[Hiraeth]

Thank you Brennan, those are very insightful words. It is difficult to see otherwise when everything and everyone around you convinces you that you have a female body (and therefore you are one :/ ). When I was very young, a body was just that, a human body - so I can see how a detached perspective is possible. Although it would take a long time and a lot of mental training to regain that.

You are right, I do spend too much time fussing over how others perceive me, and that isn't healthy at all. I just don't want female terms and pronouns used on me, that always destroys my confidence completely and instantaneously. But I'm not even sure why, as that happens even with close friends. I think I'm allowing those words to have too much power over me.

Actually, I think that I just have my whole life's worth of societal conditioning to break through - that which has instilled these words and concepts into my consciousness and told me that they do have some sort of meaning, when all of it is inherently meaningless.