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connection to gender/feeling of performance/is it more freeing?

hi everyone!

     so, i've read about this in other places online and i've definitely experienced it myself, but i want to put words to it just to get a vague idea of what you guys think about it.

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     firstly, i'd like to discuss the way many autists connect to their own gender. personally, i'm AFAB, and i mostly feel like a "girl," but it's hard for me to even picture/feel what a girl *is* without feeling like i'm giving in to reactionary 1950s rhetoric ("girls are soft, gentle, nurturing, sensitive, beautiful, bubbly, sweet..." etc.). i guess i have a softer/more "feminine" personality, but i can't help wondering if it's just a result of being socialized that way because i'm AFAB - would i be different if i was AMAB? who knows? so i dont feel my gender/sex as an *inherent* thing the way a lot of neurotypicals seem to. i dont know if i fit into the definition because i don't know what the definition is. does the definition expand with every individual identifying as a girl? because then what are they identifying as? it feels so tricky. i feel disconnected from other people in general a lot of the time, but i feel disconnected from my gender sometimes too. is "performing femininity" adjacent to "performing neurotypicality" or am i feeling a genuine disconnect? how do you guys feel/think about this?

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     is it more freeing to be this way? with this sort of a perspective, it sort of feels like it's easier to mentally disconnect sex, gender, and gender performance (that is the aforementioned "x gender has x, y, z traits and b gender has a, b, c traits), so it seems like it'd be easier to question oneself/figure things out/stop performing, ultimately, and accept different gender identities?

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thank you to everyone who answers!


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