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What it feels like to be trans, genderqueer or genderless


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Elliott Ford

Right, of course we have the traditional:

"I am a x trapped in the body of a y"

or mine:

"i am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type".

How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer / genderless?

Or, if you are not trans / genderqueer / genderless, how would you describe knowing that your gender identity does match your body?

Or are you ambivalent about gender?

(this has been heavily edited)

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Usually something along the lines of, "Well screw what my body says, I'm a guy."

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I'd say.. "dude, have you seen me in a faux beard? Nature definatly got this body wrong." and if they weren't digging I'd say something like "Well, it's hard to explain and to try and make you understand, it just feels right."

Wow, it is hard to explain. All I said to my sister when she asked "So, you want to be a man" I replied, "Well, I am a man" and that was it.

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Wow, it is hard to explain. All I said to my sister when she asked "So, you want to be a man" I replied, "Well, I am a man" and that was it.

Yeah, this.

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I'm neutrois (neither male nor female, so "they" please).

That's it. People can get confused over what this means or what body I have- but unless it's on a trans forum or I'm in a good mood I let them get confused. I'll explain a bit about nonbinaries and all that, but there's only so much ignorance I can deal with at once, and I haven't found an Astraea's glossary for transpeople, so I can't just link them to that.

Oh, there are glossaries out there, you just have to look for them. A quick Google search brought up this, for example, and that's definitely not the only one.... Try this (not to be mean or anything, of course not. I just love that website a little too much. XD)

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How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer (including bigender and neutrois etc)?

Or, if you are not trans / genderqueer, how would you describe knowing that your gender identity does match your body?

Oh, jeez, I don't fit either of these categories. I'm not trans, because I'm OK with my body and with getting read as a (weird) female, but I don't know that my gender identity matches my body either.

The way I think about it is that society has gender categories, and your placement in a gender category has subtle but deeply entrenched effects on the way your are treated. And people have all sorts of preferences relating to their social treatment, and they position themselves to be treated the way they want. If I'm teaching class, I will dress up in a blazer and nice pants, because I like the way it makes students treat me.

Being put into the female category often comes with belittling and low status, but there are qualities that might make a person choose that category nonetheless. It offers the opportunity for close friendships with other people in the female category, many of whom are totally awesome. Placing yourself in the female category can be one way of finding an erotic language that designates you as desirable and beautiful.

I think that people who are trans and masculine don't just want to be in the male category for the preferential treatment, but for subtler reasons. It can give you a kind of close relationship with other people in the male category that is hard to achieve otherwise. It makes it easier to conceptualize yourself and your body as strong.

I like seeing how many different places I can fit myself. I think there's a subtype of the female category that feels like "home" to me in some very specific settings (e.g., when I am surrounded by other women in the same subtype), but that I can't always access. It feels much less "home" to me in other settings (e.g., interacting with male friends, trying to find an erotic language that suits me).

Don't know if that's any help to anyone else; it's much more about gender than about body. My body has always cooperated with me more or less, and I don't know what it's like to have body dysphoria.

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Elliott Ford
Wow, it is hard to explain. All I said to my sister when she asked "So, you want to be a man" I replied, "Well, I am a man" and that was it.

Yeah, this.

me too.

I've edited the titles and the first post in this thread a bit. I'm hoping people who aren't trans, genderqueer neutrois etc. will come and ask questions.

i love Abby the AVEN Bear's answer to the question "Are you a boy or a girl?" They said "No" :D :cake: for Abby. i know a lot of people who wish they were brave enough to say it like that.

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Elliott Ford
The way I think about it is that society has gender categories, and your placement in a gender category has subtle but deeply entrenched effects on the way your are treated. And people have all sorts of preferences relating to their social treatment, and they position themselves to be treated the way they want.

[...]

I like seeing how many different places I can fit myself. I think there's a subtype of the female category that feels like "home" to me in some very specific settings (e.g., when I am surrounded by other women in the same subtype), but that I can't always access. It feels much less "home" to me in other settings (e.g., interacting with male friends, trying to find an erotic language that suits me).

