What it feels like to be trans, genderqueer or genderless

[Heart]

Go MTV :D

[ChillaKilla]

To be honest, I wish there was some sort of gender-neutral alternative to "sir/ma'am" since I do Taekwondo and everyone is sir or ma'am there... I might just ask them to call me sir. I've been going there for several years, so I doubt they'd have an overly negative reaction to it, to be honest.

[Kellam]

One of my favorite parts of getting dressed since beginning transition is deciding how much masculinity and or femininity I want to express. When it is safe to do so that is. Most days, after most of a year of hrt, if I am going somewhere questionable by myself it is safer for me to femme it up.

[Nylocke]

Go MTV :D

http://www.mtv.com/full-episodes/9vkwdv/true-life-i-m-genderqueer-ep-genderq

it really was a good episode too (:

[Asadvortrelundar]

I didn't realize I was trans at all until this past year. I'm AFAB, and would always just ask myself if I felt female. I usually do, so it went under my radar. If it registered that I also felt male, it was only subconsciously, as I didn't know you could feel both at the same time.

Now it feels like, to some extent, I am every gender that could be thought of. Not all equally, and "maleness" is certainly the main one most days.

Even on my less masculine-gendered days it still feels like I should have been born in a body that would have been AMAB rather than the one I have.

That's how it is for me, anyway, a transmasculine pangenderflux demiboy.

[Mind]

Personally, being internally void of gender is very freeing.

I am able to be comfortable doing or wearing anything, regardless of "female" or "male" societal labelling.

Of course there is backlash from "the man" and my peers, but the personal freedom I've reached isn't worth compromising for the sake of a few fragile egos.

Gender identity isn't about anyone except yourself.

It's your choice, and it's your freedom.

What makes you feel free? Male? Female? Something completely new? Anything.

Any answer you give is the right answer.

[Asadvortrelundar]

I thought of something else.

Despite being a bio-female, and even feeling a bit female on the gender spectrum, it has always felt like crossdressing to wear skirts and dresses for as long as I can remember. Granted, a lot of that time I didn't know that's what I was feeling, but that is the feeling. And I like how dresses look, and want to wear them, and then feel uncomfortable actually wearing them in public.

I think I'm even envious of cis women for being able to wear dresses and skirts in public, even though, since I don't have a binder, the random person on the street would probably think I was a cis woman.

[Emery.]

it has always felt like crossdressing to wear skirts and dresses for as long as I can remember. Granted, a lot of that time I didn't know that's what I was feeling, but that is the feeling. And I like how dresses look, and want to wear them, and then feel uncomfortable actually wearing them in public.

The same. I don't know how to describe it, but as a little girl, it was all about girly clothing. Clothing, only, I had a concept that woman is jewelry and dresses. There was something slightly obsessive about it, something from a nerdy collector of ships in bottles. There's nothing wierd about it, I'm nerdy as hell, and this is characteristic of me. I used to keep my sparkilng clothing sorted by colour and length. Just slightly wierd. It wasn't about feeling like a girl, it was another sorted nerdy collection. It was one of my first nerdy attempts at systemising things. Then came books, crayons, jigsaws, blocks, leaves, stones, Harry Potter things...

In all that I have a feeling that it was (and is) the manly way to enjoy womanhood, that there's nothing natural about it, that it's a bit inhuman. That my way of enjoying it doesn't flow from my heart but more from an intellectual play. That there's something wierd and awkward about it, yet nobody seems to notice. Some lack of feelings, being more like an alien pretending very well to be a human. Something too rational and intelectual, too cold. Yep, I think that's it. It just doesn't flow from my heart, while for many people it does.

For some time I felt uncomfortable wearing skirts, because I didn't wear them for a very long time, because most of them weren't very comfortable. I felt naked in a skirt, there was wind blowing at my legs, and it made me feel vulnerable. Not cool. I got convinced to long skirts one year ago exactly for the reason that there was no wind blong on my legs and this sort of skirts isn't too thight usually, and you can move your legs in a normal manner in them. Recently I got even more convinced to skirts and wear them every once in a while :) Even the ones to the knees. And feels like drag - and I like it. It's fun to play around with femininity.

[Heart]

I sympathise, VoraLundar. Even though I'm AFAB and most people would assume I'm a cis woman upon seeing me, I still often feel like I'm wearing a costume when I dress up in a dress or skirt, even when I'm on the feminine end of the spectrum (genderfluid here). It's interesting, how that happens.

