Happier (TW negative thinking, what-ifs)

[The-world-is-quiet-here]

I'm still questioning my gender. I have been for the past seven months or so.

For a while I thought I had it figured out, but now I'm confused. I felt agender or masculine or whatever, and now I just... don't know.

You know how some LGBT people say they were born this way? I'm trying to figure that out. Like, was I born this way? Am I choosing to be trans/genderfluid/questioning/etc?

I know, logically, that eventually I will go back to knowing my a/gender. But the irrational part of me is like: but what if I never know? What if I'm always confused? What if I'm still in this questioning phase and it never gets better?

As of right now, I'm not planning on medically transitioning. I have thought about it briefly, but never to the extent where it's like, "Yeah, I definitely want to do that!" I wouldn't want to transition unless I was mostly certain that was what I wanted.

For most of this summer, I haven't known my gender. There have been a couple times recently where I have felt masculine(ish), but I don't remember what those thoughts were.

I feel somewhat stuck right now. I started feeling masculine basically the week before school got out, so I'm wondering if stress had something to do with it. I haven't been very stressed this summer, which is good, but I kinda feel... directionless.

Will I always feel stuck/directionless/confused? Cis people seem happy with their genders, so wouldn't questioning make me happy? I'm not quite sure how to articulate this.

Has anyone else felt like this? If so, how did you help yourself get through it? Any good advice? :P

[Little Sparrow]

It is probably quite difficult to give good advice, at least I find I'm not really in a position to give any. I have come to the conclusion that gender is something so personal , so individual, that no two persons' experiences and feelings are alike. But maybe others can give advice, I don't know.

From my own experience I would say that it becomes less important. Maybe it's with time, age, or just my disposition, but I can live with not exactly knowing my gender but with being something wishy-washy between male and female. It is interesting to think about, but not vital for me to figure it out exactly. But I can see that this is not going to help you a lot.

Also, if you are stuck now, you're not going to be stuck forever. But yeah, "patience, give it time" is probably not what you want to hear. In your shoes, I know I wouldn't.

[Rojatta]

I've been in that stuck place for a while now too. This probably isn't helpful advice, but this is how I try to think about it: Sometimes the best we can do is embrace the uncertainty of not being sure about gender/sexuality/any of life's mysterious stuff rather than trying to figure it out. So yes, you might never know...or you might think you know for a while then find yourself thinking differently, and that's normal and okay. That doesn't mean you have to be "stuck" forever though, just that the key to unstuck might be letting go of wanting to be sure. That's not easy because uncertainty is uncomfortable. I think what's important is that you listen to what makes you comfortable and explore the different directions your brain suggests to see what resonates.

[Emery.]

I have a feeling that everything is limited by The Prinicple of Uncetainty. Heisenberg's ;) if we want to go nerdy. Sometimes, plain and simple, even hard science can't tell you. You send a sample of your blood to the lab to determine whether you have a certain disease. To a couple of labs. Some labs tell you you do, some - that you don't. Tricky, huh? It happens. It happened to my dad. Sometimes we are children in the dark, sometimes things just are indefinite, or impossible to pin down (like matter understood as waves :P). Sometimes, we need to say "whatever..." and move on to other things, because we can't know. We have no possibility. And we need to allow ourselves to not be certain, say out loud to ourselves " I don't know and that's okey. I don't know who I am, I am a person who doesn't know who they are, I accept it" And this is when... the true self-discovery begins :)

[The-world-is-quiet-here]

Thanks for all your responses. I'll do my best to just... accept it, I guess. I'm not very good at accepting things yet, but I'll try. :)