###Thoughts on Gender by a Cis Man
    I am a man. And in regards to my journey, I was born a man. My parents' and grandparents' perception of me has always been through the lens of my manliness. I was looking through texts and letters recently and outside of my ex, I genuinely don't think I have ever once just been referred to as a "good person", always as a "good man", "strong man", or "independent man". I have always had to hide from my family what I really feel because of the fact that every time they praised me or complimented me, it was on the fact that I was doing what a man "should" do. Whether I was looking out for myself instead of letting others care for me, or volunteering to do manual labor, or taking grief on the chin without telling anybody what had happened, it was all good in their eyes not because I did what I felt was right, but because I did it like a man. 
    I want to wear earrings. I want long hair. I want to be doted on. I want to be able to tell someone what's wrong. I want to be able to love someone who isn't a conventionally hyper-feminine woman. But I can't. At this point, not only because I worry about how my family will view me, but because it has been drilled into me so much throughout my life that whenever I do these things, I feel such overwhelming shame that I just start shaking and hyperventilating. I want the love of my family, but I also want the love of myself.
    When I was 18, I was visiting my grandparents. We were having a good time making some earrings as a birthday gift for my sister, when in order to see how they fit on someone, My grandmother had me try them on and take a picture. I had never even imagined myself with earrings before then, but I genuinely felt such an immediate feeling of comfort and love when I saw myself with them on. It looked like how I imagined myself. I said aloud, half-joking, "Wow, I look good with earrings!" My normally very accepting and loving grandmother said fully without emotion, "No, Caleb, earrings are good on (your sister), but not for you." It's hard to express how hurt I was hearing that. I didn't say anything back, but I just felt so shunned. That the way I felt about myself and how I looked was wrong, and that I was failing my family by doing so. I still have never tried even clip-on earrings after that. I just don't know if I could, worrying that somewhere, somehow, my family would know.
    I had long hair, down around my shoulders, all throughout middle school. It was enough that I was called some rather homophobic names by a few of my teachers (gotta love South County). When I was going into high school, however, I asked my grandfather how I could make myself look older and more respectable, since I knew I was going to be in a few classes with kids much older than me. His answer was mostly joking about wearing button-ups, slacks, and chucks like he did when he was in college, but also that I should cut my hair short. I asked him why I should cut it, especially since so many older people had hair far longer than mine. He said that a young man should never have hair longer than the shortest hair that a young woman would have. It's a very old-fashioned sentiment, but it stuck with me. I cut my hair plenty short and kept it that way up until I moved out. It was so deep within me that I even kind of resented girls with short hair. Not because I truly believed they were being amoral deviants, but because they were accepted by their family as how they wanted to appear. When I did move out, I decided to try out an undercut, flirting with the idea of having longer hair while still making it distinct, even conventionally manly if I were lucky enough for it to be seen that way. This style has stuck with me, but eventually it got long enough that when visiting with my Dad, he said I had a "girls haircut", and that while it didn't make him upset, or that he didn't like it, it was "very surprising". I cut it that night.
    There's too much to talk about regarding emotional expression. Too many occurrences over too much of my life. I'll use one anecdote. After my Mother's funeral, on the way back home, dropping my Dad off, I hugged him for the first time in easily 2 years. He said to me, "Are you okay, Bud?" I was so infuriated by being asked this after my mother had died. No. Of course I was not okay. But I knew what he meant. He didn't want to know if I was really okay, he was asking if I was going to keep my emotions to myself and put it away. I said yes.
    When I was in college, I had two gay hookups, almost entirely because I was very lonely, and due to a disastrous ending to my only real long-term relationship a month prior, I was questioning my sexuality heavily. After both, I ghosted the other guy. I don't know why. I just felt so much shame after getting home. I didn't tell anyone that it had happened. I thought I would be mocked, or shamed for it. I told a friend of mine vaguely that I thought I might be bi, only for him to respond that I "just want to feel special" as if my attraction to fundamental aspects of other people's presentation is not inherent or personal, but a performance for others. I still don't know where I am with my sexuality, and don't really know how to think or talk about it.
    My family is surprisingly very accepting of my trans sister, and of my trans cousins. Every single one of them; trans men, trans women, and my enby cousin, are all treated very well. They are given traditionally affirming gifts, gendered correctly, and almost never deadnamed (never intentionally). But I worry that it's just because they "fit" their chosen gender. Because my transmasc cousins are both very traditionally masculine, because my transfem relatives are all very traditionally feminine, and because my non-binary cousin is very androgynous. I don't completely fit as a man, and so I don't fit in my families ideals of what I should be like.
    I have told several friends of mine broadly what I feel about my gender expression, and have almost entirely been met with either "you must be a trans woman / an egg" or "you must be non-binary". I'm neither. I am a man, I want to be referred to as a man. I love when my family or friends compliment me for being a good man. I avoid the things I've listed specifically because they get in the way of that, but I want to be able to be open about how I wish to present while still being seen as a man. I'd even want to feel that way around one person. Anyone. I just want the ways that I am masculine to be enough. I want to be considered a man without needing to keep my hair short, dress like shit, not wear jewelry, be a miserable loner, or hide who I love from my family. I want it to be enough for someone.
    I am posting this on here because I can't let it stay inside me but I also can't just tell everyone. If this stays here where it's technically public, I can lie to myself that people saw it and I'm one step closer to being comfortable with who I am. I'm sorry if this comes off to anyone as over-sharing or self-important. I just need to feel like I'm saying something, like it's not just all in my head.