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Dealing with Not Knowing + Help Me Figure It Out?


StarMap

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It's been over a year since I started using the term demigirl to describe my gender - feeling only partially female, with no other gender present. Lately, though, I've been thinking about what being partially female even means. Every day I take into account how I'm feeling gender wise, often on a scale - 0 being completely genderless/agender and 100 being completely female. I have never once found myself at a 100, although occasionally I would be at like an 80. Usually it was 40 or 50. As time has gone on, though, I've found myself more regularly at 20, 10..even pushing at a 0. I'm wondering if this means that I needed demigirl as a mere transition label into realizing that I was actually fully agender...but I still don't know. The problem is that these feelings are so weak by nature and I don't know what it means for me. To be clear, I don't consider how much I like my body that day (I'm AFAB) or my interests or whatever when I'm deciding how I feel on a certain day. Simply how I feel internally and how I'd like to be perceived. 

 

Quite frankly, I feel more like myself than I ever have, and feelings from my childhood make more sense now that I have a bit of courage and can think on some days "yeah, I'm agender." But I don't know if I'm ready to go all the way yet. Especially since I know that not much will change. I don't feel the need to change my body or my hair or anything. I will always look somewhat feminine. And that's going to cause some questions when I say "please use they/them for me." And I'm really nervous about that. Especially if it turns out that I'm just leaning on the agender side now and will bounce back later like used to happen last year. 

 

So for now, I don't know. I really don't. I'm still hovering around. And I know that's fine. I know that it's perfectly valid for me to not have an accurate label as of yet, for as long as it takes. But I like knowing who I am. Not having a word to describe my gender is causing me so much anxiety right now.  I THINK I want to just say I'm agender. But I'm not ready yet. And for now I will be continued to be perceived as female, which seeing as  dysphoria is lacking isn't a huge problem. But I've always known who I am in every regard and this freaks me the hell out. It's like, it doesn't matter what they think of me as long as I know who I am on the inside, but if I don't know who I am on the inside, then they can say whatever they want and it'll just send me into an anxious spiral.

 

My question is - if you're questioning, how do any of you deal with not knowing/how did you deal with it when you were still figuring it out? How did you cope with it sitting in the back of your mind all the time? I'm going to graduate in two months and I have huge projects to finish and a huge trip to get ready for and college to think about, and I really don't have time to spend half of every day just wondering or hoping I'll gain a bunch more courage soon.

 

 

 

If you're curious, here are a bunch of the reasons that I think I definitely fall more into the agender side of things. Maybe you could give me a bit of insight if you find any of these relatable?

 

-I feel like I'm on the outside of groups of women when I get included in them. "Girl's Night" stuff has always been really weird for me. I don't mind it, but I feel like an intruder onto all the girls. In the last couple of years when Mum has invited me to her Girls Night stuff with her friends, I've declined for reasons I can barely explain, other than I wouldn't belong there. 

 

-I did Girl Guides for five years in elementary school. This didn't really make me feel all that weird, since what we did was rarely aggressively feminine/meant to enforce gender roles. I never understood why we couldn't have guys, though. My best friend from Guides that I latched onto turned out to be a trans guy three years later, anyway.

 

-When I look in the mirror, I don't really see a woman. I see a person with boobs. This goes for when I'm feeling uncomfortable about my body image and when I'm perfectly happy with it.

 

-As a younger kid I didn't necessarily hate dresses or skirts, because sometimes I would like them. But I would object to them a lot. Usually I would object to dressing up in some frilly shirt for special events for reasons I couldn't explain. Now I'm pretty sure it's because I didn't want to a) dress in something extremely female coded if it wasn't of my own volition and at my comfort level and b) knew that people would notice it and comment on it and say stuff like "such a pretty girl". I always felt like a liar when that happened. A couple years ago I cried over wearing a dress and had to go home and change. It wasn't because I hate dresses as clothes. It's because this dress was making me easily identifiable as a woman. Back then I probably blamed it on "oh I'm still scared of being seen as a vapid stereotype as women often are" but I don't think that was it. 

