What it feels like to be trans, genderqueer or genderless

[Heart]

"There is something wrong with your gender. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now in control of the transmission. We control the masculine and the feminine. We can deluge you with a thousand criticisms, or expand one single hope to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape our perceptions of you to anything our lack of imagination finds convenient. For the next decade, we will control all that you do and be."

Maybe I should just keep writing prose about Androgyny......

From the snidbit that we get here, maybe you should, it's good ;)

[Calligraphette_Coe]

"There is something wrong with your gender. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now in control of the transmission. We control the masculine and the feminine. We can deluge you with a thousand criticisms, or expand one single hope to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape our perceptions of you to anything our lack of imagination finds convenient. For the next decade, we will control all that you do and be."

Maybe I should just keep writing prose about Androgyny......

From the snidbit that we get here, maybe you should, it's good ;)

Thanks! Right now I'm embroiled in technical writing at work. No real joy, but it does keep the wordsmithing skills in good stead.

I keep jotting down thoughts and plot devices for a new piece called 'Loving Prometheus'. I'm thinking of it as a re-write of mythology but with some TG characters thrown into the mix?

[dash]

"There is something wrong with your gender. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now in control of the transmission. We control the masculine and the feminine. We can deluge you with a thousand criticisms, or expand one single hope to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape our perceptions of you to anything our lack of imagination finds convenient. For the next decade, we will control all that you do and be."

Maybe I should just keep writing prose about Androgyny......

From the snidbit that we get here, maybe you should, it's good ;)

Thanks! Right now I'm embroiled in technical writing at work. No real joy, but it does keep the wordsmithing skills in good stead.

I keep jotting down thoughts and plot devices for a new piece called 'Loving Prometheus'. I'm thinking of it as a re-write of mythology but with some TG characters thrown into the mix?

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

[Heart]

[snip]

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

Huh. Go figure. I knew that Vatsyayana, the purported author of the Kama Sutra (no, it's not only about sex... geez guys) claims to have been turned into a female and lived as one for seven years. I wonder if the cultures were influencing each other at the time that these two things showed up? I don't know much about Greek mythology or history, but I remember reading the part in the (translated by an academic version) Kama Sutra where they were discussing the debate about whether females experienced pleasure in sex or whether it was more like an itch that they needed scratching than pleasure to be pursued.

Of course, no one could just ASK women, could they? A bunch of men had to have scholarly debates on this topic and use "evidence" like being a female for seven years, or the fact that women liked it better when men "lasted longer" to support their points... Silly people :P

But ya. You should look into trans* things in mythology. I suspect that gender-bending and switching themes are probably present in a lot of mythologies! It would be so cool to bring those to light in works of prose!! Or even to re-write many of them as being queer, that would be just as awesome :D

[unluckybagel]

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.

Funny, this is exactly how I feel, but I had no idea how to word it until now

[TarinSai80]

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.

Funny, this is exactly how I feel, but I had no idea how to word it until now

@unluckybagel: I could have said exactly the same (with the exception that I'm MAAB).

[Maelstrom_17]

For me, it's something along the lines of society expecting me to look and act female (cis-female person here) but inside I feel agender. I honestly don't mind my female parts or anything like that, since I essentially think that society shouldn't define whether I'm female or neither gender by the way I look. Only I can decide that.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

"There is something wrong with your gender. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now in control of the transmission. We control the masculine and the feminine. We can deluge you with a thousand criticisms, or expand one single hope to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape our perceptions of you to anything our lack of imagination finds convenient. For the next decade, we will control all that you do and be."

Maybe I should just keep writing prose about Androgyny......

From the snidbit that we get here, maybe you should, it's good ;)

Thanks! Right now I'm embroiled in technical writing at work. No real joy, but it does keep the wordsmithing skills in good stead.

I keep jotting down thoughts and plot devices for a new piece called 'Loving Prometheus'. I'm thinking of it as a re-write of mythology but with some TG characters thrown into the mix?