Don't know if that's any help to anyone else; it's much more about gender than about body. My body has always cooperated with me more or less, and I don't know what it's like to have body dysphoria.

i live as male because that's how i feel "at home", pretty much as you've described. Being a boy makes people treat me the way i feel comfortable being treated. It's not all about the body thing :)

My theory is: if society didn't insist on treating as a female on the basis of the shape of my body, living in it would hardly be a problem for me. I think that society's expectations of me have aggravated my body dysphoria and made me hate my body rather than just feel a bit confused and disorientated everytime it does something female-specific.

i can't speak for anyone else, but i wouldn't have such a problem with my breasts if they didn't "make" me female in other people's eyes. I now hate them for doing that, it feels like a betrayal. "Almost every other boy i know doesn't have these and almost every girl i know does..." is the thought that i keep finding in my head and it upsets me. But it really is worse than that that i KNOW that my body is causing the social problems of being treated like i'm in a different category to the one i see myself in - that's what hurts me.

Like i said in my original post, I am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type.

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Thank you, Elliott Ford. You definitely made non- trans feeling more welcomed here. A 420116b5.jpg for you.

As for the thread:

I'm genderless (I'm neither female, male trans, or androgynous; you might say I don't label my gender, or even that my gender doesn't exist).

How is it like? Hard to say. It's like you were something that doesn't have gender at all (like water or air, or fire) and put in something that has a shape of a female (for example).

My body doesn't match my gender, but I can't say it's very disturbing. It just sort of 'is'. Like a water in a glass- glass is different to water, it's only something that gives it a shape.

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Thank you, Elliott Ford. You definitely made non- trans feeling more welcomed here. A 420116b5.jpg for you.

Yes, I want to echo this. Thank you.

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GirlInside
Right, of course we have the traditional:

"I am a x trapped in the body of a y"

or mine:

"i am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type".

I really like the second. I think "a woman trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type" describes me better.

Here are a few ways I describe it:

*It's like having lived my whole life in a country where everyone looks a certain way except me. I use racial analogies a lot, because in this culture, a person is born into a gender the way they are born into a race. For example, I use George Carlin's bit on golf:

The only blacks you see in country clubs are carrying trays. And don't give me any of that Tiger Woods nonsense... He ain't [sic] black. He talks, acts, and lives like a white boy. Skin alone doesn't make you black.

Similarly, I talk, act, and live like a genetic girl (an eccentric one, but whatever), and genitals alone don't make you a man or a woman.

*A lot of it is an extreme version of things some genetic women have. I was born without ovaries or a uterus (and thus can't have babies) but instead have extreme clitoromegaly (look it up); I look very masculine (I knew a genetic woman who looked like Fred Flintstone); feminine clothing in my size is really hard to find; and so on. The rest is composed of little things--I'm not allowed to wear dresses or go into the bathroom with a female friend, that kind of stuff. Sure, I'd like to have a female body, just like I'd like to be thinner and have a smaller nose. But I'm not going to go through transition just for these little things.

*It's like being a Neanderthal woman in the human world; I have a big, hairy body and heavy facial features, but that doesn't change the thing about me inside that are basically female (this is a variation on the racial analogy--some scientists think Neanderthals were just another race of humans).

*If our culture let everyone choose their social gender, I would have chosen to be female at the age of 4 or 5, and I wouldn't have any real problems with my biological sex. I'd just think of it as being a big ugly girl who can't have babies. Actually, that kind of sums up how I see myself.

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CreakyKeegan

I identify as male to most, though I think I am more... Ehm... I wouldn't say genderless, not gendermore...

Just think of me as those really feminine anime males who are half human, and half cutesy fluffy animal, like a cat or something.

That's what I think I am.

A cute ball of fluff with a human body. That sounds weird... but I feel like I was meant to be furry and fluffy (Not hairy.)

I don't know. I'm not just in between genders, but I feel as if I'm meant to be an entirely different race from humanity. T_T If that makes sense. JUST like those half animal-half human anime characters. The ones that always walk like a human, have a human body, but have bizarre coloured hair, a tail, and big cute animal ears.

How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer / genderless?

In a respect to gender, I feel kind of offended when people place me in a male, or female category. I do kind of bad in social situations due to this, sometimes. It depends on my mood. But when I'm alone, I don't think of myself as male, or female. Just a body, mind, and soul that has more feminine characteristics than masculine ones.

Regarding the whole race issue... T_T Well, I've come up with a story I like for describing that, though I never told anyone how I feel about that. I usually like to declare to myself, that I "must be from Venus.", I always use the planet Venus. I've always liked the name for some unknown reason.

I really don't know. I think I'd fit better into myself if I was one of those half-animal half-human people in anime/manga. I'd feel more comfortable with myself.

