How did you know you were not cisgender?

[butterflyaway]

Hi! to anyone who doesn't identify as cisgender- how did you know you were not cisgender? 

 

I am wondering because I am currently struggling a lot with my own gender identity. I can't figure out if this questioning my gender is a real thing, or if it's just a phase and I'm actually just cisgender. Most days I don't know where I stand as far as gender goes. I've always felt more masculine than feminine (I'm AFAB) but lately I've been wondering if that's more than just me being a tomboy. I had this one day when I woke up and in my head, I was male. But when I looked in the mirror, I saw my female body and realized that there's no way I could be male. So the whole day I tried to dress masculine and do masculine things to make the image of myself more like who I was in my head. It sounds stupid but I was genuinely depressed because I was female. I don't know why. That feeling hadn't ever happened before, at least not to that extent. I felt really bad that day. I've always somewhat had issues with having boobs, but at the same time, there are some days when I actually like them. I don't know if what I'm feeling is real or if I'm just going crazy, but it feels like some days I'm more of a girl, most days more a boy, sometimes I'm neutral. I don't know what to think. Thanks for reading this all. I think I just needed to vent.

[Ase of Spades]

I'm 26, and I only realized that I'm not cisgender about two years ago. I remember being a kid and being okay with being seen as a girl, but at the same time I didn't want to be a girl. I didn't have the words to describe it, and as I got older it just got more confusing, so I tried repressing it. For all its problems, tumblr actually helped me come to terms with my gender identity by explaining that unlike what I'd been taught and what I'd seen my entire life, male and female aren't the only options. I went through probably three different labels before I finally found one that I feel accurately describes me.

 

For what it's worth, I think what you're feeling is real. The feeling you described sounds a lot like dysphoria. Just from what you've said, I don't doubt that you might be nonbinary, but ultimately that's up to you to decide. Gender's a tricky thing; I still have trouble with my own and have a lot of self-doubt, and I've been comfortably identifying as nonbinary for years. Honestly, I kind of envy the younger generation that have access to this kind of information and are able to experiment with and really think about gender. I would have been saved so much stress and confusion growing up if I had that same opportunity.

[SkyWorld]

Speaking from my own experience, I had figured out that I wasn't cisgender once I learned more about trans and nonbinary people. It wasn't really like, "Oh! That sounds like me, that must be me!" but more like, "oh... that kind of sounds like me... hmmm". It had only made me do a lot of self-reflecting back as I was growing up and kind of like fitting the puzzle pieces that I wasn't cis. I'm not one of those people who "always knew", but looking back, it's kind of baffling how dense I was. Heh...

 

My earliest years, I embraced being a tomboy. I wanted to do more "boy" things and hang out with the guys, have them see me as "one of the guys". I didn't like doing anything "girly" or wearing anything "too girly". Though, I also felt like there were some things I wasn't "allowed" to do because I knew that I wasn't a "real boy" because being AFAB, everyone treated me or tried to treat me like a girl. But I didn't want to do anything "too girly", so I tried to "compromise". I had always had a great fascination with tomboys in movies/TV-shows, as well as guys who expressed their feminine side. I could relate to them the most and I saw myself as such. Though, I had to admit to myself that I wasn't your typical tomboy, but I also wasn't a girly-girl. I've even said that out loud when I told someone more about myself in an exercise in theatre class; "I'm not really a tomboy, not really a girly-girl, but just... me." 

 

I had hit puberty earlier than most girls. Not only that, but with my family genetics, the women had large hips and breasts. Throughout my life, I had always hoped that I wouldn't get as large of hips or breasts as them and would actually get upset when I'd needed larger bra cups, etc. I hated when people would comment on my body (still hate it), even if it was a compliment. So I did my best to hide my curves and breasts so that I wouldn't draw attention to myself. Around this time, I still felt like I wasn't "allowed" to even wear men's clothing and I hated how practically all the women's clothing would be so tight and/or revealing and there was nothing I could wear to hide my body. So, I'd just wear over-sized jackets and sweatshirts.

 

When I had gotten around to learning more about trans and nonbinary people (which was about 3-4 years ago), I went on more of a questioning/experimenting phase. I built up the courage to wear men's clothing, which I love so much on how comfortable it is and POCKETS!!! I've been cutting my hair shorter and shorter. Had some awesome people on AVEN (when I was more active in chat) refer to me as "he" so I can get more of a feel of it. I felt more comfortable with this, and looking back at my past self, this just makes sense on who I am. I'm trans nonbinary and go by "they" or "he". I'm not ultra feminine nor ultra masculine and I'm fine with that. I lean more masculine and I embrace that part of myself, while also not being ashamed of my feminine side. 

