clothes when I was home alone. I simply loved wearing sundresses and sweater dresses.
I had always been one of those guys who hung out mostly with girls. I had few male friends. While I did play some sports in school, my focus was on drama, writing, and other less “masculine” spaces. The fact of the matter was that I always felt that relationships with guys were inherently competitive: discouraging and punishing vulnerability, and requiring me to put on an act. I always preferred to have female doctors and therapists, so that I felt like I had the space to be vulnerable and admit that not everything was okay.
I’ve suffered from depression and seasonal affective disorder for most of my life. When the COVID pandemic began, I was spirling. I’m an extrovert and was unable to “recharge my batteries” by getting out of the house and being with other people. It was during this time that I began to realize that crossdressing was relieving my depression. By this time my wife knew that I sometimes wore her clothes, and I began buying some of my own. I began to hang out on Reddit in crossdressing forums and began to hear more stories from gender nonconforming people.
Then it hit me. When I got depressed, my depression was compounded by a feeling that I was being “unmasculine.” I would be emotional, easily hurt, and felt like I was being needy. These feelings just added shame to the depression and made everything worse.
I had a choice. I could keep kicking myself when I was down. I could spend years of therapy trying to let go of that shame with no promise that I would ever succeed. OR, I could simply let go of the idea of needing to conform to society’s idea of being “male.”
I came out to my family and close friends as nonbinary. I began using both he and they pronouns. I wore what made me feel good when I could (I have remained closeted in my professional spaces due to working in nonaffirming Christian spaces). I began to accept that just as I sometimes wanted to wear a suit and tie to feel handsome, I also wanted sometimes to wear a sundress and eye shadow to feel pretty. I stopped judging my feelings for being the wrong kind of feelings and accepted that they were only feelings and therefore neither good nor bad.
This has been one of the most freeing decisions of my life and I only wish I had made it sooner.
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