 

-One of the first times I cosplayed publicly was the most amazing day I've ever had. A lot of it was because, even though I was in costume, I felt fully like myself. Not only was I showing people what I liked without fear, but a lot of them couldn't tell what my gender was and would address me neutrally (some of them didn't of course though, but I still felt like I was being respected as a person). 

 

-The skirts and dresses I do wear on occasion have to be either not aggressively feminine or make me feel, again, like I'm in cosplay and reliving having my gender not be perceivable. (I like to pair them with thigh highs and a bomber jacket, for instance.) That being said, I'm wearing a shapely suit to prom because you couldn't pay me a billion dollars to wear the dresses the girls are wearing.

 

-My “I’m not like other girls” phase in middle school was confusing as hell. I rejected anything remotely girly out of fear that I would turn into a walking stereotype. At the end of it I realized that I liked pink and glitter and fashion stuff and makeup and that was okay, but it didn't make me stand up and say "I can be an amazing woman and still like all those things". It made me say "Liking this stuff doesn't make me any less of a person and is just part of who I am." 

 

-I said out loud to myself in late 2017 "I know what it feels like to have no gender" then I went "whoa..okay that probably means something" and that's what sent me on this gender trip. 

 

-The only reason I didn't question myself earlier was because I didn't think there were any other options. I thought woman was preferable to man, at any rate. 

 

-I know a lot of trans people and they all feel their gender so strongly that they'll do anything they can to be perceived the way they want to be. I have never once felt that passionate about being a woman. Even cis women are like "we're strong women!" and I'm like "we're strong people..." 

 

 

 

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Being trans is about experiencing dysphoria, it’s not about feeling that you can’t relate to people of your sex. Think about how often you’re actually experiencing any type of dysphoria and what sparks it to happen if you do have dysphoria and are trans

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@Star Lion I don't feel dysphoric at all, at least I don't feel any gender dysphoria in the way that the trans people I know seem to. I also have no desire to undergo a physical transition. So I definitely don't think I'm trans. But I barely identify with my assigned gender. It's not dysphoric but it's there

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10 minutes ago, StarMap said:

@Star Lion I don't feel dysphoric at all, at least I don't feel any gender dysphoria in the way that the trans people I know seem to. I also have no desire to undergo a physical transition. So I definitely don't think I'm trans. But I barely identify with my assigned gender. It's not dysphoric but it's there

Yeah I’m saying that non binary is trans too which is the experience you’re describing. You don’t have to feel the need to get surgeries to get trans, some only feel social dysphoria. The social dysphoria causes negative reactions to things like certain gender related clothes and pronouns you aren’t in agreement with mentally which might be what your description is with being uncomfortable with things you were talking about that were related to being female

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@Star Lion Okay yeah that makes sense. I've definitely been feeling like that. It can just be confusing because other times I don't really care how I'm perceived. I don't know, that's probably because in the run of a day I can't think about it all that much. I'd rather be seen as neutral at least 

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14 minutes ago, StarMap said:

@Star Lion Okay yeah that makes sense. I've definitely been feeling like that. It can just be confusing because other times I don't really care how I'm perceived. I don't know, that's probably because in the run of a day I can't think about it all that much. I'd rather be seen as neutral at least 

All of that’s understandable and the trans community often tends to forget about social dysphoria but I really do believe that’s the dysphoria correlating to your feelings. But good luck on your journey of self identification

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Well, I'm a trans guy but when I started questioning I kinda thought of myself as gender neutral (slightly more on the male side) for a while before I began to just live as fully male. During that time I was pretty confused and frustrated with what gender was and all my doubts and how to know for sure and all that. 

 

I made a lot of lists about reasons I might be cis or trans, I made different spectrums about individual aspects I considered relevant to figuring out my gender and placed myself on them and tried to find an average, I did little hypothetical scenarios in my mind to see how I felt... But ultimately the thing that really helped was just actually doing things.

 

Even though I wasn't sure about what I was, I knew what I liked/disliked and what I wanted/didn't want. So I started going by male pronouns at university and I cut my hair and got more men's clothes and a binder and all that.