[lilkawaiivampire]

For me personally, I've always struggled with my gender identity, but just recently began learning about the wide gender spectrum. When I was younger, I sometimes felt like a boy and would dress more masculine and act more masculine. Some days, the dysphoria from having breasts was so terrible, I'd cry. I still do sometimes. Other times, I feel more feminine, act more feminine, and dress more feminine. Sometimes I don't mind having breasts at all and enjoy wearing tighter clothing. For the longest time, I hadn't the slightest idea what was wrong with me. Little did I know there was nothing wrong with me at all. 

 

After a long time of doing lengthy research, seeking guidance from friends and forums, and experimenting with pronouns, I realized some days I prefer to be called gender nuetral pronouns, other days I prefer she/her or he/him. Much of the time, I don't even care. If you want to call me a boy, then fine. If you want to call me a girl, okay. If you want to call me a human being, please don't. I am a unicorn. Not really, but everyone calls me a unicorn. I identify as nonbinary, obviously, because I feel it best suits me. I don't feel like I am a girl nor a boy, simple as that. 

 

Please don't feel like you have to hurry to figure this out. Take all the time you need and if you go from label to label only to discover you're cis after all, then that's okay. You'll still be perfectly valid no matter what. I hope you are able to figure this out and I wish you the best of luck on your journey of self discovery 

 

[K.I.N.G]

Ever since I was 9 and first heard the word “unisex” i applied it to myself and didn’t really see myself (not that I directly thought about it) as fully a girl or fully a boy and then as I got older my experience was much like yours in that some days I would feel a bit more feminine and act as such and then other day idact more masculine. I did actually get complimented a few times on my masculine traits which always gave me a burst of euphoria and I guess what really got me question was how I saw myself in my head wasn’t quite matching up to my physical form and how society expected me to be. 

 

I recommend that you live in the moment and try and focus on how you feel right now because it is valid - If this is just “a phase” then it’s alright, you’re not hurting anyone by feeling what you do nor can you help or change how you feel. Try and play around with things a bit and see what makes you happy - if this changes day to day that’s alright too - you’re human like everyone else and there aren’t any right or wrong answers.

 

Best of luck! Hope you find something that makes you feel comfortable. 

[binary suns]

I first came to realize I lacked a self-identity in regard to gender. and then, between that and investigating my attraction, I came to realize I've always been interested in feminine personality.. and supressing personality... and that led me to suspect I was transfeminine. and living with that understanding quickly... within four months I think.. brought me into a state of self-identity as a woman. 

 

because of it... I technically speaking identify my gender as demigirl, because I am both genderless but also female. But, I identify myself to others as female, or as transfeminine. and naturally due to being transfemenine, I just naturally am drawn to be feminine - but of course, due to years of suppression and anxiety and fear, I have a lot of automatic "stop stop" defensive instinct that prevents me from being the person I wanna be. 

 

 

I guess I really knew I wasn't cis when, the first time I had an impulse to cut off the unwanted parts.... that was a real wake-up call for me... but it didn't really happen until I was thinking about transition, also my body changed some between 20 and 24. it was about when I was 24 or 25... and before then, I always disliked my extra parts.. but I just thought I was picky and oversensitive or self-consious or male-hating, IDK. I didn't really "get" what was going on... and to see the extreme of what it could get to the point of, was a wake-up call. 

 

but even then, for a while, I still doubted it.. a lot of my dysphoria spiked when I started to identify as transgender. And so I was sure that maybe it was the act of identifying myself a certain way caused the anxiety, which certainly "was" true - identifying myself this way definitely had an effect on my gender-related dysphoria. 

 

But what really told me what was what - was when, between what I just said in this post and what I said in my prior, I went back on my "Trans" identity and sad, "I think I am just androgynous, and working with 4 men and having not much more social contact, I am overwhelmed with masculinity and need to be a part of femininity.. that it isn't my gender but it's my need for balance!" 

 

- but, when I did go back and ID myself as a genderless guy on these forums. It just didn't feel right. When I went out and thought of myself as a male, it didn't feel right. it was off, and felt empty - relative to how identifying as a woman was, I felt lost and lonely and empty. Being a woman on these forums was so much me in comparison - and when I went to say, "maybe I am just androgynous man" - that was a moment of really knowing who I was. 

