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Gender.... what😟


Green Ace Dragon

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Green Ace Dragon

So..... trying to figure out my gender... thought it would be as easy as it was to figure out my sexuality *read a definition and have everything click*

 

that is not the case at all. I've been questioning my gender for a while now, trying to find as much info as I can to try to put a name to it. 

 

Its not going well.

 

I am androgynous with my interests and I can easily relate to guys and girls fairly equally. I don't think I feel particularly masculin or feminine. I do feel comfortable in my own body though, but I don't feel for certain "yep I am 100% a girl". I don't really feel anything in regards to my body or gender. It's like I'm just existing and that's all I can describe it as. I don't have any feelings that I can pick out or sense towards my gender. But another thing, when I'm with other people I tend to feel slightly masculin or feminine *depending on who I am with* but alone I feel nothing. Maybe I am over thinking things? I dunno.

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While only you will truly be able to figure out your gender, I just wanted to say that it's normal for some identities to click immediately while others don't.

 

I knew I was ace the moment I read the definition. I figured out I was aromantic after ~2 months of contemplation/reflection. My gender, however, took 4+ years of active questioning, and I wasn't able to accept I was trans until the moment I knew that medical transition was a necessary inevitability for me.

 

Sometimes, you need time to really process everything that's going on that factors into your identity. Sometimes, you need to figure out what you even consider to be factors in your identity. Sometimes, you need to accept parts of yourself in small increments before you can really get to know the big picture. Little signs can add up, but they often only look significant in retrospect. 

 

If could just blink into a world where your body always looked a certain way, is there anything different from how you currently look that might be gender significant? What about if you blinked into a world where everyone used they/them pronouns for you by default and only talked about you in a gender-neutral light? What if the same thing happened, but everyone used he/him pronouns? If any of those sound alien or strange, is it because you're not used to the idea, or is it because you would be actively bothered by such a change?

 

Best advice I can give is to keep reflecting and let the progress of your gender questioning happen at the pace it needs to go. I think most people define their gender a little differently, and with time, you'll figure out what aspects of you are relevant to your gender. Personally, my experience with trans identity is quite medical, as I function far better on testosterone and my biggest sources of dysphoria came from the impact of estrogen (especially the breast development). I often say that if I were a brain in a jar, that brain may seem nonbinary, but that brain still functions far better with testosterone than estrogen, so functionally, my brain would still be male despite my not-so-masculine personality. However, some people are far more distressed about the social side, and that is valid too.

 

I think some of the important things to figure out is 1) do you experience any form of dysphoria (social or physical) and if so, 2) what would help you fight off that dysphoria? You will figure it out someday, and you'll likely piece it together sooner than I did. Best of luck with questioning :) 

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butterflydreams
43 minutes ago, Green Ace Dragon said:

I am androgynous with my interests and I can easily relate to guys and girls fairly equally.

I suspect most people, trans or not, would say this. I know I would. It doesn’t really have much to do with your gender IMO.

 

44 minutes ago, Green Ace Dragon said:

I do feel comfortable in my own body though, but I don't feel for certain "yep I am 100% a girl"

Because when you feel comfortable in your body, there’s no dissonance you’re fighting against. That strong “I am 100% a girl” feeling you’re expecting doesn’t really exist. Even I don’t really feel it, except when the dissonance is really strong. I feel a strong dissonance with my body, especially the sexed characteristics. And when I switched the hormones my body ran on, I felt so much better.

 

49 minutes ago, Green Ace Dragon said:

But another thing, when I'm with other people I tend to feel slightly masculin or feminine *depending on who I am with* but alone I feel nothing. 

Almost everyone feels more masculine or feminine at different times. It’s just how we are, and being around different people can help bring that out. I’m much more masculine when hanging out with my guy friends and much more feminine when hanging out with my female friends. I think that’s pretty common to feel that way.

 

50 minutes ago, Green Ace Dragon said:

Maybe I am over thinking things?

Maybe. But mostly I think you’re searching for something that might not be there. Consider also that you might be cis. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just one possible answer. Alternatively, if I told you you were cis, how would that make you feel? If someone told me I was cis, I’d feel crushed and absolutely hopeless.

 

6 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

do you experience any form of dysphoria (social or physical) and if so, 2) what would help you fight off that dysphoria?

This. This is huge. These are the questions to ask yourself. I always suggest people ask what they want to do about their dysphoria or incongruous feelings. 

 

Even I don’t understand gender identity as an I independent thing. For me, it’s all about the dysphoria. If you don’t have that, I think it would be really hard to figure out your identity, because what are you basing it off of? In most of those cases, I’d think the person was just cis, but that’s not every case. I just don’t understand being trans without dysphoria because that’s not my experience at all.