Like Emery though, I kinda like it ^_^ When I'm not too far on the masculine side of the spectrum (I feel too dysphoric then to wear dresses or skirts comfortably), it's kinda fun!

[SignerJ]

To be honest, I wish there was some sort of gender-neutral alternative to "sir/ma'am" since I do Taekwondo and everyone is sir or ma'am there... I might just ask them to call me sir. I've been going there for several years, so I doubt they'd have an overly negative reaction to it, to be honest.

Same problem here. I also do Taekwondo, and this keeps bugging me. I've been looking for a decent any alternative for quite a while, but haven't had much success.

[Nylocke]

I sympathise, VoraLundar. Even though I'm AFAB and most people would assume I'm a cis woman upon seeing me, I still often feel like I'm wearing a costume when I dress up in a dress or skirt, even when I'm on the feminine end of the spectrum (genderfluid here). It's interesting, how that happens.

Like Emery though, I kinda like it ^_^ When I'm not too far on the masculine side of the spectrum (I feel too dysphoric then to wear dresses or skirts comfortably), it's kinda fun!

I don't even own a skirt, except for several cosplay items but because I wear a purse I am offend perceived as cis woman which is mad annoying <_______< Sometimes I just brush it off like whatever but other times I'm like "meh I feel more masculine today" or "I feel totally genderless today" or something you know???

[Guest]

This irritates me:

Everything with tits = Ma'am, mrs.

Everything with a penis = Sir,mr.

Sometimes i wish people would spend more time learning new things instead of assuming everyone is comfortable with the old.

[Kellam]

I sympathise, VoraLundar. Even though I'm AFAB and most people would assume I'm a cis woman upon seeing me, I still often feel like I'm wearing a costume when I dress up in a dress or skirt, even when I'm on the feminine end of the spectrum (genderfluid here). It's interesting, how that happens.

Like Emery though, I kinda like it ^_^ When I'm not too far on the masculine side of the spectrum (I feel too dysphoric then to wear dresses or skirts comfortably), it's kinda fun!

I can relate to this as most men's clothimg felt like cross dressing to me. But, not being the most femme trans woman means that dresses and skirts have a costumy feel for me. Sometimes they are fun to play around in but...well...they just ain't me.

[butterflydreams]

*makes quiet foray into thread I'm not in much *

I sympathise, VoraLundar. Even though I'm AFAB and most people would assume I'm a cis woman upon seeing me, I still often feel like I'm wearing a costume when I dress up in a dress or skirt, even when I'm on the feminine end of the spectrum (genderfluid here). It's interesting, how that happens.



Like Emery though, I kinda like it ^_^ When I'm not too far on the masculine side of the spectrum (I feel too dysphoric then to wear dresses or skirts comfortably), it's kinda fun!

I can relate to this as most men's clothimg felt like cross dressing to me. But, not being the most femme trans woman means that dresses and skirts have a costumy feel for me. Sometimes they are fun to play around in but...well...they just ain't me.

This is very interesting to me (mostly for the diversity of experiences). Things having a costumy feel has been and remains my #1 concern in transition. Odd when you consider the fact that literally nothing I've done so far has felt like a costume

This is the perfect time/place to say this: do you have any idea how much I always wanted to wear skirts? :lol: Looking back on it now I feel like giving my past self a good slap upside the head! Were you just intentionally dense or...? Hehe, nah, I don't blame myself too much. I ended up trying to compensate and mold men's fashion to what I wanted. It never worked.

I've maintained that shoes are symbolically very important to me (wearing girl's shoes in kindergarten was probably the last time I was really me). It's seems fitting then now that I've opened the gates, I can see myself very easily amassing a very stereotypically girly shoe collection. There are worse problems I could have ;)

[Koriander]

I feel so evil.. I feel so STUPID.

I look 100% cis male... and it's getting VERY old lol, I hate myself for looking like this... cause... inside... I am NOT. Then there are AFAB people out there that want to look masculine... and I just want to swap bodies with them, y'all getting mah drift lel?

I feel so bad looking like a cis male... I haven't gone public with my transition so i won't be "crossdressing" in the street unless for special occasions or after I've started but yeh.. xD I feel .. bad, ok, I can live with it... for a WHILE but still... I'm SICK of my cis-ness cause that's not me, i feeel like im in some "super manly manly man masculine suit" with beard & hair and stuffs. It's WRONG!! PLS HALP how to feel better????