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

[Heart]

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

I like that rewrite! For what it's worth, I always saw it as a "being turned into the 'opposite' sex was a punishment" thing instead of being turned into a woman specifically. That way, the punishment is that they get to feel dysphoria, and a lot of people here can say how much of a punishment that really is! As for why it's always the men being turned women? Maybe men just get in more trouble with the gods? Or maybe the gods are sexist...

[Calligraphette_Coe]

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

I like that rewrite! For what it's worth, I always saw it as a "being turned into the 'opposite' sex was a punishment" thing instead of being turned into a woman specifically. That way, the punishment is that they get to feel dysphoria, and a lot of people here can say how much of a punishment that really is! As for why it's always the men being turned women? Maybe men just get in more trouble with the gods? Or maybe the gods are sexist...

Wouldn't it be an interesting exercise in philosophy to consider who, in ancient cultures, created the legends of the gods? Was there an erasure of female writers back then? Or, why did men play all the female characters in medieval times? Because women weren't allowed to, or didn't want to? Probably the latter?

What if women had written some of these ancient legends? Would the 'punishment' aspect be channelled to something resembling a gift? "I bestow upon you this curse in the hope that you will come to see it as a gift that will let you see both sides of humanity's struggles and allow you to experience peace and enlightenment. That it will make you want to right the ancient wrong of institutionalized sexism."

[dash]

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

HUH.

I always thought of the story differently, that as a seer, he was always a liminal person, and part if liminality is being between genders/sexes. So there had to be some story of how he acquired this liminality. Hera's a goddess. He pissed her off, so she made him serve her, as in "you must serve me to pay for your hitting the snakes" and well, the people that serve her are female priestesses. So zap. He serves as a priestess to Hera.

I also don't see in the story anything about him feeling gender dysphoria -- he becomes a woman, marries, has children, and in a different story becomes a famous prostitute. He ends up taking on every gender role possible for women at the time (priestess, wife/mother and prostitute) before returning to being male (though now with added liminality and power).

[Calligraphette_Coe]

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

HUH.

I always thought of the story differently, that as a seer, he was always a liminal person, and part if liminality is being between genders/sexes. So there had to be some story of how he acquired this liminality. Hera's a goddess. He pissed her off, so she made him serve her, as in "you must serve me to pay for your hitting the snakes" and well, the people that serve her are female priestesses. So zap. He serves as a priestess to Hera.

I also don't see in the story anything about him feeling gender dysphoria -- he becomes a woman, marries, has children, and in a different story becomes a famous prostitute. He ends up taking on every gender role possible for women at the time (priestess, wife/mother and prostitute) before returning to being male (though now with added liminality and power).

I couldn't write a story like that, I'm afraid. Too much bad shadow energy. Perhaps it comes from having to have dealt with dommes crashing trans spaces and thinking inside every transgender XY was a submissive trying to get out. It got VERY obnoxious at times, and then it got even worse afterwards having to be accused of being a prude for not wanting to play along with it.

There's also a PTSD angle which we won't get into....

[dash]

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

HUH.

I always thought of the story differently, that as a seer, he was always a liminal person, and part if liminality is being between genders/sexes. So there had to be some story of how he acquired this liminality. Hera's a goddess. He pissed her off, so she made him serve her, as in "you must serve me to pay for your hitting the snakes" and well, the people that serve her are female priestesses. So zap. He serves as a priestess to Hera.

I also don't see in the story anything about him feeling gender dysphoria -- he becomes a woman, marries, has children, and in a different story becomes a famous prostitute. He ends up taking on every gender role possible for women at the time (priestess, wife/mother and prostitute) before returning to being male (though now with added liminality and power).

I couldn't write a story like that, I'm afraid. Too much bad shadow energy. Perhaps it comes from having to have dealt with dommes crashing trans spaces and thinking inside every transgender XY was a submissive trying to get out. It got VERY obnoxious at times, and then it got even worse afterwards having to be accused of being a prude for not wanting to play along with it.

There's also a PTSD angle which we won't get into....

