How to gender?

[Tothedreamers]

So, I’ve been questioning my gender identity for a while now, and all I really know is I’m not male, but I’m not cis either. For reference, I am AFAB, and for a majority of my life, I identified as female. But some months ago, I started researching and wondering where I fall. I don’t always feel female, maybe more of a 80% of the time type of thing, if that makes sense... sometimes I feel like neither male or female, just a person... and sometimes I just feel different, like “yeah, I’m a girl, but not”? I don’t know how to explain it... 

 

I tried out different pronouns like they/them and it was meh. I didn’t notice a difference between that and she/her. I talked to my older sister about it and she asked if I would prefer her calling me her sibling instead of sister, so we tried it out and that felt right... but idk... I guess I’m just confused and frustrated because I wish this was as easy as figuring out I’m ace...🤷‍♀️

[Grey-Ace Ventura]

Maybe try no pronouns? Just your name?

[Celyn: The Lutening]

How to gender? Don't, it's a trap.

 

In all seriousness

• Nonbinary/genderqueer is fine. You don't need anything more specific now or ever.
• You're doing great just playing with language and what makes you feel comfortable. Some gendered words end up being fine, others not. It's just a form of gender expression, albeit one that requires others to buy into it. It doesn't have to be internally consistent like using ALL NEUTRAL words if that doesn't do it for you.

[Guest]

Some people don't actually place merit on being female. Not feeling female can also translate into just feeling like yourself. Have tried to see if anything body wise bothers you? Not the typical insecurities or being annoyed by certain parts. Are you bothered by your female characters because no other reason than their female? 

[Philip027]

Could be you just don't care that much, which is why I settled with agender.

[Guest]

I just avoid it. People do see me as a female person and meh, I just let them get on with it. But here on AVEN I prefer just nothing. I don't personally 'identify' with any gender label. I just can't!!

[Yeast]

To quote The Beatles:

 

There's people standing round

Who'll screw you in the ground

They'll fill you in with all the things you see ...

 

The only thing society expects is for you to not break the law. Gender isn't a law. Feel free to be whoever you want. Where I live, gender is frequently used to dominate and manipulate people. This was especially true for women. Gender is very bigoted in this sense. It took women decades to earn the right to vote just because gender dictated they were irrational. Gender is a burden for the opposite sex as well. It dictates men have no feelings. This obviously isn't true. Gender has never been an issue for me because I've never felt any pressure to be anything other than what I am as a person, and I don't base this image of myself in terms of my gender.   

[binary suns]

My 2 cents is, if you aren't trans, it isn't super important. Maybe it's important and that's why you're asking? But if not, go with cis. Many cis people don't "feel" or anything, just go with their cis gender because it's simple or assumed or etc. Would identifying nonbinary or something significantly change your life for the better? Gender is the sort of thing that is okay to not feel it.

[Starbogen]

I agree with what @Float On said, and I have a similar take on it but as a trans person.

So I'm a trans guy, but I don't "feel" like a man. I also don't feel 100% male, more like 65-85% at different times to put it that way, and yet I just identify as male rather than nonbinary because it just makes more sense to me to do that, to live as male instead of as nonbinary. Being seen as female and living that way and having those parts gives me dysphoria but I don't have a problem with living as male and overall I prefer that to being seen as nonbinary so I just go with that you know? I'm trans because I'd rather exist as male than as female but other than that I'm not actually very attached to gender at all. I don't care about being a "man" specifically. I also feel more like "just a person", as do lots of binary cis and trans people if not everyone tbh.

 

You don't have to "feel 100%" anything to be that gender (imo). You just have to be okay and comfortable enough with it. 

There are cis people who don't feel like anything or even actively identify as their gender, they just don't mind it and have no desire to be seen as another gender. They might dislike the stereotypes and gender roles and expectations associated with their gender but they wouldn't want to live as a different gender. 

 

So yeah if identifying as nonbinary would feel more right and comfortable and more like you then that's something you could explore but if you don't really mind either way then there's also nothing wrong with just being a cis person who's not very attached to gender. 

I do like the term genderqueer for myself because I use it privately more as an adjective than as a gender identity. Meaning I still consider myself within the binary but just very gender nonconforming to the point of kinda landing in a grey, almost nonbinary area. Maybe that's something you could relate to? 

But seriously, if being female doesn't make you uncomfortable, and you wouldn't feel more comfortable living/identifying as something else, then there's nothing wrong with being person who's indifferent about gender who just happens to be female. 

[Tothedreamers]

20 hours ago, KrysLost said:

. Have tried to see if anything body wise bothers you? Not the typical insecurities or being annoyed by certain parts. Are you bothered by your female characters because no other reason than their female? 

It really depends. Sometimes I’m okay with my female body, but other times it just doesn’t feel right. Again I don’t feel male when this happens, but female doesn’t seem tight either.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Tothedreamers said:

It really depends. Sometimes I’m okay with my female body, but other times it just doesn’t feel right. Again I don’t feel male when this happens, but female doesn’t seem tight either.

Genderflux???

[anisotrophic]

I tend to think of it this way: do you want/need something to change – about yourself and/or how people treat you?