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Green Ace Dragon

Thanks for all the advice guys, I will continue to search for what, exactly, I am feeling. I think if all of a sudden I ended up in the opp sex's body or if I lived in a world where all pronouns were replaced with "they/them" I dont think I'd mind, I think that I'd just roll with it. Then again, sometimes thinking and actually experiencing it would be different--especially since both scenarios are an improbability. *but would make for an awesome story prompt* I have never experienced a sense of dysphoria--that I know of, but I tend to not think about my body in any sort of gender perspective way either. If someone were to come up to me and tell me or ask me if I am cis gender I would respond with "Maybe, i dont know", which is pretty much how I responded to the question "are you straight?" Before I knew I was asexual. I have never given any thought to gender before a few months ago. But I will continue to try to sort it out. 

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49 minutes ago, butterflydreams said:

Consider also that you might be cis. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just one possible answer. Alternatively, if I told you you were cis, how would that make you feel?

That said, it is also prudent not to give cis identity significantly more weight than the others by proxy of it being treated as a "default" identity. I know that I was looking for any excuse to default myself as "cis." I was terrified of the attention I could get for being too gender nonconforming, so I took on a shitty "if I'm nonbinary, then that basically means I'm basically cis" attitude, and I also looked for every "not trans enough" excuse in the book to deny that I'm a man. (The Null HypotheCis was an especially important read during my questioning.) Gender questioning really can reveal hangups you never knew you had, and learning to get past those hangups can be quite a growing experience.

 

I think it's also worth noting that someone's answers to these questions may change with time. If someone told me I was cis ~10 years ago, I would not have been bothered. I was convinced that I could only be a woman because of a mix of my disinterest in sex and internalizing all the "dicks are gross" attitudes my friends spouted while being willfully ignorant about what they even look like. (There was a telling moment when I went to a nude beach during my undergrad days and distinctly remember thinking that dicks just looked like a very natural part of the anatomy despite the attitudes I grew up surrounded by. If I were to dig far enough back in my posts, I bet I could find some of that commentary from long before I was even hardcore gender questioning.) Sometimes, dysphoria takes on forms that are difficult to recognize, and for me, I didn't recognize that I was experiencing any form of dysphoria until my chest grew past a certain threshold in college. (God, I'm making myself nauseous thinking about when I was pre-op.) Turned out that the very way my brain processed emotions was a form of dysphoria, and I even had moments where my brain would just shut down while I had no clue why, such as a moment I had when dress shopping in high school, where I just felt so wrong in my skin, but couldn't recognize what I was feeling other than the vague "bad."

 

Gender is complicated, and I don't miss the questioning process one bit. My brain used to go into such overdrive that I'd give myself headaches from quite literally thinking too much, and I'm a scholar with a very active mind that's used to processing a lot of thought at once. Eventually, you will find your truth, and all that questioning gives you a deeper understanding of self regardless of how you end up identifying.

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butterflydreams
10 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

That said, it is also prudent not to give cis identity significantly more weight than the others by proxy of it being treated as a "default" identity.

Of course not. I think as trans people, we’re inclined to resist cis as the default, but for most people, it is. There’s nothing wrong with including it in your list of possibilities when questioning. I think the trick is to be reasonable about it. 

 

12 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

(The Null HypotheCis was an especially important read during my questioning.) Gender questioning really can reveal hangups you never knew you had, and learning to get past those hangups can be quite a growing experience.

I liked that article a lot at first, but I’ve since changed how I feel about it. It’s still valuable, it’s just not the whole story I feel. It’s a good article if you really are trans, but if you’re not, it could be seriously confusing.

 

15 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

Gender is complicated, and I don't miss the questioning process one bit. My brain used to go into such overdrive that I'd give myself headaches from quite literally thinking too much, and I'm a scholar with a very active mind that's used to processing a lot of thought at once. Eventually, you will find your truth, and all that questioning gives you a deeper understanding of self regardless of how you end up identifying.

I still question myself from time to time. I question whether it would be easier to just go back to living as a man...even though I shudder just writing that. I fear that I’m “not really trans” all the time. And it sucks. I just have so much bullshit built up in my head over a lifetime about how wrong it is, and how trans people are just freaks. Don’t discount how much that kind of thing can have an impact on your identity. If after all this time and all I’ve done it can still be dogging me, believe its power. 

 

1 hour ago, Green Ace Dragon said:

If someone were to come up to me and tell me or ask me if I am cis gender I would respond with "Maybe, i dont know",

Which is how most people would respond to that question. Most people haven’t thought about it at all. And that even includes people who are trans before they realize. I certainly would have responded that way 10 years ago. Which is why I think there’s more to it. I’ve always been trans, despite my inability to recognize it for what it is.

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Green Ace Dragon

Ahaha yeah gender is complicated  (as i have come to know now) but I enjoy learning about gender and expanding my understanding of people. So, the educational aspect of researching gender is nice. Its just trying to pin-point whatI am (and how I'd know) that has been giving me headaches. But thanks for all of you guy's imput😊

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On 1/23/2018 at 11:43 AM, Mezzo Forte said:

(The Null HypotheCis was an especially important read during my questioning.) Gender questioning really can reveal hangups you never knew you had, and learning to get past those hangups can be quite a growing experience.

That...that was a really good read. Thank you

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