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What does demigirl actually mean?


Cobaltprincess

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Cobaltprincess

Ok. So I’ve been questioning my gender for a bit now. Just to give a bit of context, I’m a 16 yo girl (?). I id as ace and pan probably grey romantic or anyway, somewhat arospec. I came out as ace for the first time to a friend in october and since, I’m pretty much out at school. Anyway, that’s not really the subject here. Since I came out, I started learning about all the different gender identities that exist and it has made me question my gender. The thing is, I don’t experience dysphoria. At least, I don’t think so. But again, I don’t really know what dysphoria is. I mean, I’ve read the definition but I don’t think I know what it actually feels like. So yeah, no dysphoria I think but I feel like a disconnect between me and my body. Like, I don’t feel like my body is actually me. Not like dissociation though. More like, it’s there and attached to my brain but it’s not me personality wise. I really don’t know if this makes any sense. I’m going to cut my hair next week and hopefully it’ll help. If it doesn’t, well, it’ll grow back. Back to gender. I don’t have a problem with female pronouns and I kind of relate to them. They/them might be more appropriate. I would like something in the middle I think. My only problem with they/them is that I speak mostly french and we don’t really have any gender neutral pronouns so I feel like I’m stuck with the female ones. I also don’t know if I relate to female pronouns only because I’ve been socialized that way. My name is another thing. I feel the same disconnect that I have with my body. I really like the name Skylar and maybe I will try that.

 

All of this to say that I don’t know what label to use. I know that I don’t NEED a label but to me, they feel very comforting. Like you’re not alone. I feel like I’m too far on the girl side of the spectrum to id as nb, but too close to the middle to id as a girl. That’s why demigirl could be it but also might not be. This is getting longer than I thought.

 

So what do you guys think? Could anyone share their story? I think that that could help. Especially people who identify as demigender. I guess, what I really want to know is what does demigirl/demiguy means to you. Not the generic definition the human one.

 

Thanks so much and sorry if this is a bit of a mess. I have trouble putting words on what I feel.

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Okay, first up I see gender dysphoria. There are two different types, distinct and subtle. Distinct is looking at a part of your body and feeling disgust, or dislike about it being that way, it’s about the shudder that you get when someone used the wrong pronouns. The subtle kind is more complex. The brain naturally tries to avoid triggers, so it blocks out the actual cause of the dysphoria, but leaves you feeling unhappy and numb. This is better explained below.

http://anagnori.tumblr.com/post/75333093314/the-more-subtle-kind-of-gender-dysphoria

Next up, there’s more than one label to chose from. There’s a great video on greygender, that I’ll link below. Anyway, demigirl is kind of like the half way point. Half non-binary and half female. You’re in the middle, a perfect balance, well...mostly :P Greygender is the grey area. It’s not half and half, more like 25/75. You feel a preference towards one, maybe even a little dysphoria, but can’t seem to give up the other part of your identity.

 

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^^That's a good video. Ash Hardell does a lot of really good stuff. But yeah, you don't have an easy question, anything that's kind of in between is really hard to figure out. Honestly, the part I sympathize with most is the French pronoun thing... I totally feel you with the that, it has always bothered. (I'm Canadian so we learn it in school and I've continued with it.) Like, if you have a group of a million girls and just one guy, suddenly it's "ils"! How does that make sense? And if you don't know the gender or its just straight up "it", then suddenly it gets a male pronoun. Again, seriously? And there are no neutral endings on things like adjectives, either. It's either mostly male "vous" or all female "vous", there's no in between choice. 

 

Anyways, good luck with everything :D :cake: 

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everywhere and nowhere
20 minutes ago, Orianaro said:

Honestly, the part I sympathize with most is the French pronoun thing... I totally feel you with the that, it has always bothered. (I'm Canadian so we learn it in school and I've continued with it.) Like, if you have a group of a million girls and just one guy, suddenly it's "ils"! How does that make sense?

It's similar in Polish. :( A group including at least one man or boy is "oni", everything else - women, animals, objects etc. - is "one".

To make matters worse, Polish is quite an unfriendly language for a person questioning their gender because it's extremely difficult to avoid expressing your gender in speech. It's not just the pronouns, the most important thing is that several verbal forms - particularly past tense and conditional forms - also have a gender. For example, the Polish equivalents of "I was" and "we were" are:

byłem (masculine)

byłam (feminine)

byłom (neutral - officially a hypothetic form, to be used for example by a talking sun in a fairy tale - but in fact there are people who identify as agender and are fine with using neutral gender for themselves)

byliśmy (for a group including at least one man or boy)

byłyśmy (for everything else)

Complicated and not very trans-friendly, isn't it? Because of this, gender inclusive language also gets much more complicated in Polish, much more difficult than the German "-Innen", because many more words should have double forms.

The advantage is that no pronouns are necessary because person, gender and number are already visible in the verb's form. But it' only an advantage from the point of view of "speech economy".

I'm learning Ukrainian, which is quite similar to Polish - simplifying, one could say it's linguistically in-between Polish and Russian - and while it's also not a very trans-friendly language, it doesn't differentiate gender in plural forms. "Ils" and "elles", or "oni" and "one" have only one equivalent in Ukrainian - "вони" ("vony").

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Convoluted as it is, this really makes me appreciate English... I can only imagine gender-inclusive talks in other countries... Also wow, you know an amazing amount of languages :D The only other one I'm learning is Latin, but I only wish I was that linguistically gifted...

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I took french in school for six years. Before I even knew I was trans I didn’t like “elle(s)” and (at the time) I wasn’t a guy (in the sense I didn’t know) so I wished for a neutral form. 

 

This actually let me to forgetting to put feminine endings on verbs and stuff (leading to a loss of points in assingments). 

 

I’m really glad english rarely has words that change form based on gender. (blond(e)/brunet(te) and fiancé(e). Which only change in spelling not when spoken so that’s nice.)

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Cobaltprincess

@Lichley thanks for the link and the video. Both are great and helped. If anyone still wants to share it would be great though.

 

Did I understand correctly? It’s possible to be trans/nb and not feel dysphoria? Or at least, at varying degrees? This is kind of what I got from the lonk and it might explain a lot.

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6 hours ago, Cobaltprincess said:

@Lichley thanks for the link and the video. Both are great and helped. If anyone still wants to share it would be great though.

 

Did I understand correctly? It’s possible to be trans/nb and not feel dysphoria? Or at least, at varying degrees? This is kind of what I got from the lonk and it might explain a lot.

Yep. It’s all very complicated, but aren’t all people complex beings. The important thing isn’t finding a place where you feel comfortable with it all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with @AceEllie, sometimes it's worthwhile just trying out an identity and/or pronouns and seeing if they feel right for you. It's all part of the discovery process. ^_^

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