My experience of my own gender has never been set in stone. Even when I was in primary school, I remember feeling different somehow. I was a ‘tomboy’ some days, wearing my cousins’ hand me down clothes, playing in mud and fascinated by insects and frogs. Other days, I wanted to dance and sing to musical numbers wearing my grandma’s long frilly nightie. I loved dressing up and pretending I was someone else.

Come to think of it, I often wanted to be the ‘boy’ in games of pretend. When I started dance classes, I was usually learning the lead or the ‘male’ steps. Probably because I was tall, but there was another element to it as well. I felt like it just made sense. Saying that, it was also a source of major anxiety and secrecy.

Fast forward and, as an adult, I understand my experience and my expression of gender as a fluid thing. Something unrestricted by appearance or how other people might perceive and experience me. For me, gender also feels tied to my sexuality in some ways but not always. I am learning to be more playful and experimental in my expression – to care less about the opinion of others. My understanding is that we all encapsulate different elements of gender and to varying degrees; masculinity, femininity and other elements that feel genderless or, at least, beyond the description of gender that we have inherited. It might feel more or less ‘set in stone’ depending on your experience or you might not share this viewpoint at all.

The Online Cambridge Dictionary has three definitions of ‘Fluidity’:

‘The quality of being likely to change repeatedly and unexpectedly’

‘The quality of being smooth and continuous’ (formal)

‘(of a substance) the quality of not being solid and able to flow’

(Cambridge University Press & Assessment, 2025)

All three of these definitions apply to my understanding of my experience and expression of gender. My gender is changeable depending on the situation, on my headspace and where I find myself in life. Nowadays, my experience feels more ‘smooth and continuous’ and ‘able to flow’, although there are times when I find it jarring – usually when I perceive judgement or expectation from others and, sometimes, from within myself.

The attitude that I try to cultivate towards many things in life is that nothing is fixed, unchangeable or forever. It’s a working project not to mention a scary prospect at times… as well as an exciting one.

We all have some desire within us to keep hold of things tightly, to be certain that nothing will change, to be reassured that we won’t have to find a new way to be. But keeping a tight hold doesn’t allow for much movement and stiff, rigid materials often break under enough pressure.

My ask of anyone reading this, is to cultivate a gentle curiosity around gender. Not with the aim of changing your viewpoint or your own identity, but I believe that more fluidity in thinking, allows for more understanding and acceptance of different experiences.

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