What would the psychologists call this? ^_^ Racial dysmorphia? Haha. Still...

To me, I'm a combination of genders, that's a cute ball of fluffiness. xD

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Nalle Neversure
I identify as male to most, though I think I am more... Ehm... I wouldn't say genderless, not gendermore...

Just think of me as those really feminine anime males who are half human, and half cutesy fluffy animal, like a cat or something.

That's what I think I am.

A cute ball of fluff with a human body. That sounds weird... but I feel like I was meant to be furry and fluffy (Not hairy.)

The ones that always walk like a human, have a human body, but have bizarre coloured hair, a tail, and big cute animal ears.

To me, I'm a combination of genders, that's a cute ball of fluffiness. xD

That made me go 'awwwwwwww'. I'm a hopeless cuteness addict. :D

And Ritsuka from Loveless came to mind. *squeeee*

Loveless__Ritsuka_by_SiSero-1.jpgloveless__ritsuka_by_snowbunnylu-1.jpgLoveless_Ritsuka_by_Mariyumi.jpg

And big thanks for this thread, Elliot. I've learned a lot. :cake:

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mort paradis
I really don't know. I think I'd fit better into myself if I was one of those half-animal half-human people in anime/manga. I'd feel more comfortable with myself.

What would the psychologists call this? ^_^ Racial dysmorphia? Haha. Still...

To me, I'm a combination of genders, that's a cute ball of fluffiness. xD

Makes complete perfect sense to me! ^_^ I'd also be completely comfortable with that as well.

I don't know what psychologists would call this, but I know it as otherkin.

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Someone described body dysphoria, and I really like the description. I think it fits here, too. From http://recursiveparadox.dreamwidth.org/
Have you ever seen a broken leg? I don't mean a normal broken leg. I mean the nasty freaky broken leg. No exposed bone or blood, but the knee is bent the wrong way. The leg doesn't go in the direction it's supposed to. It's something that's sort of terrifying to behold because you know it's absolutely horrifyingly wrong deep down in your most instinctual parts of your brain. Now imagine that you look down at your own leg and it's broken like that. You're not feeling the pain but you are feeling the utterly freaked out feeling of "OMFG MY LEG IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BENDING THAT WAY."

Not a pleasant feeling, right?

Okay, let's go further. Let's pretend that this freaky bent broken leg is seen as utterly normal by everyone else. They look at your body and go, 'what's the problem?' There's nothing freaky about them, you're the only one with the freakishness driving you nuts but no one else sees it. Forget the leg and just remember the feeling. The feeling of intimate, screwed up, almost grotesque wrongness. Like the very laws of how your body ought to be are violated, just like if you had that bending the wrong way leg. Imagine that feeling applied to everything about you that is male or female. Imagine seeing the male/female parts you have and getting that "OMFG MY BODY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT." That deep down instinctual feeling of "OMFGWTF" that you get when you see a shattered knee bending a leg the wrong way or even worse see that bent leg on yourself. It's not rational. It doesn't make logical sense. It's utter instinctual response.

That's bodily dysphoria.

Now. Imagine living with that every day for the rest of your life.

That was a brilliant, brilliant explanation, thanks for sharing that.

I'm very confused about my gender, but I've sort of come to the conclusion that it doesn't really apply to me. I am who I am; my body is female shaped, and I don't have any great problems with that. Sometimes I wish I didn't have breats, but for me that's a similar feeling to how sometimes I wish my hair was a different colour, or that I could have a thinner face. The problems I get when thinking about my gender are more about the stereotypes society gives for gender roles, but really if I want to ignore them then I do. I don't feel I'm being less 'feminine' if I wear jeans and t-shirts, or have a good time watching sport - I just feel like I'm being more 'me'. ^_^

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I identify as male to most, though I think I am more... Ehm... I wouldn't say genderless, not gendermore...

Just think of me as those really feminine anime males who are half human, and half cutesy fluffy animal, like a cat or something.

That's what I think I am.

A cute ball of fluff with a human body. That sounds weird... but I feel like I was meant to be furry and fluffy (Not hairy.)

I don't know. I'm not just in between genders, but I feel as if I'm meant to be an entirely different race from humanity. T_T If that makes sense. JUST like those half animal-half human anime characters. The ones that always walk like a human, have a human body, but have bizarre coloured hair, a tail, and big cute animal ears.

How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer / genderless?

