I have a lot of internalized homophobia. And it sucks. There’s no mystery what it’s doing there, of course—four decades of defending myself against accusations that, well, turned out to be true after all. At least I can grapple with it now, and understand what it’s covering for.

It’s so irrational. I’m not even male, right. If anything it’s become more and more clear to me that I’m not just non-binary (though that too, now and forever) but an actual girl as well. Still, there’s this deeply ingrained discomfort and fear that I have to work against when I find a guy attractive, even just aesthetically.

There’s this Portishead lyric that’s always stuck with me; for decades the way I thought it went was, “Did you realize / No one can see inside your view? / Did you realize / The world inside belongs to you?” As it turns out, that’s not at all what she’s saying. But still, as a closeted queer you can imagine what sort of terror I had over my thoughts, their implications, and what would happen if I got caught thinking the things I was thinking.

On top of a few major tasks and changes of practice for this year, I’m trying to make it a project to get over most of this deep-seated shame I’ve been lugging around in regard to every aspect of who I am and how I think and behave. The fact that I have a body with biological functions. That I have emotions and senses and ideas about things that may not be what people want me to be thinking or feeling, but that are true nonetheless.

It’s like, just shut up, amygdala. Trying to appreciate a thing here. I’m not gonna die. Stop making me feel like that.

Weirdly I also feel a similar, if way less pronounced, freak-out with attraction to binary women. That also feels like this terrible no-go zone, like what if anyone catches me. It’s only that wibble room of enbies and gnc folk where my brain unclenches a bit and feels safer. Which makes very little real sense, but here we are. Emotions. Trauma. They make their own rules.

I have a lot of aversions, some of which are genuine and constitutional and are a part of who I am as a person. This garbage, it’s always been this way—but it’s dumb. This isn’t me; this is just damage.

I don’t have to be afraid of myself anymore. And I know this.

There’s just a lot of wiring to strip out still.