 

In your case, since you mention not having dysphoria, I'm not sure what the problem is you know? Like if you're not uncomfortable with what you currently have then what is it you feel the need to change? If it's just your personal lable, then maybe just start thinking of yourself as an agender person even if you're not 100% sure if that's true or not. If you want to go by neutral pronouns, then maybe try that with people you can trust or somewhere safe like at uni or here online. Sometimes it just takes diving in and doing something to realize that it's the right thing for you. If you end up liking those changes and they feel more comfortable than what you currently have, then you at least have some more information to lead you to your answer. 

 

Another thing that helped me deal with the constant doubting and worries about not knowing was to think of gender as "if you want to be seen as x and you're consistently comfortable being seen x, then you're probably simply x", and to accept that maybe I could never really know for sure 100% and that that was okay. I just sort of chose to concentrate on doing what felt right rather than thinking about what might be "the ultimate truth of it all". Something else that made that easier was to realize that a person doesn't have to feel 100% male, female, or nb to be whatever they are. On a scale of 0 to 100 where 0 is totally female, 50 is totally neutral, and 100 is totally male, I could often feel anywhere from 55 to 85 but the important thing is that I'd always rather live as male than as female or nonbinary, so that's how I figured out what the answer was for me in practice despite not being able to feel 100% sure in theory. 

 

Hope any of that helps and good luck.

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@Starbogen It helps a lot, thank you so much...I agree that it's better to just go with it and not worry about "the ultimate truth". It's just that only in the last couple of weeks have I even started to think of it like that. Despite all the figuring it out I've done on my own it probably is way better to just go with it and try out what feels right, and right now that's at least being on the more neutral side of things. I'm just way more comfortable there and ultimately that's all that matters. Thankfully I've got an amazing support system - super supportive and willing to learn family, friends, my GSA ...I even told my mother about a lot of this and she can relate in many ways so I've got very specific help. So once I take that step forward and let people know it'll be really good for me. 

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It's hard to figure out gender and sometimes your gender identity will change. for a while i ided as non binary, and looking back I should have known I was a guy but I needed time to accept that before allowing myself to fully realize it (note- this is not saying that nb is a transitional state, it is its own gender and not a phase, this is just my experience in realizing my actual gender) 
Also- I know this is debated, but- not all trans ppl experience dysphoria. A trans guy could be totally fine with their body and not want to change it, even if others see it as a feminine body. A non-binary persons body is already non binary, whether or not they want to do anything to look more androgynous, and they might love how they look already even if they don't love how others misgender them. What androgynous is to someone is a whole other thing to delve into. 
While i did experience dysphoria, what was most helpful in figuring out my gender was 'gender euphoria', in which, for example, someone would call me by the correct pronouns and I would just feel like that was right, instead of feeling the discomfort I thought everyone felt when they were called 'miss'.
The trans experience varies from person to person. The only constant is that you identify with a gender other than what you were assigned at birth. Whether you experience severe dysphoria or not doesn't change the fact that if you id with a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth, you are trans. Tranness also varies in different cultures in which bodies are not rigidly defined and thus dysphoria wouldn't be as much of a thing for many, so that definition really is a bit exclusive, and when ppl are exploring their genders its best to give them the space to do so.
And finally, it takes time. identities change. If all you can manage is a 'best fit' label for now, and later you realize theres another that is a better fit, or that you'd prefer no label at all- thats ok- you work with the understanding of yourself that you currently have. 

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On 4/14/2019 at 11:43 AM, Star Lion said:

Being trans is about experiencing dysphoria, it’s not about feeling that you can’t relate to people of your sex. Think about how often you’re actually experiencing any type of dysphoria and what sparks it to happen if you do have dysphoria and are trans

I would have to disagree. I don't want to get into this eternal debate here, but in my opinion, there is more to being trans than dysphoria. For me, I found analyzing my euphoria much more helpful than analyzing my dysphoria, because it was like: Yeah, I don't like being female. But what do I like? So, OP, I would try that. If identifying as agender feels good, maybe that's what you are. Play around and see what makes you comfortable, and try not to worry too much about labels, because at the end of the day, they're not the most important thing in the world. This article might help with that.