Yikes.

Not saying you should write this story or any particular story, certainly not if it's triggering for you! I was just sharing my interpretation of the myth, that's all.

[Prairie]

My experience is like having a costume on all the time that others see as a particular gender. I can't take it off and they won't see that their perception of my essence is mostly based on the costume.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

Teiresias is already trans, in a sort of way. :) (If you didn't know.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

I always felt uncomfortable with that one. Why is being transformed into a female always seen as a punishment?

What if Prometheus had a lover who was transformed into a male so that Prometheus would hate him out of homophobia. But how this person turned the table on the Gods and found a way to become a woman again and depose them. Through Circe's help, who always got weak in the knees in the presence of male heroes and became the re-created female's BFF?

HUH.

I always thought of the story differently, that as a seer, he was always a liminal person, and part if liminality is being between genders/sexes. So there had to be some story of how he acquired this liminality. Hera's a goddess. He pissed her off, so she made him serve her, as in "you must serve me to pay for your hitting the snakes" and well, the people that serve her are female priestesses. So zap. He serves as a priestess to Hera.

I also don't see in the story anything about him feeling gender dysphoria -- he becomes a woman, marries, has children, and in a different story becomes a famous prostitute. He ends up taking on every gender role possible for women at the time (priestess, wife/mother and prostitute) before returning to being male (though now with added liminality and power).

I couldn't write a story like that, I'm afraid. Too much bad shadow energy. Perhaps it comes from having to have dealt with dommes crashing trans spaces and thinking inside every transgender XY was a submissive trying to get out. It got VERY obnoxious at times, and then it got even worse afterwards having to be accused of being a prude for not wanting to play along with it.

There's also a PTSD angle which we won't get into....

Yikes.

Not saying you should wrote this story or any particular story, certainly not if it's triggering for you! I was just sharing my interpretation of the myth, that's all.

Nono, it's fine. I understand and apologize if it looked any other way. It's just that writing can sometimes be very personal and be very much like therapy. Remember that one maxim someone wrote about writing?

" Writing is easy. You just sit down in front of a typewriter an open a vein."

He's lost to us now except by what he wrote, but do you sometimes think about what Charles Dickens was thinking when he wrote things like 'Tale of Two Cities'? Was he triggered by the zeitgeist of this times? His personal experiences?

What was done to me can't be undone. Surely, '... the worst of times' ? And I struggle with it daily. And sometimes I have to go back into my desert for a sojourn with my demons when they hijack my emotions. Get them good and drunk on my blood so they'll stay there while I come back to the world.

To have a good cry.

Or just spin a good yarn.

There's something cathartic to be lived in for a moment in either.

It's just soooo damnably inscrutable to everyone else at times, though.

[DatAceFurry]

I'm genderqueer/genderless-ish female. I kinda forget about my biological sex, and one time, I forgot that straight guys are likely to fall in love with me. It always surprises me when a guy has a crush on me because of my occasional unawareness of my own biological sex.

I just forget that I'm female sometimes. That's what being non-binary is like for me!

[artandceramics]

I have my male days and my female days.

On the former, I feel some dysphoria and use a binder, I dress as a male me - but I can still see my body as only a body, a house for my self. It's not too bad.

On the latter, I'm happy with my form and I'll dress it a way I want to show it off, in a way with which I'm comfortable.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

I have my male days and my female days.

On the former, I feel some dysphoria and use a binder, I dress as a male me - but I can still see my body as only a body, a house for my self. It's not too bad.

On the latter, I'm happy with my form and I'll dress it a way I want to show it off, in a way with which I'm comfortable.

I'm glad you're able to get to a good place like that. My 'house' seems to be in a war zone 24/7, and androgyny feels like an uneasy truce or an air raid shelter. And if I get caught in the 'wrong' uniform, I'll be shot as a spy.

::::sighs:::: Such are our fates and destinies on the trajectories we find ourselves. May yours always be as pleasant as you want them to be!

