I liked reading this post. It reminds me a _lot_ of how I exist as nonbinary (in terms of trying real hard to be "nonthreatening" to the cis people I interact with) and the frustration of "people should be able to explore their gender without immediately committing to something and be able to change their gender when it feels right to do so without it being seen as "detransitioning" (or detransitioning being seen as bad) and aaaaah!

Your comment about outward ease but inward hell is _so familiar_ from the three years at work before I was out. Luckily enough, I work at a place that pretends to be liberal enough that I haven't had to quit, and I do cry about my gender a lot less.

***

Specifically looking at the multiple part of it, I'm so much on the dividing line between multiple and singlet _anyways_ that integrating wouldn't make sense for me. (I don't know if there's really a word for a system where there's essentially only one person who ever fronts or presents themself, but does have a small handful of others hanging around in the background and occasionally making themselves known internally if not externally.) Integrating seems like it would be a lot of work for something that wouldn't really change anything, and definitely wouldn't change in good ways (I would miss having Gabriel and Alis around if they integrated).

I like your writing and I regularly feel very lucky to get to read it. Thank you for sharing these parts of yourself.

~Sor