In a respect to gender, I feel kind of offended when people place me in a male, or female category. I do kind of bad in social situations due to this, sometimes. It depends on my mood. But when I'm alone, I don't think of myself as male, or female. Just a body, mind, and soul that has more feminine characteristics than masculine ones.

Regarding the whole race issue... T_T Well, I've come up with a story I like for describing that, though I never told anyone how I feel about that. I usually like to declare to myself, that I "must be from Venus.", I always use the planet Venus. I've always liked the name for some unknown reason.

I really don't know. I think I'd fit better into myself if I was one of those half-animal half-human people in anime/manga. I'd feel more comfortable with myself.

What would the psychologists call this? ^_^ Racial dysmorphia? Haha. Still...

To me, I'm a combination of genders, that's a cute ball of fluffiness. xD

I don't know much about it, but maybe you could benefit from exploring the Furry community? From my understanding, they are human-bodied but see themselves as an animal ("fursona"), so maybe that would fit?

In terms of not belonging to any gender (this is a note for everyone), I would highly recommend books by one of my heroes, Kate Bornstein. Ze's a transsexual performance artist, and hir books are always very informative and hilarious. I'd mostly recommend:

Gender Outlaw - sort of a personal narrative, where ze both explains hir own journeys through gender, and then identifies problems with the system as a whole... also includes a few gender-related plays that ze wrote.

My Gender Workbook - a series of activities/quizzes/etc to get you thinking about gender. Unfortunately, ze was not as aware of the existence of asexuality when ze wrote these books, which shows a lot, especially in the Workbook. It's great otherwise.

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Elliott Ford
And big thanks for this thread, Elliott. I've learned a lot. :cake:

I'm glad you are doing. That's why i set up this thread.

I know that it must be really difficult for non-trans people to imagine how it feels to be trans and that's perhaps in part the trans community's fault for forgetting that not everyone understands words like "cisgendered" or "gender dysphoira" or even the difference between "gender" and "sex". I know that i myself did not know the meanings of these words a very short time ago - and i'm a transexual myself ! :)

Just like asexuality, transgender stuff needs visibility and discussion. Both my trans-ness and my asexiness were orginally validated by meeting other people and realising "hey, they're just like me!" (I'm now hir boyfriend. Sie was one of a few people willing to talk gender with me when i first came to uni and i'm very, very grateful for the trans community both at university and here on AVEN for welcoming a boy like me :) ) and i know that not everyone who either is trans or wants to know more about trans issues will be lucky enough to meet any trans people in real life.

Please feel free to ask questions. No question is too stupid and we won't be offended if the questions are a bit badly phrased. If you are a bit embarassed about asking a question so publicly, please feel free to PM me and i will post an answer here for everyone to see.

Since I've just promised not to be offended, a quick clarification of terms:

My pronoun is "he" because I am a trans man. You might also see this written as FtM, F2M or Female-to-Male. It is exactly what it sounds like it is, I am a female-bodied man.

Similarly, some of my closest friends are trans women. This is also written as MtF, M2F or Male-to-Female. Their pronouns are "she" as they are women, even if they are male-bodied.

It is very offensive to (knowingly) refer to trans women as "he" or trans men as "she".

Some people do not count themselves as being either "men" or "women". They may see themselves as being both (typically called bigender), neither (this could possibly be called agendered, neutrois or genderless), a mixture (could be called androgyne, genderqueer, genderfluid etc)or something completely different (often called third gendered or genderqueer).

Some WILL use the pronoun of their sex or the opposite sex, others will prefer to go by "they", some switch pronouns, some use "sie" and "hir" or "ze" and "zir" or another system of gender neutral pronouns and some use no pronouns at all.

If you do not know the gender of a person you are trying to refer to, i suggest you either use "they" or avoid using pronouns at all, rather than trying to guess.

In my experience, non-binary trans and genderqueer people are a lot less likely to be offended by pronouns than binary trans people but i thought it was worth explaining just so no one's confused by my insistance on refering to my partner as "sie".

So, yep, ask questions. And i (or any other lovely person on this site) will try to answer. :cake:

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  • 2 weeks later...
Right, of course we have the traditional:

"I am a x trapped in the body of a y"

or mine:

"i am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type".

I am a human being trapped in a society that assigns gender without consultation.

How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer / genderless?