[Kellam]

I feel so evil.. I feel so STUPID.

I look 100% cis male... and it's getting VERY old lol, I hate myself for looking like this... cause... inside... I am NOT. Then there are AFAB people out there that want to look masculine... and I just want to swap bodies with them, y'all getting mah drift lel?

I feel so bad looking like a cis male... I haven't gone public with my transition so i won't be "crossdressing" in the street unless for special occasions or after I've started but yeh.. xD I feel .. bad, ok, I can live with it... for a WHILE but still... I'm SICK of my cis-ness cause that's not me, i feeel like im in some "super manly manly man masculine suit" with beard & hair and stuffs. It's WRONG!! PLS HALP how to feel better????

There are litle things you can do like wearing appropriate undergarments or painting your toenails. For years I coped by wearing items of women's clothing that could be mistaken for men's mixed in with my male costume. I also used to roll up all the cuffs of my men's pants to make sudo capris. Sometimes folks would ask about that but I would just tell them that it was a hiking/bicycling thing. I hope these ideas might be helpful. They aren't long term solutions but they can hold things at bay.

*makes quiet foray into thread I'm not in much *

I sympathise, VoraLundar. Even though I'm AFAB and most people would assume I'm a cis woman upon seeing me, I still often feel like I'm wearing a costume when I dress up in a dress or skirt, even when I'm on the feminine end of the spectrum (genderfluid here). It's interesting, how that happens.

Like Emery though, I kinda like it ^_^ When I'm not too far on the masculine side of the spectrum (I feel too dysphoric then to wear dresses or skirts comfortably), it's kinda fun!

I can relate to this as most men's clothimg felt like cross dressing to me. But, not being the most femme trans woman means that dresses and skirts have a costumy feel for me. Sometimes they are fun to play around in but...well...they just ain't me.

This is very interesting to me (mostly for the diversity of experiences). Things having a costumy feel has been and remains my #1 concern in transition. Odd when you consider the fact that literally nothing I've done so far has felt like a costume

This is the perfect time/place to say this: do you have any idea how much I always wanted to wear skirts? :lol: Looking back on it now I feel like giving my past self a good slap upside the head! Were you just intentionally dense or...? Hehe, nah, I don't blame myself too much. I ended up trying to compensate and mold men's fashion to what I wanted. It never worked.

I've maintained that shoes are symbolically very important to me (wearing girl's shoes in kindergarten was probably the last time I was really me). It's seems fitting then now that I've opened the gates, I can see myself very easily amassing a very stereotypically girly shoe collection. There are worse problems I could have ;)

Ha! I already have three pairs since my shoe size changed but I also haven't been able to brimg myself to ditch the four pairs of shoes I already had. Even in the closet I had a lot of shoes. Not a shoe closet, a trans closet, my shoes were out in the open, men's shoes... I still prefer the sneaker, running shoe, trail shoe range but I am always on the lookout for a cute pair of mary janes!

[Nylocke]

This irritates me:

Everything with tits = Ma'am, mrs.

Everything with a penis = Sir,mr.

Sometimes i wish people would spend more time learning new things instead of assuming everyone is comfortable with the old.

Yea, welcome to my family indeed. That's exactly how they think.

[butterflydreams]

I feel so evil.. I feel so STUPID.

I look 100% cis male... and it's getting VERY old lol, I hate myself for looking like this... cause... inside... I am NOT. Then there are AFAB people out there that want to look masculine... and I just want to swap bodies with them, y'all getting mah drift lel?

I feel so bad looking like a cis male... I haven't gone public with my transition so i won't be "crossdressing" in the street unless for special occasions or after I've started but yeh.. xD I feel .. bad, ok, I can live with it... for a WHILE but still... I'm SICK of my cis-ness cause that's not me, i feeel like im in some "super manly manly man masculine suit" with beard & hair and stuffs. It's WRONG!! PLS HALP how to feel better????