 

 

And the last major moment that really set things in stone for me - see this whole time I was exposed to a spiritaul leader, who was talking about how people get caught up in the illusory nature of identity way too easily, and suffer because of it. and I understand exactly what he means and even endorse it - but after the event I'm explaining, looking back I don't think he really understood what he meant, for his lack of being in situations like what a trans person is in. But - because of his guidance in "shaking off" the illusion I guess you could say - I reached a point, a moment in time, where that evening I was feeling very much without identity more than I had in a long time. like, present, and unbiased towards anything. IDK how to really explain it. But I was thinking, "oh, right now, I don't really feel attached to maleness or femaleness. I don't really feel attached to much at all, in a good way of course, but I feel very unbiased right now." and my first thought when I realized this was, to ask myself - am I a man or a woman?  

 

I asked - "okay, everything feels very equal between the two choices, and I must go down one path... or I'll suffer in uncertainty. Which will I go?" And I realized - it didn't matter at all either way. My natural instinct was to go towards femininity. my natural instinct was to keep taking HRT pills at my morning and evening alarm. my natural instinct was to look at women's clothes and want to spend casual friend-time with women. It didn't even matter if I was a male, I would naturally be leaning that way. At that moment, I realized that it didn't matter what my identity was - my behavior was transfeminine. 

 

 

 

But like I said - in the end, I came to hold a woman's identity. Somehow, living life in pursuing embracing my feminine side, identifying as a woman socially, these created within me a sense of identity as a woman. I did not before - for 26 years of my life I was transfeminine cisgenderless man -  all three were true. I did not identify myself to my own self by any gender, I was just me. But, I identified to others as male, and went along with that identity as best I could - so I say I was cisgenderless. male by default. But, within me was feminine instinct - no wait. instinctual draw towards feminine. I would copy my behavior off other girls, basically - and starting in high school, and much more so in college, I would actually in fact be surprised by my gender as male when others reminded me of it, and tho rare if there was times I felt feminine I felt rewarded for it.... idk. But - when I came to investigate my gender and really embrace my personality regardless of gender... that change to my lifestyle, created a shift in my self-perspective, where I started to feel like a woman. like, gendered. as a woman. 

 

So idk. 

 

This was long.. 

 

sorry. 

[Janus the Fox]

Last 3 or so years ago, never thought about the gender self at all before then.  At the point of losing a lot of weight, about 5 years ago, I wanted to find the clothes I like.  Finding out very few male clothing ranges I go for, my attention turned to female clothes and found my preference in them.  Slowly realized bits and pieces of myself that isn't cis and after a course of CBT counselling, I'm able to let all thought go without resisting it to accept, I've been neutral on gender and most other aspects of the self since. I'm 30 now and only recently exploring being more female part time at the moment.

[Entropic]

Honestly, I think few people that are cis actively identify as cis, but that aside, I've felt transgender since I was at least a child. It really started with an inability to understand why people socially interacted with me in a way I did not enjoy just because I was assigned female at birth, and while I for a long time tried to rationalize away these feelings of simply being socially non-conforming. Looking back, I can also see other signs of dissatisfaction which were rooted in the body, however, I've always had a complicated relationship with my body due to being born with a physical birth defect, so it took many years until I began to feel more comfortable and in touch with my physical self. For a long time I just felt like a sense of floating  consciousness without any physical shape to it.

 

At some level I've just always felt male and I've intuitively understood maleness in a way I never felt about being female and femaleness. It cannot be rationalized beyond that it makes sense to me and this is who I've always been. 

 

 

[ElasticPlanet]

On 19/02/2018 at 7:46 AM, Ase of Spades said:

I kind of envy the younger generation that have access to this kind of information and are able to experiment with and really think about gender

Me too... but compared to me you almost are a younger generation. I only started dealing with this part of me in my late 30s, and rather by accident... While pinning down my ace identity I found some of my favourite ace bloggers were also nonbinary. I'd heard of nonbinary genders before but pretty much wrote them off because I didn't even think the binary genders were a real thing either (I didn't want to be male or female; I just wanted to escape from the whole system and didn't even realise that made me unusual). The idea that you were meant to want your assigned gender is totally new to me in the last 2-3 years; before that I must have subconsciously assumed that you were merely supposed to learn to cope with it.