When people say my (gendered birth) name, I flinch. Sometimes I'm used to it, but a lot of the time I flinch. Especially if I see it in writing. Same goes for people calling me "she"--it just feels incredibly wrong. Not like I want to switch it out for "he" (although I've been through phases of wanting to be physically and socially male), just like... It's especially below-the-belt for someone to make a big deal out of my gender. Like when my dad recently told me "hetero girls shave their armpits". Which is stupid, twice, because he assumed I was hetero even though I've told him otherwise just because I was dating a male--he implied before that that dating a male MAKES someone he views as female heterosexual. And also it's stupid because what the hell does his and society's view of me as "female" have to do with anything? It's just like an intrusion into my world, my way of thinking and understanding, my passion for life, my enchantment with the little things and the big issues, how I view myself. It's like someone comes barging in with this harsh, violent, divisive, arbitrary tool for tearing people apart and rending them into predetermined boxes. It's a bit like if you told me I should let you put color-coded plastic tags on each of my bones. To categorize them based on biological truths.

Or are you ambivalent about gender?

Yes. I've been feeling very genderless for quite some time, but I'm also capable of feeling proud of being a woman in a feminist/female community sense, or proud of my masculinity and the community of like-minded males, and of how masculinity is free of (or can be free of) a lot of the socialized vanities and limitations imposed upon females. I used to conceptualize different states as "male" or "female", and I very very occasionally feel like I should be in a male body, this strong sense of--it's not a painful wrongness to me, just a floating, disoriented, or sometimes pent-up frustrating one. But I think that drawing these distinctions and trying to figure out "what gender I am" or trying to make myself more trans (in order to justify the sacrifices I've made for my gender identity--if I believed it was okay for me to be and think of myself and be seen as female, I would go crazy over everything I do to address my non-female gender identity--and I think this tension, this angst, this sense of "well, it's okay to be female sometimes, so why not all the time?" is the worst thing in my life gender-wise) is not good for me. So I'd rather say that my inner non-gendered bubble is the best place to be, and I can block out and fight off and repair the damage after all the world's cruel intrusions.

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I think I consider myself bigendered. Biologically, I'm male; in terms of my gender I'm female: with some strong male traits (which absolutely do not negate my femininity).

Myself and my close friends refer to me as 'she', as I prefer it; but I would say I'm comfortable with strangers referring to me as 'he'. Whenever this happens, it feels like they are referring to my sex, rather than my gender. I don't think there is anyone who actually knows me that could really see me as being male (gendered).

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mad_scientist

I'm not sure whether I'm genderless or female (I'm biologically female). Either way there's no dysphoria, so it's not something I've really thought about much before coming to AVEN. I'm not sure how it's supposed to "feel" to be female -- the concept of a gender identity is baffling to me.

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I'm not sure whether I'm genderless or female (I'm biologically female). Either way there's no dysphoria, so it's not something I've really thought about much before coming to AVEN. I'm not sure how it's supposed to "feel" to be female -- the concept of a gender identity is baffling to me.

Same with me. I dont understand how it feels to be like a male. I am a biological male and although I do enjoy being slightly feminized within my male body just for being sexy and all to others, I have never got dysphoria. Seriously,how does it feel to be male or woman inside? I only can feel it with respect to sex drives- I get penis erect on being sexually aroused but women may get menstruations and all which I don't.

This "feeling inside" statement itself by many of the trans people here in AVEN has made me wonder if I am also fluid with gender. I am more into science than philosophy.

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Ok... here goes...

I'm female bodied.

I don't have an innate gender. The label's blank. I can see the label now, took me a while to find it. (It's up and to the right in me).

I say that I'm agendered because I see my relationship with gender is similar to my relationship with sex (some people seem to know what they're doing with them, but I don't have a foggiest).

I don't like people knowing my sex. It's a personal thing. If we use clothing to disguise our genitalia, why are we so happy to tell people what they are?

In life, if I'm not being lazy, I try to disguise my sex. I like people being confused, even if their confusion is automatically ended when I open my mouth. I do not like my feminine voice.

Sometimes I see myself as a green cell-like blob, in a cuboid tank (1x2x3.5), controlling a constructed human body. I'm running this human, but I don't know how they're suppose to work and it doesn't seem I can recognise things that other humans do automatically. (The controls aren't great, it's very hard to make an algorithmic programme to do tidying up.)

It took until I met trans and multiple people to realise that some people have another way of telling what gender they are without just looking between their legs. And I had to ask them how they knew, which bemused them somewhat, and may have been taken as me questioning whether what they told me was the truth.

