Gender Identity

[lilkawaiivampire]

Okay, I'll be honest and say I feel a bit needy and bothersome for asking for help with another, less severe problem. But, I'm going to be bothersome anyway, so here it goes:

 

For almost a year now, I have been questioning my gender identity. My guess is I'm either gender fluid or bigender, but I don't want to be so hasty to put another label on myself. I've been taking quiz after quiz to see what result I might receive and 99.9% of the results claim I'm bigender. Of course, I'm aware only I can decide to label myself and all of that good stuff. However, I'm having tremendous difficulty accepting the idea of how I'm probably not only a female. Here's why: my family is incredibly homophobic and transphobic. I've already come out about being biromantic asexual, but it didn't go too well and they still try to drill it into my brain how it's a phase and I'm not a true Christian since I'm not straight. Therefore, coming to terms with not being a full fledged female has become an emotional train wreck for me because I have no idea how they'd react if they ever found out. Even if I accept it and don't tell them, I'll walk around feeling like a liar and a disappointment to them because they ask frequently about my gender identity to ensure I haven't "gone off the deep end" as they'd refer to it. Either way, my sister would pry it out of me soon enough because she always knows when I'm lying. I no longer have any friends to turn to for help and I'm all alone (well, I have my cat, but she can't exactly stand up for me against my family~lol). So, I just really need some guidance in three main areas: 1) figuring out/accepting my true gender identity 2) accepting and loving myself despite my family's judgement 3) how to handle my family, especially if or when they find out

 

If anyone is able to spare some time to help me out, I'll be eternally grateful and do my best to keep everything as easy and simple for you as possible. Thank you so much for your time and I wish anyone else who's in similar or even worse situations the best of luck! 

[AVEN #1 fan]

Eh,  if you feel like being androgynous (masculine+feminine) and you only want to be called 1 word , you can use ambigender or androgyne

 

 

If you feel like sometimes you wanna be called boy, other times girl, other times androgyne or other enby genders, that's genderfluid.

 

 

Ambigender and genderfluid are 2 subtypes of bi-gender/multigender.

 

 

 

I hope this help with the identity issues.

 

 

For the acceptance thing, you can stay in the closet with your family, you don't owe them no explications once you're a grown up. This might be safe if you don't feel comfortable,  then you can run away and follow your rainbow to somewhere nice once you grow up.

 

Don't try anything if you think it'll ruin the stability of your life. ... even though you feel like lying to yourself.... well,  life is unfair.

[TopHatCat]

You don't need to feel guilty about seeking advice, this whole site is a resource for support in these situations.

 

I can't pretend to be an authority on this particular topic, quite possibly because I understand gender the same way I understand sex and romance. But I agree with AVEN #1 fan's assessment with regard to your life's stability. Also, if you aren't certain about this yet, then you should determine why it is you want a label. The idea behind them is that it helps you communicate with others. If you want a clear label just for yourself as a way to feel part of a community, then it doesn't necessarily need to concern your parents.

 

For example, my mom is very faintly homophobic but easily gets over it whenever she actually knows someone that's LGBT. If I "came out" as asexual using labels, it would alienate her because she would think I didn't understand myself. But that would be because of the weight a label carries. I have explained to her that I'm not interested in dating or having kids whenever a topic like that comes up, and she seems to understand that. 

 

Sometimes it's best to change your method of explanation. Change the context for the person, and only explain "what" they should expect to see since the "why" will only throw a wrench into it all.

[Amathy]

You're not bothersome.

 

I agree with what was previously said about not risking your stability or security.  You don't have to feel guilty about lying.  But even if you do, coming out is not the opposite of lying.

 

First off, lies of omission are not lies.  There are lots of thoughts that fly through your head.  There is no possible way that you can share all of them with everyone.  Most people don't share thoughts that won't be well received.  You don't tell someone that the food they made is disgusting because they will get mad.  I don't see why sharing your identity needs to be any different, especially as coming out before has already elicited that angry response.

 

If you are concerned about being asked gender related questions, there are ways to answer truthfully without coming out.  Most people do not differentiate between gender (woman) and biological sex (female).  Without lying you can say that you are female bodied.  Even if you are questioned about being a woman (or not being a woman), you can switch to female in your answer so you are not lying.

 

Why would you tell your family?  Is there something that needs to change?  Figure out specifically what you need to have changed and work within the confines of their views to have that happen.  For instance, does your family expect you to wear girly clothes you are uncomfortable with? You can say something they will accept such as you are viewed sexually when wearing those clothes and that makes you uncomfortable.

 

Please be safe.