 

I came across a lot of talk of what it meant to 'feel female' or 'feel male', and found those words shocking and incomprehensible - how could any gender have a feeling when to me it was all made up nonsense anyway? I soon got to a point of wanting to be agender but not knowing how to tell whether I actually was. By concentrating on how people think about me and how I think about them (social gender), I was able to see that wanting to be agender was itself enough to make me agender. For the other aspects of my gender, I haven't so far been able to imagine an ideal (or even adequate) body, but I'm much happier that I'm beginning to escape from an unwanted male identity by presenting a bit more femme.

[IronDragonfly]

I've always known since I was a small child, but I never knew it had a name.

 

I was pretty dysphoric, but I never saw myself as the opposite sex. I thought both genders were the same and it made me angry that girls and boys were separated from each other most of the time, because of where I attended school. I'd sneak into the boys line to be with them. I always begged my mom to cut my hair short, as young as four years old, and I hated wearing dresses or being called, "pretty, cute, small, etc." It made me want to cut my hair even shorter. Mom never let me though. Girls weren't allowed to have short hair where I attended school.

 

Gender roles were crammed down my throat very young, I was expected to be feminine, to like "girly" things and become a submissive religious wife when I grew older. I never had an interest in any of that though, I always saw myself as a protector or a stereotypical husband. I thought weddings were pointless and I found it weird that the girls I went to school with wanted babies of their own, when they weren't even 10 yet. I wanted to live on my own and become a world renowned scientist.

 

I saw myself as strong and loved participating in sports, and wrestling with the guys, but "it wasn't ladylike" and I was often split from them. It always made me annoyed when the teacher would ask for "strong boys" to carry the table, and I would be asked to sit down even though I was better at carrying it than the other guy the teacher choose. I didn't see myself as a girl, or a guy. I wanted to be seen for my characteristics, and that was an assertive person.

 

I was a loner with mostly male friends growing up. As my body started to change, I became more uncomfortable with who I was. I wore baggy clothes and dyed my hair dark to appear more masculine. I never realized it until now, but I always hated my genitalia. I thought it was weird, even as a toddler and was embarrassed of it. I went out of my way to work out, and I was never big enough. I spent middle school weightlifting trying to appear muscular; I was as big as my male classmates and I was sometimes referred to as "he," but for some reason, this made me dysphoric as well.

 

Even in high school, I was mistaken for a guy, but it never made me happy when I was. I wanted to be seen as feminine, I liked the idea of being pretty and graceful, wearing elegant things, but that just wasn't me. It made me angry because I was masculine, that people couldn't see I still loved children and wanted to adopt and be a parent. They completely dismissed anything feminine about me simply because I wasn't pretty.

 

Then I found out about agenderism, and it clicked. Everything I struggled with for years, simplified in a single term.

[vmdraco]

On 2/19/2018 at 2:59 AM, SkyWorld said:

My earliest years, I embraced being a tomboy. I wanted to do more "boy" things and hang out with the guys, have them see me as "one of the guys". I didn't like doing anything "girly" or wearing anything "too girly". Though, I also felt like there were some things I wasn't "allowed" to do because I knew that I wasn't a "real boy" because being AFAB, everyone treated me or tried to treat me like a girl. But I didn't want to do anything "too girly", so I tried to "compromise". I had always had a great fascination with tomboys in movies/TV-shows, as well as guys who expressed their feminine side. I could relate to them the most and I saw myself as such. Though, I had to admit to myself that I wasn't your typical tomboy, but I also wasn't a girly-girl. I've even said that out loud when I told someone more about myself in an exercise in theatre class; "I'm not really a tomboy, not really a girly-girl, but just... me." 

 

Throughout my life, I had always hoped that I wouldn't get as large of hips or breasts as them and would actually get upset when I'd needed larger bra cups, etc. I hated when people would comment on my body (still hate it), even if it was a compliment. So I did my best to hide my curves and breasts so that I wouldn't draw attention to myself. Around this time, I still felt like I wasn't "allowed" to even wear men's clothing and I hated how practically all the women's clothing would be so tight and/or revealing and there was nothing I could wear to hide my body. So, I'd just wear over-sized jackets and sweatshirts.