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chairdesklamp

I'm trans male. The dysphoria thing, I recently decided after years of HRT have me pass seamlessly for cis face-to-face, I really don't need operations. That being said, I panic about missing hormone doses because I'm very dysphoric about menstruating and body shape. And I need my binder to leave the house. Even when it's 126F in the summer and I'm struggling to not have heatstroke. But I actually don't have the need to get surgery. I really wish I hadn't miscarried and gone barren, and the mandating people to have bottom surgery and gonads off before recognising their gender is just gatekeeping and coercive sterilisation. Heck, the choices for bottom surgery for men aren't even any good.

 

Only you truly know what's in your head, but I'm hearing some pretty strong social dysphoria episodes from you. That's my biggest one, too, is social. 

 

A lot of NB people don't desire medical transition because we as the world is now really don't have any kind of template for what any NB gender looks like. Or presents like. Except Hijra, a W/S Asian gender. Even intersex babies are immediately operated on and crammed into a binary gender within days of birth (which is also messed up). So, yeah, that's not uncommon, either. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who doesn't fit (as self-reported) the gender they were assigned at birth is trans. Just like exclusionist cisgays pushing out the whole rest of the rainbow, the idea that only FtM or MtF is trans is binarism. Most people only fight for what they are and up to enjoy helping oppress groups further down the ladder, but I think it's despicable. NBs absolutely belong in the trans community, because you're not assigned those genders at birth. 

 

What you feel, only you know, but if you do decide you're definitely not a woman/girl (you sound young), which is what I'm hearing, I'll defend your right to trans spaces as if it were my own. 

 

By the way, the chance I know it is slim, but what'd you cosplay? I'm in Bleach fandom and like cosplaying Ichigo. (Other than that, my knowledge of anime is 90s and before for American, 80s and before for Japan. My dad was the real cartoon geek)

 

 

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@chairdesklamp Thanks for your insight! And for your willingness to defend NB people, it can be tough to find support sometimes or even know where to look. I think I just need to start thinking about what it is that I feel exactly...I used to treat terms like they were cold hard science and everyone had to fit into one exactly, even though I knew they're extremely flexible and not there to restrict. It just takes a while to process stuff like that, even if I know it's true. I tend to fall on labels first and foremost, which isn't always the best thing. 

Also, I cosplay basically anything I feel like, so the range is enormous...don't want to open a can of worms by even mentioning the game, but my favourite one to do is Mettaton from Undertale. That's what I was referring to in my first post :) I just feel really open and happy when I dress as him. 

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On 4/21/2019 at 11:07 PM, Coddiwomple said:

For me, I found analyzing my euphoria much more helpful than analyzing my dysphoria, because it was like: Yeah, I don't like being female. But what do I like? So, OP, I would try that.

That'll definitely help!! I find I've already been kind of doing that unconsciously, I think I just need to start paying attention to it. Thank you :)

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On 4/17/2019 at 7:56 AM, bog said:

It's hard to figure out gender and sometimes your gender identity will change. for a while i ided as non binary, and looking back I should have known I was a guy but I needed time to accept that before allowing myself to fully realize it (note- this is not saying that nb is a transitional state, it is its own gender and not a phase, this is just my experience in realizing my actual gender) 

Whoops, only took me a week to reply to this...thanks very much! I've been hearing this, that identity can change, and I've only had to try to make sense of it recently...I was worried to I think. I'm so used to thinking of all the gender terms and whatnot rigidly and not really processing the fact that change can happen if though I knew that it does. I've started to try to just go with the flow and remember this isn't supposed to be restrictive and my experience is my own and that's ok. I think of it that way with other people, why shouldn't I think of it that way with myself, right?

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5 hours ago, StarMap said:

@chairdesklamp Thanks for your insight! And for your willingness to defend NB people, it can be tough to find support sometimes or even know where to look. I think I just need to start thinking about what it is that I feel exactly...I used to treat terms like they were cold hard science and everyone had to fit into one exactly, even though I knew they're extremely flexible and not there to restrict. It just takes a while to process stuff like that, even if I know it's true. I tend to fall on labels first and foremost, which isn't always the best thing. 

Also, I cosplay basically anything I feel like, so the range is enormous...don't want to open a can of worms by even mentioning the game, but my favourite one to do is Mettaton from Undertale. That's what I was referring to in my first post :) I just feel really open and happy when I dress as him. 

