facial hair

GG: god shaving sucks so much lol

GG: im supposed to do this basically every day to keep appearances up. its only probably 5 minutes tops now that ive gotten pretty much everything off, but still.

GG: (nb: nobody else is telling me to shave Every Day but that is prolly pretty much the regularity necessary to keep stubble from getting distinctly visible)

facial hair, mh, passing, fursuits somehow

GG: shaving just feels so... artificial, on me
GG: trying to effectively pass as cis/binary-enough always feels sucky, even if im predisposed to not have that hard of a time doing it successfully
GG: like, i know i pass easily but it still feels like running around in a fursuit and trying to convince people that it really is my genetic, organic body

GG: when asked a few days ago if i had a fursona, i said not really, and described my body—with facial hair and all—as the closest thing
GG: like... im so absorbed into my identity because it is actually literally me, and i was using my body to express that, and now im just Not

GG: its not terribly bad and i dont feel dysphoria or a deep disconnection because of it, bc i strongly feel my body is no more than a single way of expressing my self, but it still feels made-up yknow? like role-playing to deceive someone—im good enough at it, but its still specifically disingenuous, and that feels sucky

facial hair, mh, passing, "true self", transphobia

GG: something which has become a bit of a grounding philosophy for me in the last few months is this idea that nobody can really know you, not the true you; thats something deep inside you
GG: it lessens a good deal of the sting when other folks dont perceive me the same way i do, because like, of course they dont? theres not a person in the world who sees me in the exact way i do! people will only ever work off approximations
GG: that framework lets me express myself in only the ways which are practical without feeling like im losing any of that true self—occasionally i have to go by the body name, mostly when interacting with government, health, and other official stuff, and yes, that sucks a little, but its just a word, and neither the body name nor my own could ever fully encapsulate my identity or true self

GG: i think the context makes it a bit harder to swallow changing my body, though; a name is just a name (for me!), but my body is a place i specifically express abnormality and personal uniqueness. changing it to fit in with passing binary trans women - or cis women - is in direct opposition to that
GG: and im doing it for self-preservation, yknow? so that i look good to employers and general people around workspaces

GG: to me, using the body name is like saying, "okay, here's the name you can call me and use in your systems, since it's more convenient, i don't mind being called by it, and i respect your convenience when dealing with hundreds of clients/people every day"
GG: whereas passing femme is totally different: "i'm sorry, but i don't trust you, or the people you will put me around, to not hurt my chances at employment, or put me in physical/emotional/mental danger for what i am. i am presenting myself this way as a mechanism of self-defense, so you don't think i'm weird and bring me pain."
GG: i feel like i must not be the only one who feels that way about passing! i can deal, but it sucks, yknow