Gender Identity - Definition vs Experience

[bluedragonwings]

Lets see how badly I mangle this question....

 

There are many definitions of gender identity out there, which basically seem to boil down to "a person's perception/internal experience of having a particular gender".

 

But that leads to many questions. How strong is this perception/experience? What is the perception/experience even mean or feel like? How often does it enter peoples minds where they use a gender for themselves in their head? Is this more of a "I AM  (a)" situation, or more of a "Well I not (a) so I guess I am (b)". 

 

How do you experience gender identity?

[Snao Cone]

Well, first of all, I don't experience dysphoria that leads me to feel a need to pursue some level of change. I consider that to mean I'm cisgender, whether I'm compliant with gendered expectations (which I'm often not). I guess that's more towards the latter "not (a) therefore (b)" logic.

 

However, I'm also an overthinker, so I absorb and analyze a lot of things in my head (whether translated into actual words or not), and I notice things in how I'm treated and how other women are treated and the various spoken and unspoken societal expectations that line womanhood. I feel many of these pressures directly, which makes me identify more actively with it at certain times - the "I AM (a)" situation. But obviously for me it's not felt in traditional heteronormative ways. I'm not going to scream "YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A NATURAL WOMAN!" in karaoke. It's more like "Look, fuckers, this is the reality I and many other people face, and I'm going to dig my heels in and say that we as society need to fix this, rather than distancing myself from a gender to distance myself from expectations." I don't want people to view me as agender or non-binary or gender nonconforming or demigender or whatever - I want them to view being asexual, aromantic, single, bad at cooking, and having no inclination to smell an infant's head as nothing contrary to existing as a woman. That might make me less feminine, but being less feminine should not mean being less woman. So I guess my experience of gender identity centers more around principles than things feeling "right" in some unspoken way.

[Lirpaderp]

All I know is I'm not a girl, being called he makes me happy, and I hate my boobs. I'm still confused what gender I am. 

 

When I'm in a group of people and it's all girls, I feel uncomfortable. When it's all boys or a mixed group I don't notice anything abnormal. I've stayed away from stereotypically girly things. But I feel like I wouldn't mind wearing nail polish every once in a while if I obviously looked like a boy, maybe with some facial hair.

 

My gender enters my mind a lot. Every time I'm called she or her I think he or him and I'm reminded that I don't know what gender I am, and of the body I don't connect with.

 

I never had problems with being called she or a girl growing up. I always felt like an outcast. In 7th grade I had an argument with a 1st grader on my gender. I wore, and still wear, mainly boys clothes. At the time my hair was tightly pulled back in a ponytail. She asked if I was a boy or a girl, i said girl. She then asked if I was sure, I said yes, my brain said yes only because I have female body parts. That's when things started to crack.

[ilikethewordelephant]

When I'm by myself, I feel pretty genderless. In my lonesome, gender isn't any part of me, really.

 

It's only when I'm with other people, where I have a point of comparison, that I remember that these others have a gender that they attach to their identity, and my feeling of nonbinariness comes to the fore. So, to answer your question, it's a bit of both. I experience both  "I am nonbinary" and "I am agender", as well as "I am not male nor female, therefore I am nonbinary", "My gender identity is empty, therefore I am agender".

 

That said, the "I am..." comes first, and then I back it up with reasoning that "I am not ... therefore I am..."

[TheAP]

There's the fact that I don't experience dysphoria and don't feel uncomfortable being perceived as female, but there's something else too. I see myself as female in my head. I like to make up imaginary families and the like, and the main character whom I focus on and develop the most is always a girl somewhat similar to me. When I was little, I even got upset at being placed in a group of all boys for a project. So I relate more to other females than males, because I see myself as female.

[Starbogen]

The only way I finally managed to understand what gender identity meant to me and how I experienced it was to stop thinking so in terms of "what I feel like" and think more about "what I want" though these are related and for me gender identity has to do with both theae parts and how they interact with each other.

 

For example, I couldn't tell if I "felt" like any particular gender, but I knew that I felt good when I looked male and was seen as male by people, and I knew that I wanted my body to be male so that's basically where my sense of being male comes from.

 

I guess for me it has a lot to do with dysphoria and what I would ideally want things to be like. I want to be male, and when I live as male that feels good, so that means my perception of myself is male. 