I agree with what Kellam has said. You'd be surprised how much better you'll feel just wearing the right things, and how much they don't out you at all, even if you're still looking male overall. I'm sitting in a cafe right this minute wearing a woman's sweater and women's shoes. I'm sure no one notices, and even if they do, there's so much possibility for doubt. But it's amazing (or maybe it isn't) just how much better wearing the right things can make you feel. Most days, I come home and change into my skirt...leggings too if it's cold. I still look plenty male (at least I think so, I have been gendered right in public before though) and I feel a lot like you about dressing better in public. But here's a secret, lately I've been feeling like at some point, maybe soon, I'm going to snap and just say "fuck it", put on my skirt and head out into the world. I've had some kind of change of heart where I feel like people already think I'm weird, and wearing a skirt would just be explained away by people. And that would be good enough for me. So give yourself the time. Let the universe push you in the direction you need to go. You can do it!

[Kappamaki]

I feel so evil.. I feel so STUPID.

I look 100% cis male... and it's getting VERY old lol, I hate myself for looking like this... cause... inside... I am NOT. Then there are AFAB people out there that want to look masculine... and I just want to swap bodies with them, y'all getting mah drift lel?

I feel so bad looking like a cis male... I haven't gone public with my transition so i won't be "crossdressing" in the street unless for special occasions or after I've started but yeh.. xD I feel .. bad, ok, I can live with it... for a WHILE but still... I'm SICK of my cis-ness cause that's not me, i feeel like im in some "super manly manly man masculine suit" with beard & hair and stuffs. It's WRONG!! PLS HALP how to feel better????

You can do a lot with clothing and style even without going too femme and outright "crossdressing." I rarely wear outright femme clothing, and I instead go for a more androgynous look. And if clothing isn't the best way to cope for you, there are other ways, too. I personally deal with things largely through videogames (playing female characters, and hunting dragons is fun, too), writing, reading, and talking about stuff with Internet people (like here), a therapist, and family and friends. (If you're not ready for that last bit, that's okay.)

You can also start with transition long before taking it public. Just getting some progress, even if you don't look female to others yet, can be incredibly mentally beneficial. You can work things out with an endocrinologist to start HRT, and if your experience is anything like mine, you'll start to feel better right away and notice little physical differences in the first few months, but it'll be many months longer before you look noticeably different to others, giving you plenty of time. And electrolysis can permanently remove facial hair so you'll never have to shave again - electrolysis takes forever, but starting and knowing you're making progress can be really helpful. As for hair... well, depending on how your hair works, it might get a lot nicer all by itself given time. I'm lucky enough to be in that category.

[butterflydreams]

You can also start with transition long before taking it public. Just getting some progress, even if you don't look female to others yet, can be incredibly mentally beneficial.

Super "yes" to this. There was a huge sigh of relief on my part when I went to the gender clinic the first time and the doctor told me, "look, this can absolutely be a slow, quiet process. Your pace."

You can work things out with an endocrinologist to start HRT, and if your experience is anything like mine, you'll start to feel better right away and notice little physical differences in the first few months, but it'll be many months longer before you look noticeably different to others, giving you plenty of time.

I can vouch for this as well. I think the immediate better feeling was mostly in my head, along the lines of, "ok, we're finally putting the brakes on this train. Maleness may have already happened, but as of right now, no more." That was incredibly relieving. And in the subsequent weeks, I started to notice like a pressure relief valve on all my emotions and feelings. I felt like I could finally rest. Nobody really explained those kinds of feelings to me prior to starting HRT, so I like to tell others. Knowing that would've helped me make the decision more easily.

And electrolysis can permanently remove facial hair so you'll never have to shave again - electrolysis takes forever, but starting and knowing you're making progress can be really helpful. As for hair... well, depending on how your hair works, it might get a lot nicer all by itself given time. I'm lucky enough to be in that category.

I still haven't even looked into this yet despite it being a huge element of my discomfort. 1) Unlike at the salon getting my hair done, there's no plausible deniability for why I'd be removing facial hair. 2) I'm afraid of running into prejudiced people. So I'm kind of hoping I can get there eventually, and in the meantime, hoping that HRT will work some magic on other body hair and maybe at least slow down facial hair. Pretty sure changes there are a "several months out" kind of thing.

[Kellam]

Hadley and Kappamaki are so very right. Hrt and electrolysis both have huge mental components. Taking control feels so positive and one can start with the smallest things and move as fast or slow as one wants. When I had my third electrolysis session and my electrologist started work on my chin I cried. She had started in on the first hairs to apear when I was a teen. My hair started to slow almost immediately upon starting hrt and my male pattern baldness began to reverse. My male body hair is all but gone eight months in to hrt too and what is left is super soft and fine. I am actually growing my arm hair back out as it seems to have taken on a more feminine pattern. I had been shaving for months and months. There are myriad steps you can take to relieve dysphoria, just talking about it can help a ton too. Use the gender forums to that end. We're here for you.