I don't care what pronouns people use about me, as long as they know none of them is entirely accurate. If people don't know me, I prefer them to avoid the use of pronouns.

If I am on something online where I have to display a male or female avatar, I display as male. This is because I find that I prefer the options available for display of male avatars. Most sites have females either with prominent breasts, or not much choice of trousers. If I can go for something that is non-human, non-biological even, I'd far rather. (My default avatar on one of my sites is a Nintendo Bomb-om.)

I realised last October or so that "gender-queer is contagious". Many people just haven't looked at their gender, and only start thinking about it when they see someone "odd". Then again, most thinking only occurs when something is odd.

I don't know how much of the above is relevant to the thread.

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i love Abby the AVEN Bear's answer to the question "Are you a boy or a girl?" They said "No" :D :cake: for Abby. i know a lot of people who wish they were brave enough to say it like that.

Great answer. I'm going for "both".

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mad_scientist
Ok... here goes...

I'm female bodied.

I don't have an innate gender. The label's blank. I can see the label now, took me a while to find it. (It's up and to the right in me).

I say that I'm agendered because I see my relationship with gender is similar to my relationship with sex (some people seem to know what they're doing with them, but I don't have a foggiest).

I don't like people knowing my sex. It's a personal thing. If we use clothing to disguise our genitalia, why are we so happy to tell people what they are?

In life, if I'm not being lazy, I try to disguise my sex. I like people being confused, even if their confusion is automatically ended when I open my mouth. I do not like my feminine voice.

Sometimes I see myself as a green cell-like blob, in a cuboid tank (1x2x3.5), controlling a constructed human body. I'm running this human, but I don't know how they're suppose to work and it doesn't seem I can recognise things that other humans do automatically. (The controls aren't great, it's very hard to make an algorithmic programme to do tidying up.)

It took until I met trans and multiple people to realise that some people have another way of telling what gender they are without just looking between their legs. And I had to ask them how they knew, which bemused them somewhat, and may have been taken as me questioning whether what they told me was the truth.

I don't care what pronouns people use about me, as long as they know none of them is entirely accurate. If people don't know me, I prefer them to avoid the use of pronouns.

If I am on something online where I have to display a male or female avatar, I display as male. This is because I find that I prefer the options available for display of male avatars. Most sites have females either with prominent breasts, or not much choice of trousers. If I can go for something that is non-human, non-biological even, I'd far rather. (My default avatar on one of my sites is a Nintendo Bomb-om.)

I realised last October or so that "gender-queer is contagious". Many people just haven't looked at their gender, and only start thinking about it when they see someone "odd". Then again, most thinking only occurs when something is odd.

I don't know how much of the above is relevant to the thread.

...

Are you me in disguise?

I don't disguise my gender because I'm too lazy (and a DD-cup, so it's not even worth trying unless I acquire a taste for REALLY bulky clothing), but apart from that, everything you say here applies to me.

I suspect that I am what the people around here refer to as " agendered". Or I do, at any rate. My gender identity is not male, or female (I suspect), or neutral... I don't understand the concept. The idea of an internal gender is baffling to me and I don't seem to have one. I also pick avatars based on how much I like the image, and deliberately avoid overtly attention-drawing secondary sexual characteristics or gender-stereotypical clothing in them (unless the outfit is awesome).

I'm also not as... intimitely woven with my body as most people seem to be, given the way they talk about themselves. I call it my meat puppet and control it from my little home in the brain. although I've never visualised myself as goo before (I prefer to think of myself as data. like a computer program, in a system designed to organise it in a coherent fashion). And -- ok, this is going to get a bit off-topic, but... HUMANS ARE WEIRD. I mean, they walk on their heelbones! How the hell is that not freaky?! The spine itn't meant to be aligned like this! And the no-tail thing... well, it's easy to get used to that, but it's still weird in principle. Never mind how disconcertingly similar human and chimpanzee faces are (although humans aren't as violent... chimps are scary like that). And let's not even get into the hair thing. Sparse, fine hair on most of the body, a few thick spots, well that's strange but understandable, but what is with the scalp thing?! A huge patch of think, closely spaced hairs that grow ludicrously long? I mean, why?!

Um... sorry... I'll stop now.

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Ok... here goes...

I'm female bodied.

I don't have an innate gender.

Wow. Cool. I never knew if you were male or female or whatever bodied. I did not attach an innate gender to you. :)

Are you me in disguise?

