Oh no. It go. It gone. Bye-bye (Bye) / Who I? I think...

Transformative art by  koboldkurios, without them I don't know where I would be right now.
(GIF created by me from originals with her permission)

Ooooo boy, big post, this one.
So yeah, after going through a bit of a crisis a few weeks ago, I've given up on this whole 'cis-male' thing.
I don't really know what I actually am right now.
Trans? Non-binary? Genderfluid? I have no idea.
But I do know that 'male' just isn't right anymore.
There are some days where I feel 'male' and am comfortable with that.
But there are also days where it's like there's a voice screaming in my head, shouting at me that I should stop being spineless, transition and just accept being female.
But for better and worse, those times are pretty rare - most of the time it's just a mild 'oh yeah, a part of me would love to be female, but I'm not and that's okay'
But I just can't keep ignoring that other part anymore, pretending the occasional bit of art is enough to satisfy it.
That feeling is too pervasive and the potential happiness from fully embracing it is too great.
So I'm saying goodbye to my old self-conception.
It's had its time.

So what about that past?
Was male, masc Theta 'all a lie'?
No... No, I don't believe it was.
Looking back on the artworks I've commissioned, and all of the fursuit photos I have, they all still really feel like a part of me.
A part that I'm happy and proud of, and will gladly take up again, if I feel like it.
Masc Theta is a wonderful, attractive guy, and still forms an ideal to me.
(This goes for me IRL as well, although I'm not as attractive and very far from an ideal)
He doesn't deserve to be just thrown away, relegated to memory.
So he won't be.
I still have commission ideas that would only work with him, I still have at least a year's worth of fursuit photos in my backlog.
And I'm not planning on refurbishing my fursuit to make it look more femme, so there are more photos to come on top of the backlog.
So you'll absolutely be seeing him again.

But femme Theta (and femme me IRL) deserves that attention as well.

So what about the future?
Well, the easiest thing is to update my pronouns.
My current preference order is she/they/he
That might settle down to they/she/he in the future, but for now I'm prioritising 'she/her' as I really need to figure out how far toward the femme side of the gender spectrum I am.
I'm definitely not interested in 'he/him', I am thoroughly over living that li(f)e.
I won't get upset or offended if you use it though, as I said, I still feel a connection to that and still quite often think of myself as 'he' out of habit.
But, yeah, it just doesn't feel like me anymore.
I've been out amongst friends for a few weeks now and the few times I've overhead being referred to as 'she' have been... lovely.
Not, like, euphoric, but like tingly and relaxed like I've just had a back massage.
So that's a sign.
And I don't have a new name lined up.
I've thought about several femme names but none of them have really interested me.
I'm still very happy to be known as Theta, and I've thought about other options for my IRL name but none of them have felt quite right.
Although a few may be growing on me...
But for now I'm fine with continuing to use my male IRL name, as I keep repeating, I do still feel like that's a part of me, it's not just a mask, so I don't feel bad about continuing to use it.
But femme Theta is going to become my main fursona, I'll be updating my profile pics in the next day or two.
I've been using a femme Theta headshot in telegram and it's felt lovely being perceived as her.
Again, not euphoric, but still just really... nice.
So I'll be prioritising getting commissions of her, it's likely to be some time before you see artwork of masc Theta again (apart from a commission or two I already had in the works)
In real life however, change is going to be quite slow.
I just bought a new car and the repayments for that are going to soak up practically all of my disposable income, so I'm not going to have much money for new clothes, make-up etc.
And of course I'm much more nervous and self-conscious about presenting as femme or non-binary IRL.
And at this point I'm not considering any seriously big changes like HRT, because, as I mentioned before, I really don't know where I sit on the gender spectrum right now, and I want to be more confident in that before I start doing anything 'big'.
But it would not surprise me if it's somewhere in my future...

So... yeah. That's where I am right now.
Adrift.
But boy, it has been some wonderful catharsis finally cutting myself free from that 'cis-male' mooring.
And for all the fear and uncertainty, my future suddenly feels a lot more rewarding.
And I haven't felt that for quite a while.
So I suspect this will be one of the best decisions of my life.
Wish me luck.

Alternate Title: It Was Already Broken