 

I did, I couldn't take it anymore – actually, that had been the case for years, but I didn't feel male either, so I was a bit stuck – I came out as non-binary once I saw that as an option. I wanted/needed something to change about how people saw and treated me.

 

Then – after reflection & discussion with a therapist, and once I saw physical transition as an option – I found I couldn't imagine myself as "female" in the future. Now that I've started hormonal transition (7 months now), I'm very happy with the changes. I don't consider myself as one gender or another. Genderqueer, NB, whatever.

Transition can be a process: you might find what you want/need & your conception of future self shift when you see new possibilities as available, as I did. Or you might not. I don't think it's important to nail down an "identity" so much as understand if you want anything to change.

[Emery.]

I would secind that probably most people don’t feel like their gender 100% of the time. Sometmes you just want to eat a sandwich or read a book and that’s all. That’s very normal. 

[Zagadka]

I'm stuck on the question of what gender is. What is masculine? I don't feel male. I really don't feel female. I have no idea what I'm supposed to feel or identify as, and I have no idea what it even means to feel male. I'm just happier being completely neutral, and that is OK.

 

I'll just probably never be public about it. It is something for my own head.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

On 3/26/2020 at 3:46 PM, Tothedreamers said:

So, I’ve been questioning my gender identity for a while now, and all I really know is I’m not male, but I’m not cis either. For reference, I am AFAB, and for a majority of my life, I identified as female. But some months ago, I started researching and wondering where I fall. I don’t always feel female, maybe more of a 80% of the time type of thing, if that makes sense... sometimes I feel like neither male or female, just a person... and sometimes I just feel different, like “yeah, I’m a girl, but not”? I don’t know how to explain it... 

 

I tried out different pronouns like they/them and it was meh. I didn’t notice a difference between that and she/her. I talked to my older sister about it and she asked if I would prefer her calling me her sibling instead of sister, so we tried it out and that felt right... but idk... I guess I’m just confused and frustrated because I wish this was as easy as figuring out I’m ace...🤷‍♀️

There's a kind of tongue in cheek saying to the effect that "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, none is possible." I often think that applies to non-cis gender.

 

Consider: for most of recorded history, it was held that something can not change to something else. Now we know that elements next to each other in the periodic table can indeed transmute into each other. But oh! The way they do that is oh-so difficult to understand, and often seems counter-intuitive.  In one form of change, anti-particles are formed and other parts are thought to be capable of going back in time! Try to wrap your brain around that!

 

Yet, we know it happens, and things in medicine like PET scans are only possible because they use techniques that 'broke the old rules'.  The average person on the street will probably not be curious enough to study it, they just take it for granted that it's magic and that it works, and just might make it possible for a doctor to save their lives.

 

Pity that gender science has not progressed to as great an extent, but I have this feeling that at some time in the future, when biological systems knowledge advances because it _has_ to to save humankind from disease, it will become accepted, even if not entirely understood. To me, it seems as plain as the periodic chart!

 

Quote

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. -- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), by Wm. Shakespeare

 

 

[Siph]

I feel incredibly similarly, like there's some kind of disconnect between me and being a woman. Describing myself as a woman usually feels fine but not 100% and some strongly gendered feminine terms bother me. Occasionally I don't feel much of a connection to gender at all and at those times I almost forget that people see me as a woman.

 

I thought I was a cis woman most of my life. I didn't really know there was any other option other than fully transitioning and I definitely have never felt like or wanted to be a man. But have I felt dissatisfied and not completely right with my gender.  I didn't really know why I felt this way until I made friends with some non-binary people, then I started figuring out that maybe I'm not completely a woman, even if that's the gender I feel the closest to. I haven't really been able to find a term that describes how I feel well, genderflux and demigirl are the closest but neither are quite right.

[ManyThings0]

On 3/26/2020 at 2:46 PM, Tothedreamers said:

So, I’ve been questioning my gender identity for a while now, and all I really know is I’m not male, but I’m not cis either. For reference, I am AFAB, and for a majority of my life, I identified as female. But some months ago, I started researching and wondering where I fall. I don’t always feel female, maybe more of a 80% of the time type of thing, if that makes sense... sometimes I feel like neither male or female, just a person... and sometimes I just feel different, like “yeah, I’m a girl, but not”? I don’t know how to explain it... 

 

I tried out different pronouns like they/them and it was meh. I didn’t notice a difference between that and she/her. I talked to my older sister about it and she asked if I would prefer her calling me her sibling instead of sister, so we tried it out and that felt right... but idk... I guess I’m just confused and frustrated because I wish this was as easy as figuring out I’m ace...🤷‍♀️

From what you describe, four things come to mind; genderflux, demiflux, demigirl, and bigender. 
Genderflux is when your gender fluctuates in intensity, like girlflux is some days you feel more feminine and some days more androgynous.

Demiflux is when you feel partially like genderflux 

Demigirl is where you feel partially feminine 

Bigender is when you might feel like two genders at a time

These are genders that I found that might fit what you described. But your identity is what you feel comfortable with. I hope this helped!!