I think that if you change things such as my gender or sexuality, my life changes drastically, especially with gender. As it is right now, I am a bisexual/pansexual man who passes very easily as straight, so my life is very lowkey with my sexuality. I think that if I were either straight or fully gay, my life would not be very different, my parents wouldn’t care, I’m very open about loving whoever I want and whatever they might be, and I doubt many people would be able to tell at a passing glance if they even cared.
The gender part would be an extremely drastic change though. Many of my formative experiences and who I am today stem from my identity as a man and the traits that come along with that. My ideas of strong justice, being a protector, and my anger would all be severely affected. As a young boy, I looked up to other male figures for forming a “self” of my own. At the time, I was really into super heroes, and latched onto captain america, as I found his story of being “the good man” to be very inspiring to myself. This connects to the other part of my life which would be drastically different which is my relationship with my father. The father son relationship is extremely unique and complex, unlike any other I can think of, and that would not be the same if I were transgender, out of the binary, or a cisgender woman.
I remember one thing my dad told me which really changed my life as a young child was that he didn’t care who I grew up to be or what I did as long as I grew up to be “the good guy” in the room. That to me was sort of defined by a character like captain america, where I wanted to be the shield, the one that people could rely on and those in positions of disadvantage could go to for protection. Had I not been my father’s son, I doubt that ideal would have been given to me or taken such a hold.
I also believe that many of my hobbies, interests, career prospects, etc would all be different as well. I grew up in a semi-traditional home, where if you broke the gender norms it was not an issue, but you were raised under the assumption that boys like sports, girls like makeup and fashion, etc. My career prospects are heavily based on my hobbies, as I always liked video games and technology (a highly male dominated field for both), and I feel like had I been a woman I would have followed after my mother in the medical field (which is something my sister is doing).
Another part of having a different gender would be the world perspective. As it stands right now, I can empathize with the struggles of genderqueer individuals and women, but I can never live that life and truly understand what they go through. Obviously, if I were born differently I would find myself living in that life, which would drastically alter how I view the world and the standing of positions of power in society, and would likely find myself being less sympathetic towards the struggles of men (understandably so, as I would not have lived through it).