[Bleak Eyes]

I'm still figuring all of this out. Some weeks ago, I was told by my female best friend "I like you as a man". After the shock, something clicked in my mind. I started to analyze (and to ask) how others perceived me, and got utterly confused... What does it mean that I express myself in an androgynous way?...

I'm indifferent to the body I was born in. As my description states, this cell prison just happens to host a consciousness which I call "myself", and thus, the shapes of my body shouldn't imply *anything* about who I am, because, in my opinion, even if there is certain hormonal (and social) influence on how I have come to be, just as everybody has a different neuronal setting each one of us IS gendered diversely and plurally, even if some are comfortable with boxes or labels.

It has crossed my mind that my ambivalence is related to my subconscious quest for equilibrium, if that makes any sense.

[ayesexual]

I'm currently in that stage where you're trying to describe your gender, because you know the terms but none of them feel like they fit. Dressing as a girl never feels wrong. Dressing as a boy never feels wrong. I'm comfortable in my body, but my body isn't especially feminine or masculine (except for having long hair, which may be cut soon). But because of these factors, I know I'm not completely female, but I don't feel completely male either. And it's hard to explain how I know that, but I'm not 100% comfortable being female or male, which is why I'm using gender fluid right now. Knowing you don't fit your gender starts with not feeling totally comfortable with it, and that's how I've got most of my friends to understand it.

[Dodecahedron314]

I'm currently in that stage where you're trying to describe your gender, because you know the terms but none of them feel like they fit. Dressing as a girl never feels wrong. Dressing as a boy never feels wrong. I'm comfortable in my body, but my body isn't especially feminine or masculine (except for having long hair, which may be cut soon). But because of these factors, I know I'm not completely female, but I don't feel completely male either. And it's hard to explain how I know that, but I'm not 100% comfortable being female or male, which is why I'm using gender fluid right now. Knowing you don't fit your gender starts with not feeling totally comfortable with it, and that's how I've got most of my friends to understand it.

That sounds a lot like how I started questioning my gender. I didn't see anything really necessarily *wrong* with my assigned gender, as in I didn't have anything I could identify immediately as dysphoria, but at the same time it just didn't feel like something that made sense as a description for me when I really thought about what gender is (which I'm still not entirely clear on because I don't really have one, just like I don't know how it feels to be sexually attracted to someone because I never have been). The outcome of that ended up being agender for me, at least at this point, but just because we started similarly doesn't mean at all that we'll necessarily end up in the same place.

[~zelda~]

I'm currently in that stage where you're trying to describe your gender, because you know the terms but none of them feel like they fit. Dressing as a girl never feels wrong. Dressing as a boy never feels wrong. I'm comfortable in my body, but my body isn't especially feminine or masculine (except for having long hair, which may be cut soon). But because of these factors, I know I'm not completely female, but I don't feel completely male either. And it's hard to explain how I know that, but I'm not 100% comfortable being female or male, which is why I'm using gender fluid right now. Knowing you don't fit your gender starts with not feeling totally comfortable with it, and that's how I've got most of my friends to understand it.

I have been in this stage for a while. I'm afab and I've always been a tomboy, but it's more than just that. I never had the feminine aspects that other tomboys had. I never put ribbons in my hair or used brightly colored sweatbands, and my style has always been more masculine. On the other hand, I've never really felt like a "boy" either. I've always just been me. I don't really like any set of pronouns because none of them seem to fit, and the same goes for names. My given name feels too feminine, but I don't really like many masculine names either. I started using the term "genderqueer" a while back because it's basic and broad. However, I have found that I prefer others to perceive me as masculine, and I have also started to have much more dysphoria toward my breasts. Figuring out my gender has definitely been an ongoing process and I don't know if I'll ever just know or have that "aha moment," but at least having a comfortable name and set of pronouns would be nice.

[BusTotem]

Hmmm..