Labels are there for the same reason all words are: to help us express concepts. To get the idea from my brain to yours.

 

The whole"labels" and "labels are bad" dates back to essentially treating non-straight-or-gay orientations like a dirty word. 

 

It's helpful to have a name for how you feel and be able to express it. 

 

But sometimes, concepts can be nebulous, and it can be hard finding a good one. 

 

And that's okay, and that happens.

 

But remember, they're there for the same reason we have language at all--to relay an idea to another person.

 

I've heard of Undertale. I have a young friend who likes it. I'm not familiar with much beyond the name, but it is something I've heard of :)

 

And yeah, things can change. I used to be pretty 50/50 on being able to fall in love with anyone. Now it's almost completely just other men. That was a recent change. I'm at least twice your age. It happens.

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chairdesklamp

OH! About the dysphoria variance.

 

Okay, think of it this way. I'm 160 cm/5 foot two. I've known multiple cis guys that were around four foot ten. About 150 cm. 

 

Conversely, I have met one or two women over 180 cm tall that were cis.

 

These unstereotypical heights may bother trans people more because we're having to fight day in and day out for our gender, and there are usually expectations in first-world nations that men are taller and women shorter. It's like, say, someone afraid of aging getting their first wrinkle. They notice it and it bothers them and they're anxious about everyone else noticing it and calling them "old." Height alone probably won't out anyone. But since we know we're not cis and are afraid, a lot of tall trans women and short trans men really worry about their height. So I'm gonna stick to cis people, who line up and are able to take their gender more for granted, but my feelings on height are in line with the guys I mentioned, probably for having known them. And hanging around a lot of people who fled communist and other regimes where stunted growth from widespread and near-constant  food shortage is more than heard of.

 

Okay, so, anyway, there are some people who might have their legs lengthened. There are some that desperately wish they were just naturally taller. And there are some men it bothers only around other people, and some, like me or a once-really-close friend that are just more irked that stuff in our size is less common, we have to get everything hemmed or look like a ragamuffin, and the cupboard is so high up. 

 

And there are some who feel different ways at different times. 

 

Being both trans and short, it's not a perfect example. Identity is different from something like height (at least unless you have gigantism or are a little person. Then it might be different. Not sure) 

 

USUALLY people have stronger feelings about gender than height. But some people may have a weak gender feeling, be they cis or trans. If they are trans, weak feelings make it harder to figure out, but are no less valid. Stars that you can't see in the city are still there; you just have to go outside the city to see them. 

 

Not perfect analogies, but I hope it clears up some things.

 

Basically, people vary widely on dysphoria and any relation to their body, as dysphoria is a gender related feeling of your body not aligning with your brain, and also on strength of gender feeling. 

 

Some people can up to have the kind of feelings of, say, someone who just lost his arm. It feels like something is missing, everything physically feels wrong. Some are not really bothered. 

 

This can go for binary people, and is really common for NB people. Some do HRT, and some don't. 

 

Humans are so friggin' diverse, and that's the beauty of it.

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On 4/23/2019 at 3:13 PM, StarMap said:

Whoops, only took me a week to reply to this...thanks very much! I've been hearing this, that identity can change, and I've only had to try to make sense of it recently...I was worried to I think. I'm so used to thinking of all the gender terms and whatnot rigidly and not really processing the fact that change can happen if though I knew that it does. I've started to try to just go with the flow and remember this isn't supposed to be restrictive and my experience is my own and that's ok. I think of it that way with other people, why shouldn't I think of it that way with myself, right?

What was most important for me was just telling myself- this is who i am /now/. because I would get so hung up on " but what if later I realize im not really x identity" that I wouldnt allow myself to figure out anything at all, it kept me from iding as ace for over a year after I already knew because I was afraid it might not be forever, maybe I just didn't know enough, what saved me was realizing that its okay if that happens, but who you are now is the only thing you can focus on or try and understand. The world imposes SUCH rigid rules for gender that it makes it even harder to feel like theres room for exploration there, but starting to go with the flow is a great way to break it down and just do you. I hope I was able to help but it seems like you have a really good mindset towards this :)

 

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