 

When I had gotten around to learning more about trans and nonbinary people (which was about 3-4 years ago), I went on more of a questioning/experimenting phase. I built up the courage to wear men's clothing, which I love so much on how comfortable it is and POCKETS!!! I've been cutting my hair shorter and shorter. Had some awesome people on AVEN (when I was more active in chat) refer to me as "he" so I can get more of a feel of it. I felt more comfortable with this, and looking back at my past self, this just makes sense on who I am. I'm trans nonbinary and go by "they" or "he". I'm not ultra feminine nor ultra masculine and I'm fine with that. I lean more masculine and I embrace that part of myself, while also not being ashamed of my feminine side. 

A lot of what you say @SkyWorld mimics my own experiences.  I probably have talked about this stuff before but I will express here:

 

I too was a tomboy growing up, and didn't start questioning my gender until after graduating high school, when I discovered tumblr and learned about LGBTQ people.  I knew what LGBTQ was, of course, but I just never questioned I could belong with them, because I didn't want to be "othered".  

 

Due to my AGAB, I felt discouraged from "being like the boys", so to speak, and was confused why they treated me differently once I started developing breasts around 10 or 11.  I don't remember feeling any kind of gender growing up, I just knew that I was considered a girl; in your words I was just "me".  Reports from my teachers during that time talked about how I had a "big personality" around elementary school; I used to be one of those frustrating kids that got time out in the corner, and didn't know how to express myself verbally due to some learning problems.  I remember that changing by the time puberty started, when my learning problems were resolved but I just felt so... wrong.  I grew self conscious of myself, and that's around the time I recalled feeling super depressed and introverted.  Around middle school was when I literally stopped talking to people and became really shy.

 

I tried to wear girl stuff, because that was my gender at birth and I thought it wasn't right to not do so, but I wasn't happy.  I knew that I looked "pretty" by everyone's standards, and people used to tell me that whenever I did do anything remotely girly, but I felt like I was a shell of myself.  By the time I was 13/14 I was almost fully developed body-wise; I don't remember exactly when, but I started to avoid girl clothes like the plague in favor of baggy men's shirts and capris, yet still kept my long hair because I didn't want to upset my father if I chopped it all off (and didn't until I was 18, because "you're an adult now so you can do what you want").  I do recall around the mid to late 2000's, when breast cancer awareness was everywhere and people had pink ribbon car magnets, and I secretly thought to myself that if I had breast cancer my boobs would go away.

 

Stressful high school goes by and after that hell I wanted to remake myself.  I went into full girl mode and donated all my boy stuff, because I didn't want to be that person anymore and wanted to accept my femininity so to speak.  For years it worked, but all my boy shit just kept coming back into my life and I became more and more androgynous as I went through community college.  By the time I entered my first year of art school in 2016 to pursue my BFA, everything clicked.  I first recognized that what I was feeling on and off for many years was gender dysphoria.  I thought everyone felt like that, because they tell you early on that kids feel uncomfortable with their bodies during puberty.  I never got over it, and I guess that's when I realized how different I was. 

 

Like a lot of people have been saying, I envy the trans kids now who understand what they are feeling, and I wish I did, too.  I went so many years, and through so much therapy, wondering why I hated myself so much, and why I was so depressed.  I can't say that finding out I'm trans has made life any easier, but I finally have some answers.

[ElasticPlanet]

2 hours ago, vmdraco said:

I can't say that finding out I'm trans has made life any easier, but I finally have some answers.

I know what you mean, although my situation isn't quite the same: I've been finally (slowly) getting answers that I should have had for decades, but suddenly becoming aware that something needs to be done in response to those answers, and not always knowing what.

 

Also, just in the last couple of years as it's occurred to me that people are assuming I want to be the gender they read me as (male), my unhappiness with the social side of all this has really increased. In fact I'd started to type the words 'social dysphoria' there but deleted them - I almost never feel sure enough to commit to calling it that...

[Guest]

This fall I started having moments here and there where being referred to as female felt weird, but I never wanted to be referred to as male. Since I already knew a little bit about the queer community from my research while I was questioning my romantic orientation, I started researching nonbinary identities and asking myself questions. In early November I started identifying as genderfluid, switching between female and agender. (I’m agender the vast majority of the time.) Recently I realized I'm not fully genderfluid, but demifluid, with my static part being agender. I’m out to my parents, my grandparents, my sister and all my friends; they’ve been supportive for the most part, although I don't think my mom believes people can be agender and my family messes up my pronouns far more often than they get them right. They do use gender-neutral terms for me fairly often, which is nice.