I have been struggling with expressing my gender, both to myself and my allies(Family/friends) I recently asked my mom if I could get a binder for use on my more masculine days. She was very put down by the idea. My mom is generally very accepting, and has stood with me for as long as I've been out to her. I was primarily quite confused as to why she would outright refuse my request. Did she not understand what genderfluid meant? Did she not grasp the concept that she had in fact, lost her daughter? When I asked her, this was her argument. "You shouldn't care about what other people think of how you look/act. You shouldn't care about how you look/act. Guys can have breasts too. You should just be the best "you" that you can be. You be you." Are you seeing the irony yet? I can't be "me", if I'm a girl, but if I express myself as masculine, then I'm not being "me", in my original, or current state. At the same time, I'll always be "me," because I'm, well... Me. I love paradoxes, but this is just confusing, can someone explain what I should do? Shoot, I posted this in the wrong forum. Ah well. Guess it fits here too.
You should be allowed to be comfortable, two ways to be comfortable are to change appearance or actions; and to not care what others think. If nothing can hurt someone emotionally, it is harder to make them happy/glad/joyful.
People tend to throw out the words "just be you" a lot these days to be politically correct, but in reality, their views towards the subject at hand are still pretty hypocritical. Anyway, as for your situation, you should tell your mom that being unable to wear a binder hinders you from feeling your most "you" self and that it's unfair and also contradictory to what she had said earlier. If she's still adamant about it, you might have to find some other means of obtaining one or wait until you're older and have your own independence.
