Ever consider replacing "I identify as" with "I identify with"?
I highly recommend it.
@varve Yeah, I don't identify as anything at all. It just doesn't make sense to me, it's such a relational quality for the most part. But there's a very telling and large bunch of people I identify with. My gran, older lesbian friends, train hopping park-sleeping friends, queerness, womanhood. That's where I see myself.
@varve And notably I don't really see myself in most men, certainly not my family despite them being awesome. A couple nice quaker boys I grew up with I find that resonance in, but otherwise ... nope.
People when I was young expected me to identify with Bill Gates (I was the teen wunderkind computer nerd) and it was so much NOPE that I've had a visceral understanding of what it is to not identify with something ever since.
@aredridel depends on context and what I'm trying to say. I identify as agender, but I often identify with women because I know what I look like and how other people treat me. I do not identify as a woman at all.