[Plectrophenax]

This irritates me:

Everything with tits = Ma'am, mrs.

Everything with a penis = Sir,mr.

Sometimes i wish people would spend more time learning new things instead of assuming everyone is comfortable with the old.

Considering this would imply that women with small or non-visible breasts would be called "Sir" or "Mister" and men would have to be checked for a merely potentially visible bulge in their nether region before being addressed [unless, of course, the absence of breasts suffices], I think you are selling the conventional language use a bit short here. People determine gender by a wide variety of means. Most of them are of such a nature that their gender-marker-ness is relatively universal [like, indeed, visible breasts or facial hair], while others are merely common but by no means exclusory [like hair or body type] and others again are merely social standards that only speak of conformity [like make-up or any form of 'gendered' clothing]. Gender is determined - often at a glance - with surprising conviction based on a mixture of these criteria. Which is why there are numerous cases where people get the gender wrong, something that would be far less common if the measure where as unambiguous as you suggest.

Also, bear in mind that "Mister/Mr" and "Mistress/Mrs" are not notifiers of identity. It doesn't matter to the use if someone likes or dislikes their biological gender. It's the same with pronouns. They are simply not meant to express a person's identity, but serve descriptive power in a world [and consequently language] that works with binary sexual dimorphism.

I will agree, however, that a persons biological gender is far too irrelevant for it to be the primary means of referencing them [aside from their name, that is], and if people go even further and falsly take the gendered pronouns to express a particular set of characteristics that are far from self-explanatory [i.e. stereotypes] then it would be a welcomed step to dismantle standard grammatical and formal utility of gender in language and focus more on a language that actually is descriptive of a person's character and personality [the linguistic challenge of such an edeavour notwithstanding].

I feel so evil.. I feel so STUPID.

I look 100% cis male... and it's getting VERY old lol, I hate myself for looking like this... cause... inside... I am NOT. Then there are AFAB people out there that want to look masculine... and I just want to swap bodies with them, y'all getting mah drift lel?

I feel so bad looking like a cis male... I haven't gone public with my transition so i won't be "crossdressing" in the street unless for special occasions or after I've started but yeh.. xD I feel .. bad, ok, I can live with it... for a WHILE but still... I'm SICK of my cis-ness cause that's not me, i feeel like im in some "super manly manly man masculine suit" with beard & hair and stuffs. It's WRONG!! PLS HALP how to feel better????

Pardon me for prying, but how exactly does it feel to look like a male? [i'll ignore the 'cis' addition, since you can't really "look" cis, can you?] I get from your post that it's the contrast that makes it feel wrong - and, worse, evil - but what exactly does that contrast entail? How do you feel inside, and how exactly does it clash with your appearance? Does this rely on assumptions of character formed on the basis of appearance that you hold, or that you think others [society, even] hold? Regardless, what do these assumptions look like?

I wish you the best of luck for transitioning, by the way. If all goes smoothly you'll surely feel more comfortable soon.

I don't imagine gender being the front and center of anyone's mind either. For me it's those moments when I think about gender that nothing jumps out at me. This isn't the best example, but the other day I had to call the IRS and the person I talked with kept calling me ma'am. I imagine for most cis-females that it wouldn't really phase them because ma'am is a word used to refer to females and they are female. Maybe a bit formal, but the gender aspect isn't going to throw them for a loop. For me though it did. I wasn't experiencing any self-sense of gender that day so when I was being called ma'am it was a somewhat dysphoric experience. So when I stop and think or when my gender comes up significantly enough in a situation I don't always have this thought of "female." It doesn't even occur to me. I experience dysphoria because what has come up doesn't apply to me. I don't feel like I'm lacking anything. It just doesn't apply to me.

Another way I'll try to explain it (if none of this makes sense, I apologize; I'm not the best at explaining) is self-identification. On the internet sex and gender are often ambiguous and unknown until revealed by the relevant party. Maybe this is from earlier years of the internet, but I grew up where people would introduce themselves along the lines of "Hi! I'm NAME and I'm a X-year-old GENDER from LOCATION." Most cis people wouldn't question their gender at all. Most people in general wouldn't. But when I think of that, a lot of the time I don't say anything about my gender. I just say person or nothing at all because gender often doesn't apply to me.