I have certain anatomy attached to me as an afterthought. I don't really identify with it as being "me", but it keeps my insides from falling out, and it's fun to play with in mixed company. If I had the other one, that would be fine too, I don't really care. It'd be neat to have a spare body in my closet so I could decide which one to wear each day. "T-shirt or formal? Slacks, jeans, or shorts? Dangly bits or chest pillows?" People act really weird about which piece of random anatomy they got from the coin flip though! Very confusing.

It's like when everybody was given their add-on anatomy, they also got a codebook of "The secret ways of being a guy" or "The arcane tome of womanhood". I've looked around and nobody ever gave me a copy of either of those. Sometimes people start acting like they're giving secret handshakes or whatever out of their book. I've figured out a few of those by observation, I think. Some situations seem like they dig into chapters that I really have no idea what's going on, and then people start saying that i'm vaguely "creepy", but still a nice person to hang out with.

Sometimes, people start saying or doing things that make me feel like i'm having a gender projected onto me strongly, and 'on a pedestal'. Then I feel sort've like i'm in the dark on the edge of a cliff, flailing around trying not to fall off because I don't know where I am and I'm sure i'm about to epically mess up my lines somehow and reveal that I don't belong there and never did, and that the pitchforks and torches are going to come out. Then I feel like I need to do something nonconforming/sissy/tomboy to break that image and make people expect less out of me so I can scurry back into my closet when they look away and hide.

[Spectre/Ex/Machina]

Update on my gender:

I have recently come to identify as Bigender. I am 80% para-male and 20% agender(or demi-agender). For a long time I knew there was something else there but I couldn't really Identify it until recently when I learned there was a term, agender, which described this part of me. I have known I was a man since childhood but that there was this part of me that didn't connect to any gender. I would alternate tween IDing as a guy to not want gender placed on me at all when I was a teen. Im just glad I got the full picture now.

My gender expression is masculine leaning androgynous like it has been for a long while. I do incorporate some feminine touches but not enough to dominate my look, I just don't want to be try-hard masculine. I am very comfortable in my masculinity to make too much ado bout it. It just feels right.

Overall, I am comfortable with who/what I am. It is hard at times and even though I am mildly dysphoric even that can creep up on me and mess with me. However, I do what I must and move on.

[NJMoose]

I'm currently in that stage where you're trying to describe your gender, because you know the terms but none of them feel like they fit. Dressing as a girl never feels wrong. Dressing as a boy never feels wrong. I'm comfortable in my body, but my body isn't especially feminine or masculine (except for having long hair, which may be cut soon). But because of these factors, I know I'm not completely female, but I don't feel completely male either. And it's hard to explain how I know that, but I'm not 100% comfortable being female or male, which is why I'm using gender fluid right now. Knowing you don't fit your gender starts with not feeling totally comfortable with it, and that's how I've got most of my friends to understand it.

I have been in this stage for a while. I'm afab and I've always been a tomboy, but it's more than just that. I never had the feminine aspects that other tomboys had. I never put ribbons in my hair or used brightly colored sweatbands, and my style has always been more masculine. On the other hand, I've never really felt like a "boy" either. I've always just been me. I don't really like any set of pronouns because none of them seem to fit, and the same goes for names. My given name feels too feminine, but I don't really like many masculine names either. I started using the term "genderqueer" a while back because it's basic and broad. However, I have found that I prefer others to perceive me as masculine, and I have also started to have much more dysphoria toward my breasts. Figuring out my gender has definitely been an ongoing process and I don't know if I'll ever just know or have that "aha moment," but at least having a comfortable name and set of pronouns would be nice.

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't feel as if I fit into either box of male or female. I feel like I've got one foot in each, but at the same time no feet in either. I present as a gender-neutral tomboy. I prefer masculine things, but at the same time my pronouns are female because that's what I grew up with. I identify as "genderqueer" because as you said, it's an umbrella term. I haven't had any physical dysphoria until recently. Socially I only had dysphoria in clothing stores. Now I question my gender. I spent half an hour this morning staring at myself in the mirror attempting to figure out whether or not I could "pull off" passing as a guy. The reality is though that if I do bind, I could almost pass, but my hair is too long and my face is too round and it'd just be like looking at a flat chested female.

