A confusing smorgasbord of antipathies

I was born in the 70s. That gender could have a separate definition to biological sex wasn't a question that had hit the general public consciousness, so I grew up in a gender normative environment at a time when biological sex and gender were considered to be the same and immutable.

Sixty years after the suffragettes started the feminist movement, my mother's generation pushed the cause forward. My mother taught me to ignore society's sexist prejudices. I learnt from her to not limit my ambitions or accept being treated as lesser.

Fast forward another two generations and sexism is still ubiquitous, if less blatant, and it still blighting women's lives around the world.

The place we find ourselves in now, where we are challenging the notion that biological sex and gender are the same or that is gender is immutable, has been a long time in arriving. If it mirrors the slow progress made by the feminist movement, there could be many decades of struggle ahead, and still further to go beyond that.

I have a confusing smorgasbord of antipathies to both my biological sex and my gender: childhood sexual abuse; a deadly disease linked to my biological sex; the risk reduction surgery that removed my breasts, ovaries and fallopian tubes; being treated and paid less favourably than male colleagues; my disinclination to conform to the gender stereotypes of how I'm supposed to dress or behave; and my disinterest in supposedly feminine interests.

It's not that I want to be male either by biology or by gender.

If gender is a social construct, it is a shitty one. Who would choose to be respected less, paid less, and have fewer opportunities than the other gender? 

My sexual biology is sucky too. Who would willingly choose to bleed one week out of four for 50 years? Who would choose the pain and hormonally driven emotional flux which accompanies that cycle? Who would choose a decade of hot flushes, joint pain, brain fog, or the other symptoms that follow the end of that cycle?

I didn't choose the genetic defect that disables several of my body's defences to cancers that can develop in the organs and glands related to my biological sex. I didn't rush to have those surgically removed. Arguably I hung on to them too long. Two cancers too long.

They're gone now and honestly I don't miss them. 

In fact when my breasts were removed I reconnected with my pre-puberty self. I rediscovered the joys of sleeping face down, running without boobs bouncing painfully and embarrassingly. I was freed from wearing that most horrendous and tortuous support garment - the bra. 

I remember puberty clearly. It was awful, and I didn't welcome any of the changes it brought.

I'd be happier having no biological sex and no gender.

I suspect I'm not alone.