(Fun fact: Chrome thinks phosphoric is the right way to spell dysphoric. :P)

Thanks for the response.

As someone who doesn't identify with gender at all, I understand where you are coming from regarding the "dysphoric experience" you describe, and it's a nice way to illustrate a difference between 'cis' and 'non-cis' people that is a little more subtle than body dysphoria. However, I don't think I completely understand what you mean by "it just doesn't apply to me" - what doesn't apply to you? The implicit referral to your biology? Or unspoken assumptions that you take to be implicit in the words? Or perhaps even both?

Incidentally, I also never revealed or was at least hesitant to reveal my gender on the internet. Not because it doesn't apply to me in it's descriptive sense [because I take it to mean just that], but because what it describes I considered to be utterly irrelevant. It would be like me saying "Hi! I'm NAME from SOCIAL CLASS and have SHOE SIZE and FAVOURITE KIND OF PET." Why should I? What possible information could be conveyed this way that could be relevant for a first impression? I'd much rather get to know someone without the hindering - and often false - preconceptions caused by such descriptors. Most people I know either just accept the descriptory aspect of gendered terms for convenience, or they actually consider the information conveyed to be relevant [in the sense that they would treat people differently - for whatever reason - relative to their gender].

Interestingly enough, people still tended to gender me in some way, and funnily enough it was often 50:50 though my reluctance to share my gender was primarily considered an indication of being female.

Personally, being internally void of gender is very freeing.

I am able to be comfortable doing or wearing anything, regardless of "female" or "male" societal labelling.

Of course there is backlash from "the man" and my peers, but the personal freedom I've reached isn't worth compromising for the sake of a few fragile egos.

Gender identity isn't about anyone except yourself.

It's your choice, and it's your freedom.

What makes you feel free? Male? Female? Something completely new? Anything.

Any answer you give is the right answer.

Is the use of 'gender' in the phrase "being void of gender" meant in the sense of 'gender identity'? If so, the fragmented wording is a bit confusing. If not, then the mix between terms is very confusing.

I do fully agree with your post, however, insofar as it pertains to identity. There is absolutetly no need to let arbitrary standards and superimposed norms - even if authentically shared by a majority of people - dictate the way you consider yourself.

The same. I don't know how to describe it, but as a little girl, it was all about girly clothing. Clothing, only, I had a concept that woman is jewelry and dresses. There was something slightly obsessive about it, something from a nerdy collector of ships in bottles. There's nothing wierd about it, I'm nerdy as hell, and this is characteristic of me. I used to keep my sparkilng clothing sorted by colour and length. Just slightly wierd. It wasn't about feeling like a girl, it was another sorted nerdy collection. It was one of my first nerdy attempts at systemising things. Then came books, crayons, jigsaws, blocks, leaves, stones, Harry Potter things...

In all that I have a feeling that it was (and is) the manly way to enjoy womanhood, that there's nothing natural about it, that it's a bit inhuman. That my way of enjoying it doesn't flow from my heart but more from an intellectual play. That there's something wierd and awkward about it, yet nobody seems to notice. Some lack of feelings, being more like an alien pretending very well to be a human. Something too rational and intelectual, too cold. Yep, I think that's it. It just doesn't flow from my heart, while for many people it does.

So you associate male-ness with nerdiness and a urge to systemise? Or do you only consider it to be non-female and, by extension, male? That aside, I know exactly what you mean with "inhuman" and "unnatural" - my own position towards more or less my entire being often feels this way - as though I'm forced to undergo an additional step of deliberation that others simply skip.

[Emery.]

The same. I don't know how to describe it, but as a little girl, it was all about girly clothing. Clothing, only, I had a concept that woman is jewelry and dresses. There was something slightly obsessive about it, something from a nerdy collector of ships in bottles. There's nothing wierd about it, I'm nerdy as hell, and this is characteristic of me. I used to keep my sparkilng clothing sorted by colour and length. Just slightly wierd. It wasn't about feeling like a girl, it was another sorted nerdy collection. It was one of my first nerdy attempts at systemising things. Then came books, crayons, jigsaws, blocks, leaves, stones, Harry Potter things...

