You feel pressure to be a certain kind of man or woman
You feel pressure to fit a prescribed mold of how your gender is supposed to be — to look, act, want, and live the way a man or woman is expected to. Parts of you do not fit the mold, and the constant pressure to conform to it, to be the right kind of man or woman, cramps you, demanding you cut off the parts of yourself that fall outside the template.
I refused the mold of what a woman must be in an age that allowed her almost nothing else, so I know this pressure and how to meet it. The mold was made by others and handed to you as nature — presented as simply what you are supposed to be, but made by particular people for particular purposes and handed down as fixed truth, when it is one narrow invention among many; you were handed a costume and told it was your skin. The mold serves some and cramps others — it fits some naturally and others like a cage, so if you feel it as constriction, it is because it was not made for the actual you, and the discomfort is a real self chafing against a false shape, not a failure to be properly your gender. And you may be your gender in your own way — keeping what fits, discarding what does not, for there are countless ways to be a man or woman and yours is as valid as any. What parts of you don't fit the mold?
What changes unlock by starting
- You see the mold is a made rule, not nature
- You see the discomfort as a real self against a cage
- You keep what fits and discard what doesn't
- You inhabit your gender in your own way