Genderqueer, Deaf, Chinese, Jewish transgender artist and author Chella Man recently posted about mourning the erasure of lived experieces as a femme individual with society percieving him as a cisgender man: “I identify genderqueer, but am never assumed to be..I refuse to mold myself into any stereotype in order to be validated,” he writes.

On Christmas Eve, I had the joy of meeting my second cousin for the first time since being out. Although we’ve always lived continents apart, it never feels like it: we always pick up right where we left off.

In my confusing ramble of the queer terms I use to describe myself —interrupted by blaring speakers and christmas lights in the botanist themed outdoor pub— he was trying to understand where I lie within ‘LGBTQ’ and I replied saying “all of the above.”

I tried to explain, but soon got distracted within my own explanation and didn’t quite get to what I was trying to say. So here I am now, with and without more clarity.

Femme Trans Man. NonGendered Butch Bisexual. 404GenderNotFound D*ke. Trans NonBinary Twink. Gender Nonconforming Pansexual. Butch Gay Man.

The point of collecting these perceivably contradictory terms is an attempt to label the contradiction itself.

All the labels apply to me, while simultaneously not applying to me – a conflict between the truth with which I have come to realize myself and the confusion created by how I am perceived.

I have always and will always be a gender-nonconforming transgender person. And having access to the fluidity, language and spaces to understand this, has created the base of understanding the conflicts that prevented me from living fully before, and the steps that will help me be whole and comfortable from within.

I’ve realized I will always be fitting into some norms while being indiscernible for others.

My hope is for this indiscernibility to become redundant – there has been so much comfort in finding a label, but the power now comes from knowing that all labels apply to me because none of them can.