In all that I have a feeling that it was (and is) the manly way to enjoy womanhood, that there's nothing natural about it, that it's a bit inhuman. That my way of enjoying it doesn't flow from my heart but more from an intellectual play. That there's something wierd and awkward about it, yet nobody seems to notice. Some lack of feelings, being more like an alien pretending very well to be a human. Something too rational and intelectual, too cold. Yep, I think that's it. It just doesn't flow from my heart, while for many people it does.

So you associate male-ness with nerdiness and a urge to systemise? Or do you only consider it to be non-female and, by extension, male? That aside, I know exactly what you mean with "inhuman" and "unnatural" - my own position towards more or less my entire being often feels this way - as though I'm forced to undergo an additional step of deliberation that others simply skip.

1. Statistically, yes. Inherently, no.

2. More non-female equated with male for the purpose of this sentence.

I do fully agree with your post, however, insofar as it pertains to identity. There is absolutetly no need to let arbitrary standards and superimposed norms - even if authentically shared by a majority of people - dictate the way you consider yourself.

So how to identify then? I don't see how to identify in a different way than in relation to others. Say you have an IQ 0f 130 or whatever. In a group of people most of whom are 80-110, you're a genius, in a group of 150+, you're stupid *virtual shrug*. A milimeter is tiny when it comes to human dimansions, but a in scale of an atom is enormously big.

How do you know that this feeling is "female" or "male" when you have no point of reference?

[Emery.]

I don't imagine gender being the front and center of anyone's mind either. For me it's those moments when I think about gender that nothing jumps out at me. This isn't the best example, but the other day I had to call the IRS and the person I talked with kept calling me ma'am. I imagine for most cis-females that it wouldn't really phase them because ma'am is a word used to refer to females and they are female. Maybe a bit formal, but the gender aspect isn't going to throw them for a loop. For me though it did. I wasn't experiencing any self-sense of gender that day so when I was being called ma'am it was a somewhat dysphoric experience. So when I stop and think or when my gender comes up significantly enough in a situation I don't always have this thought of "female." It doesn't even occur to me. I experience dysphoria because what has come up doesn't apply to me. I don't feel like I'm lacking anything. It just doesn't apply to me.

Another way I'll try to explain it (if none of this makes sense, I apologize; I'm not the best at explaining) is self-identification. On the internet sex and gender are often ambiguous and unknown until revealed by the relevant party. Maybe this is from earlier years of the internet, but I grew up where people would introduce themselves along the lines of "Hi! I'm NAME and I'm a X-year-old GENDER from LOCATION." Most cis people wouldn't question their gender at all. Most people in general wouldn't. But when I think of that, a lot of the time I don't say anything about my gender. I just say person or nothing at all because gender often doesn't apply to me.

(Fun fact: Chrome thinks phosphoric is the right way to spell dysphoric. :P)

Thanks for the response.

As someone who doesn't identify with gender at all, I understand where you are coming from regarding the "dysphoric experience" you describe, and it's a nice way to illustrate a difference between 'cis' and 'non-cis' people that is a little more subtle than body dysphoria. However, I don't think I completely understand what you mean by "it just doesn't apply to me" - what doesn't apply to you? The implicit referral to your biology? Or unspoken assumptions that you take to be implicit in the words? Or perhaps even both?

I personally have days on which I would read "You, woman" or "Go girl" directed at me as an explicit referral to my genitals, so you see why I get angry or uneasy for that. What do they have to do with my coffee, or anything? I think that if someone feels some mental connection to their gender, they might not read it as dehumanisation, treating like just a piece of flesh, a thing, not really ever have this thought.

How do you feel inside, and how exactly does it clash with your appearance?

This. I can't get this either. (See: my signature)

[Plectrophenax]

So how to identify then? I don't see how to identify in a different way than in relation to others. Say you have an IQ 0f 130 or whatever. In a group of people most of whom are 80-110, you're a genius, in a group of 150+, you're stupid *virtual shrug*. A milimeter is tiny when it comes to human dimansions, but a in scale of an atom is enormously big.

How do you know that this feeling is "female" or "male" when you have no point of reference?

This is a rather complex phenomenological issue. How, indeed, can you know how to label your feelings, when all you have are those feelings? How do you know that one term is more suited than another if you don't have insight into the lived experience of the other people that use those very terms? If you use intersubjectively regulated and standardised measures like height or, to a lesser extent, IQ, then I suppose this isn't too difficult. I can thus determine my position relative to others. But this is not "indentify" in the sense I intend to use it. It is more "determine" or something like that.