 

But it's not a particular and isolated internal feeling... I don't "feel" male, I just feel good about being male (alternatively feel bad about being "female") so that reaction is what lets me know that I'm a guy if that makes sense.

[bluedragonwings]

13 minutes ago, Starbogen said:

The only way I finally managed to understand what gender identity meant to me and how I experienced it was to stop thinking so in terms of "what I feel like" and think more about "what I want" though these are related and for me gender identity has to do with both theae parts and how they interact with each other.

 

For example, I couldn't tell if I "felt" like any particular gender, but I knew that I felt good when I looked male and was seen as male by people, and I knew that I wanted my body to be male so that's basically where my sense of being male comes from.

 

I guess for me it has a lot to do with dysphoria and what I would ideally want things to be like. I want to be male, and when I live as male that feels good, so that means my perception of myself is male. 

 

But it's not a particular and isolated internal feeling... I don't "feel" male, I just feel good about being male (alternatively feel bad about being "female") so that reaction is what lets me know that I'm a guy if that makes sense.

It does make sense.  I am not sure how useful for me the "what I want" would be. As I am not sure all the "I wish I was" that I get is really the same as the "what I want".

"Know thyself", may be the hardest task I have ever tried to do.

[butterflydreams]

19 hours ago, Snao Cone said:

That might make me less feminine, but being less feminine should not mean being less woman

Exactly this. I think a lot of people miss this part and end up quantizing gender more than it needs to be (my personal opinion only). I like that we can have feminine women and masculine women and everything in between and they're all women. That's so cool. Men, same deal. It's such a great example of how diverse the human experience can be. 

 

[Verb]

In nearly 6 years of being on AVEN, this is perhaps my first real venture into the Gender Identity section. I'm drawn because I noticed how I'd written my gender over

<- there.

 

"XY". My chromosomes. Because, in truth, that's all I really have to go off. I'm biologically male, present as male, and have never questioned that gender identity because I've never felt any need to. However, I do find myself slightly uncomfortable referring to myself as a man, or when someone explicitly highlights that I am male (or any aspects that go along with that...), even though I don't feel that such descriptions are wrong. Just that they're....unnecessary. Not relevant.

 

It's like...If I were speaking to someone, and we were having a debate, and suddenly they came out with "Well, that opinion you've just expressed is wrong because you're wearing an orange shirt." I may be wearing an orange shirt, I may not have anything against wearing orange shirts, but I don't see what the relevance is in highlighting the fact that I'm wearing an orange shirt in that context. It's a fact, a descriptor, an external aspect that I'm hardly aware of, but it's not me within my head.

 

I'm rambling.

 

So I guess in answer to the main question: I don't really feel gender identity strongly, I suppose. It's a useful tool for presenting socially, but I'm an XY 

[RiseOfCourage]

What helped me is to ignore the judgments and expectations of others/society. Ignore the confusing plethoras of labels and avoid getting pinned in someone else's idea of what should be.

As many here notice, our gender behaviors can be dynamic and each day is different. We just have to go with the flow of it. The key is to be totally comfortable with yourself. The hell with those who try to judge us, or refuse to understand because they rigidly view the world through constricted lenses. Ignore 'em.

  I just go about the day being true to myself, whether I feel like wearing makeup or macho-ish crashing through rough seas to tow in a distressed Mariner. I don't stop and scrutinize every nuance of what my flexible gender is presenting moment by moment. Don't think about it much at all. Just go on and do my thing, whatever "gender" catagory society assigns it. It doesn't matter. Just be.

[Mezzo Forte]

Honestly, I simplified my personal definition of gender down to my relationship with my body. My distress came predominantly from the impacts of estrogen, and everything that has undone estrogen's impact has drastically improved my quality of life. The social stuff is important to me, but I still see that as an extension of how I relate to my body.

 

I consider my mind somewhat effeminate, even if most the people around me don't seem to think so. I don't care to factor in the complexities of my personality into my gender identity though; I'd rather categorize them independently of each other. Maybe if I were a brain in a jar, my gender identity would be different, but that brain in a jar would still function far better with testosterone than estrogen as the dominant hormone.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

I think it gets easier as you get older. For my part, I'm biologically female. but I don't like society's definition of what it should mean to be a woman. Inside, I'm a person, so the less of a sex object I become with advancing age, the easier I find things.