I don't feel that I'm either gender and I worry that if I were to transition that I wouldn't fit in as the opposite sex. I don't hate having a vagina, I don't hate having breasts, but I just hate the fact that I can't seem to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin or make an image of myself that I could live with.

[MaxieIsHere]

For me it's like, I tried to be a girl, and that didn't feel right. Then I tried to be a boy, and that didn't feel right. Then I just let myself be free to be me, without the restrictions of gender.

[whitelines]

When I'm feeling really confident, I feel like everything I do is masculine. I eat doughnuts like a guy. I take class notes like a guy. I put on socks like a guy.

When I'm feeling really horrible/dysphoric, everything I do feels feminine. I eat doughnuts like a girl. I take notes like a girl. I put on socks like a girl.

wtf does it mean to put on socks like a guy/girl?

I think that sums up my gender-non-binary-ness. It's just like I sometimes feel confident and sometimes I feel dysphoric, and I'm changing nothing about myself for the most part but I gender everything because I'm so scared that I'm "really" a girl or that people will perceive me as "really" a girl.

I just don't say anything when people misgender me 100(minus 1 person)% of the time (that's another thing - as a non-binary person, the only way to gender me correctly is to ask me my gender)

[whitelines]

I'm pretty much the same way. I don't feel as if I fit into either box of male or female. I feel like I've got one foot in each, but at the same time no feet in either. I present as a gender-neutral tomboy. I prefer masculine things, but at the same time my pronouns are female because that's what I grew up with. I identify as "genderqueer" because as you said, it's an umbrella term. I haven't had any physical dysphoria until recently. Socially I only had dysphoria in clothing stores. Now I question my gender. I spent half an hour this morning staring at myself in the mirror attempting to figure out whether or not I could "pull off" passing as a guy. The reality is though that if I do bind, I could almost pass, but my hair is too long and my face is too round and it'd just be like looking at a flat chested female.

I don't feel that I'm either gender and I worry that if I were to transition that I wouldn't fit in as the opposite sex. I don't hate having a vagina, I don't hate having breasts, but I just hate the fact that I can't seem to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin or make an image of myself that I could live with.

In case you're looking for some solid passing information: http://ftmguide.rassaku.net

(because as this guy mentions, so many people try to pass in baggy cargo pants and a buzzed head and that does not go well)

I made my own labels. And my labels have changed as my identity, experiences, feelings, and levels of dysphoria have changed. I started as agender, but that didn't fit at all. I landed in genderqueer but that didn't fit either. Then I started making up stuff like "sparkly boi" and "androglittery" and other stuff. And then I chilled out a bit (a lot) and started identifying as "gender-minimal." Now, my dysphoria has made me shift from androgynous to masculine and I identify as "transmasculine" and "gender" at the same time.

So I guess my tip is to stay open to absolutely any word that comes your way, because you might be able to turn it into a word or phrase that fits you.

[InDarknesseVisible]

I use the term genderqueer to describe myself. I generally dislike the concept of gender: I'm AMAB and I find that there is so much societal pressure to behave in a certain way. I normally identify as gender neutral, but I sometimes feel more masculine or more feminine. I'm comfortable with he/him/his pronouns, and currently present as male, but am looking at experimenting with female/neutral/androgynous presentations. I have a slight amount of dysphoria with my genitals, but mostly view them as useless and in the way.

To me, saying I'm genderqueer means freedom: freedom from societal norms, and freedom to express/identify in any way I choose/feel.

[genderirrelevant]

It feels lonely a lot of the time but maybe that is more from the Avoidant Personality Disorder aspect than being agender. I don't strongly identify with either gender, I'm not particularly attracted to either gender. My tastes are perhaps more masculine but I don't look male or even androgynous. I'm just plain/nothing. I am dysphoric about my female shape and I will change it but I don't need male genitalia. I'd rather not have to touch my junk multiple times a day.