So there is no way you know a feeling to be "female" or "male" - you merely identify with one and not the other. Why? Due to preference, I suppose. Because if it's not that, then you must imply a specific set of criteria that constitute "female" or "male" - which is something that people either don't or can't do, or that - if they do it - contains attributes that obviously are found both in biological males and females, and are, as such, only arbitrarily linked to exclusory yet gendered notions.

I personally have days on which I would read "You, woman" or "Go girl" directed at me as an explicit referral to my genitals, so you see why I get angry or uneasy for that. What do they have to do with my coffee, or anything? I think that if someone feels some mental connection to their gender, they might not read it as dehumanisation, treating like just a piece of flesh, a thing, not really ever have this thought.

I get this too, sometimes. Indeed, what's the relevance of my genitals? Though I'm used to it by now, it still irks and on occasion outright annoys me. Though true frustration is limited to when genitals [and the people attached to them] are assigned with attributes on the sole basis of random and semi-statistical connections.

[Emery.]

*Oops, I think I confused "referral" with "reference". Never mind.

Because if it's not that, then you must imply a specific set of criteria that constitute "female" or "male" - which is something that people either don't or can't do, or that - if they do it - contains attributes that obviously are found both in biological males and females, and are, as such, only arbitrarily linked to exclusory yet gendered notions.

Emm, yep, I think you caught the essence in this sentence. I, for example, [tongue in cheek] take all possible feature my tiny brain can contain and has seen in its short life, calculate gender difference of averages, normalise the difference to plus-minus 1 for each item, place myself on these measures, and add everything together to see if the result is far from zero and if it is positive or negative. Additionally, before processing myself in the scale, I sort the items into sevaral bins that represent different aspects of a person e.g. physicality, clothing choices, tone of voice etc. [end of tongue in cheek]

But seriously, I think for most people the process is similar, with the exception that it is far less precise and mathematical than this computational model.

Though true frustration is limited to when genitals [and the people attached to them] are assigned with attributes on the sole basis of random and semi-statistical connections.

Nod. Nod. Nod.

[Dakkon]

Responding to the original intent of this thread; perhaps the most poignant and penetrating observation that I've made for myself about this condition is that you can generally feel good for other people, but you can't feel the same way about yourself.

Reminds me of the abridged tale of Chiron to a degree.

[hhwgv]

I recently figured out that I am male, despite being afab, and when I realized what I was feeling and could put a name to it, it was freeing. Before that, I identified as agender, because I knew I wasn't a "girl" but I grew up in a house full of transphobes and I refused to acknowledge that there was a possibility that I could be male, but it never fit. They/them pronouns just felt wrong, but so did she/her. I thought that I could continue identifying as agender, continue letting my parents and the rest of the people I know irl keep calling me by my birth name and female pronouns, but I felt so dysphoric whenever someone would use them.

I suffered through depression and suicidal thoughts and the feeling that my body wasn't truly mine, but I tried to force myself to be feminine - I learned what kinds of movies/tv shows/media females are "supposed" to consume, what kinds of clothes I should wear, what I should like - and even though I succeeded (and actually genuinely do like some of the "girly" TV shows) it was constantly wrong. It wasn't me.

It took a long time for me to disentangle myself from the ignorance and transphobia I'd been fed from a little kid, but when I finally did, it was amazing. I'm not "out" yet, and I haven't started phyiscally transitioning, but I have every intention to - even though I know that my parents and the people in the small, religious, mennonite town that I live in won't accept it. I accept it, and that's really all that matters.

[anodyneinsect]

Thank you for this topic. I have considered myself neither gender most of my life. I have severe body dismorphia and would like nothing better than to remove the breasts from my chest. When I was little I mostly Identified with the idea of being a robot (yes, I am an R2D2 fan). I was told that not wanting sex or not wanting to be female was wrong and was constantly encouraged to try 'female things'. I do not view clothing as representing a female or male but I prefer to wear pants, shirts and sweat jackets. I see makeup as being something for the theater, not connected to being male or female but I tried it and do not like it. Being non gendered and Asexual I guess the way I feel is like I do not even fit with the human species. I have always been the outsider. Mostly friends in the past have tried to 'fix' me. Lucky for me my current friends are not like that. To everyone here thank you for sharing and best wishes.

[Nylocke]

Sooo my mom says to me one day "you're a female and you need to act like it" and I say "if I gotta act then it ain't in me -_="