Meet Sahm

My name is Sam (pronounced Sahm). I am gender nonconforming - on the edge of gender neutral. I've been mistaken for a lesbian.. Once even by my own mother, who sat me down to explain to me that she would accept me even if I was. It was nice for her to reach out to me but the reason she felt the need to talk to me about it was that I just didn't 'fit in' to the female label. I grew up on a farm, I had one brother, and I was home schooled. While my fellow females thought that I was broken for crying when forced to wear a dress or received yet another baby doll for Christmas, I was just happily being myself!

This constant pressure from other women has made me uncomfortable most of my life. The marketing targeted to us makes me feel uncomfortable. The aisles and aisles of colorful clothes, shoes and makeup generally leave me anxious and stumped. What do I do with all of this? Stick me on a farm with a bunch of dirty stalls though and you'll have someone happily mucking away and teaching you tricks to make it easier. Stick me in front of makeup and watch me make myself look like a clown. Or put me in front of a gym and watch me know the proper forms of every lift. Tell me I WILL eventually want babies and watch me get frustrated and even angry. Or put me in front of a room full of homeless animals and watch me try to convince my husband to allow me to sneak them all into our one bedroom apartment. 

I am a complex individual, and I love myself for who I am. I cannot change myself. I know, I have attempted to do so many times. I have tried to 'reinvent' myself to being more feminine. I have applied make up everyday, had a rigorous leg and underarm shaving routine, along with hair and face cleansing routine. I have tried to get better clothes and spend hours on top of hours researching laboriously how to apply perfect makeup or how to look flawlessly in only 30 minutes. And it will all last me maybe 2 days before I decide I just can not manage to do it. My priorities, wants and needs are all elsewhere. I cannot force myself to follow the 'feminine trends' of our society. 

So in this realization I did some searching, I originally did my searching looking to see if there was something wrong with me. I spent years battling the expectation of my elders and peers. But instead online I found a surprisingly accepting community. Sure there is a lot of hate, but you can find out a lot about yourself if you just look. And I found it. Gender nonconforming. Simply put I am a female who doesn't conform to societal standards. I instantly felt a weight being taken off of me. Suddenly it was like someone hugged me and told me for the first time that it was ok. Sure I had met my share of those people who don't give a fuck about what anyone else thought, but I never had much success feeling that way towards others. But now, instead, I found 'a people'. A way to explain why I wear hoodies and jeans all the time. Or "HOW could you go out in a skirt with your legs so hairy!?". I now have a way of 'explaining' myself to the masses. 

I feel good now. I feel like I have found a way to make people understand me. The one who have been baffled by me for so long will finally have an answer. They can look it up themselves, let me explain it, or continue to be baffled by me. But at least for now I feel like I can put their acceptance into their own hands. Where its not on me to change but on them to accept me or move on.

I hope someone like me finds this one day, and realizes its not on them to 'fit in'. It's not on them to change or try to become something that you're not. It's on the rest of society to catch up with you and realize you dont need to be anything you're not.