A thing to remember is that cis people often have a strange and fraught relationship with gender too. There are consequences in failing to adequately perform one’s assigned gender, even if one agrees with it. Achieving Maximum Gender is a big power goal for many cis people, especially neurotypical ones. It’s something more to win at.

When cis people feel undermined or shown up in their gender performance, or are misgendered, it’s a Big Fucking Deal. So if you’re trans and feeling weird about your whole situation, take solace in understanding it’s not you. It’s the concept of gender. Everyone struggles.

Well, not everyone. But anyone. That’s the nature of performance. People are just people, really, the lines we draw are arbitrary, and everyone’s faking this thing to try to meet some external standard. Not everyone picks up the skills or applies them the same way if at all. Some are years behind their peers.

What’s important in the end is just figuring out a way to like yourself. Be the person who you recognize as “me” and can feel feel comfortable inside. That’s it. That’s all. Whether you’re cis or trans. Playing someone else’s game is just a recipe for despair. People are people.