Wow. You as well. 8)

i love Abby the AVEN Bear's answer to the question "Are you a boy or a girl?" They said "No" :D :cake: for Abby. i know a lot of people who wish they were brave enough to say it like that.

AVEN Bear is happy to know that hir response was appreciated. :D

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Elliott Ford
I'm not sure whether I'm genderless or female (I'm biologically female). Either way there's no dysphoria, so it's not something I've really thought about much before coming to AVEN. I'm not sure how it's supposed to "feel" to be female -- the concept of a gender identity is baffling to me.

Same with me. I dont understand how it feels to be like a male. I am a biological male and although I do enjoy being slightly feminized within my male body just for being sexy and all to others, I have never got dysphoria. Seriously,how does it feel to be male or woman inside? I only can feel it with respect to sex drives- I get penis erect on being sexually aroused but women may get menstruations and all which I don't.

This "feeling inside" statement itself by many of the trans people here in AVEN has made me wonder if I am also fluid with gender. I am more into science than philosophy.

I'll straight out admit that i'm not entirely sure quite what it is to "feel male" either - and i'm a transsexual man.

I think, for me, a huge part of it is the feelings of confusion and disorientation i get every time either my body does something that only female bodies do or someone treats me the way that they treat female-bodied people. It really does feel like "What the actual f*ck is going on?" it just feels completely wrong. Every single "she" or use of my female birthname etc. just feels wrong, those words don't apply to me.

But "he" and "William" (that's my name :) ) feel RIGHT. They are the right words to describe me.

Similarly, wearing female clothes always felt like i was wearing a disguise, putting them on every day was like adopting a female persona that i always knew wasn't me. Dressing as a man now, that isn't dressing up. I'm just dressing as myself and not pretending to be someone i'm not.

This feeling of wrongness and rightness is one of the main things i have to go on. I feel like someone who should dress like i do, be referred to how i want and be treated in the way that our society usually treats men. I am a person who knows how they should be treated and it's as a male person gets treated here.

Further than that, i am so surprised and disappointed every morning to discover once again that i am female-bodied. Even before i consciously knew that i was supposed to be a boy, i would feel such sadness whenever i saw my increasingly feminine body as i had been quietly hoping that it wouldn't look like that when i woke up.

Something i said on another thread that might come close to explaining what it's like to "feel male" -

i do not understand women in the way that a woman does. I understand women from the outside perspective, rather than from my own experience of womanhood. Everything i know about what it is to be female, i have learnt by watching females, not by being one, despite living as a girl for several years. I understand men in a different way because i am one. i understand men from my own experience of manhood.

I hope some of this made sense and /or has been of some help :cake:

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Once I showed a friend a picture of Gackt. She asked, "Is that a boy or a girl?" and I answered, "Both" as well. Just to indicate her gender-dichotomy mindset, she then proceeded to ask if that meant Gackt was trans. No; he's just Gackt.

Transgender means that your gender identity doesn't match your biological sex 100%- so even if you are male, if you're also female and have a male body, you are trans. Gackt doesn't have to identify as such, but asking if a person is trans because they're an androgyne or bigender ("both") doesn't always indicate a gender-dichotomy mindset.

I think it does have to do a lot with the implications one associates with the word "transgender"..... for many people, transgender means the whole "wrong body" thing, which would, yeah, indicate a gender-dichotomy mindset.

I mean, identify as transgender or saying someone is transgender or anything along those lines draws attention to both one's gender identity and sex assigned at birth. Saying "no, he's just Gackt" would not draw attention to those two details, which lessens the importance of those two things, especially sex assigned at birth. Which, personally, I think is a very good thing, with regards to breaking the gender binary. Saying, "no, they're not trans, they're so-and-so" is a refusal to base one's identity on something as trivial as gender.... which, again, I think is really awesome. I understand that a lot of people are super attached to their gender and want to make it a key part of their identity and that's okay but I don't think that the opposite attitude should be discouraged.

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Little bit of my dairy for today. I don't keep a dairy, except at times when I feel like writing.

Gender-queer is such a funny word. Like we're 'different'. Well, isn't everyone? No one fits all the norms. Everyone is queer in some way.

I'm pretty crazy sometimes, but other days I'm pretty blank. I try to label my gender at times, but it changes like the weather. I'm gender-independent, gender-dynamic, gender-jumbled, gender-mobile, gender-free, gender-uncommited, gender-chaos.

might put it in my sig. feels like 'me'.

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