Alice had to take a moment to think about what it was Chloe was really asking. How to be a girl. It was not an easy question to answer or give guidance about. She was not entirely sure what it meant to be a girl, as opposed to being a boy. She was herself not exactly a very girlie girl. Sure she dressed the part, sometimes, and certainly had some mannerisms that were definitely feminine. But she also did not. She did for instance prefer to wear boxer briefs instead of more feminine underwear and more often than not she wore a sportsbra that flattened her chest a bit rather than a bra that highlighted her breasts. Then again, merely anatomy and how one presented oneself was not enough to define being female. There were many with a female anatomy that did not identify as female, just as there were many with a male anatomy that did not identify as male.
Presentation was another thing. It could signal femininity, a skirt or a dress went a long way to send such signals, but there were also a lot of women who were just as feminine while wearing jeans and a top. Hair was another aspect of presentation but it was a long time since it was as simple as a matter of length. Once perhaps women with their hair cut short had been seen as less feminine in their presentation just as men with long hair had been seen as less masculine. Make up was perhaps the aspect that still was something of a clear divider. Especially men wearing make up were often seen as presenting femme while it was less common that women who chose to not wear make up were seen as presenting masc.
Alice herself did have a handful of skirts and the occasional dress in her wardrobe but it was mostly baggy jeans, tops, shirts and sweaters, not that either of those were by default aimed to present masc but more for comfort, and because sometimes she felt a bit exposed when wearing clothes that were open from below. She couldn't explain it but sometimes when she wore a skirt and sat down it felt as if everyone could see her underwear, even if that was not necessarily true. This was of course something someone presenting masc didn't have to worry about, and probably had never even thought about. But it still had nothing to do with being female, just with being feminine.
Not quite realising that since Chloe had asked the question, or rather clarified what she had meant, Alice had not moved, spoken or even appeared to be present in the room, she deleted her current train of thought and started over. What is it to be female as opposed to what it is to be feminine. That was the real question asked, not what it meant to be female as opposed to being male.
Skirts, dresses, stockings and high heels were all just femininity, as was make up and hair. These were all accessories that anyone, regardless of anatomy (more or less at least). Anatomy was just that, simple biology, a random blend of two sets of dna as the sperm cell collided with the egg cell. It had nothing to do with gender identity, no more than it had to do with a person identifying as a democrat or a republican, as a feminist or a misogynist. Those were all the result of nurture, not nature.
Nature versus nurture was an interesting perspective. Could someone, regardless of anatomy, be nurtured into a female gender identity? Alice shook her head, the first noticeable motion, apart from her lips moving soundlessly, in quite some time. No. She very much doubted it was possible, not even if you began the indoctrination right after birth. She based this conclusion on everything she had already rejected. You could dress a baby in all pink dresses, give it dolls and other traditionally feminine toys but those were all still just about femininity and not even that really. All that was more about traditions, obsolete concepts of femininity, the kind of concepts that are at the root of people still raising a curious eyebrow at female truck drivers, welders or other similarly traditionally male jobs, and along with that raised eyebrow probably comes the assumption that the woman in question must either be a lesbian, because (Alice added ironically to herself) everyone knows that all lesbians really want to be men and no real woman would ever want a male job. Real women want to be caretakers, nurses, teachers, and of course they all want children to take care of.
A subtle wry smile appeared on Alice's face at the thought but also concluded that while perhaps most people didn't really think that way it was stil a far too common stereotype. Then her face became neutral again, blank some might perhaps describe it, as her mind went back to that feeling of exposure that sometimes overwhelmed her when she was wearing skirts or dresses in public. There were other situations, quite a few actually, when she felt a similar vulnerability, walking alone after dusk for one. It was nothing she consciously thought about but she was probably more aware of her surroundings than a male was. There were so many bad things that could happen to a female in the dark, or if she was drunk. Like most AFAB in the world Alice had been warned, by her mother, by teachers, by that friendly police officer who had visited her high school when she was a freshman, to be alert, to always walk with someone f it was dark, or to at least talk to someone on the phone. One of her teachers in high school had even talked about thinking twice about how they (as AFABs) dressed.
Alice still remembered word for word what Ms Davenport had said: "It should Not have to even be a relevant consideration how long or short your skirt is, how tight your top is, how much make up you wear, what colour lipstick you wear, how high your heels are. But ... (Ms Davenport had paused for a dramatic effect and looked at the class) ... sadly there are males in this world who use all those things as an excuse to objectify women and to use that as a further excuse to harass them, or worse."
Still, in the end that vulnerability too was not about identity, even if it perhaps became part of the identity of most AFAB. The latter part of which was a tragic consequence of males who were insecure in their masculinity and had to assert themselves by using their (generally) stronger and larger physique to dominate those of a female anatomy. It had nothing to do with gender identity. Even transmen were subjected to that same vulnerability, and to some extent transwomen as well but perhaps for a slightly different reason than simply identifying as female. In the latter case there was probably an unhealthy dose of both homophobia and more to the point transphobia involved on top of the general misogyny that was at the root of why females (whether AFAB or AMAB) were more likely to be victims of violent and/or sexually based crimes.
Alice sighed, the first sound she had made in quite a while, and then looked up at Chloe. She shook her head and shrugged.
"To be honest Chloe, I can't say I know what it really is to be a girl."
She paused and bit down on her bottom lip.
"I mean ... I am a girl. I was assigned female at birth and despite how I sometimes present I identify as a female, but ... I can't for the life of me define what that means."
She paused again and looked at herself in the mirror.
"I guess it's just ... I dunno ... a feeling. Something you just know. I might as well try to explain to you why I don't like cheese on my pizza. There is no concrete reason. I mean I do love that cheesy crust on lasagna so it has nothing to do with texture but on pizza I just don't like it, to the point where I won't eat it, probably not even if my life depended on it. Although that has never truly been put to the test."
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