Not like other girls.

My whole life I have been described and “praised” as “not like other girls”. It took me years to get over my internalized misogyny. It took me years to realise I liked girls. And even more to realise I only liked girls.

—But that is now a problem. 

I like girls, yet I am “not like other girls”. What was once praise now leaves me self-conscious. How am I going to ever be with a woman who likes women if I am not like one? 

I know now that there is nothing like “being like a girl” or not. I know now that there are women who are into more masc-aligned women. Yet, this does little to help me.

Whenever I try to find myself in other sapphics, I instead find myself having a crisis. In them, I see only the gap between myself and an ideal of womanhood. And yet, I do not feel like a man. Am I enough of a woman to ever be loved by women who love women? Am I a woman?

I can only hope one day I will accept that I am enough.