What it feels like to be trans, genderqueer or genderless

[Nylocke]

So, I don't know how many of you are playing the new sword art online game but I find this game to be very genderqueer friendly for some reason. Of course they do have the option when you make a character to choose only between male and female BUT you can SWITCH between male and female too. I can literally play a dude, and then 2 days later turn him into a girl. I can even have a girl with a male voice, or a girl voice with a male body. This game literally understands my IRL mindset xD

[notathoughtgiven]

On 25/05/2009 at 0:20 AM, Elliott Ford said:

"I am a x trapped in the body of a y"

This one really gets my feathers ruffled.  I am trapped?  I am only trapped by the expectation that my gender and sex should be the same.

On 25/05/2009 at 0:20 AM, Elliott Ford said:

"i am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type"

I like that one better.  But still using that word trapped.  I am not trapped by society, just expected to be a certain way based on my body and not who I am.  So I disappoint a lot o f people when they realize that the expectation they have of me based on my body don't match who I really am.

On 25/05/2009 at 0:20 AM, Elliott Ford said:

How else can / have you described what it feels like to be trans / genderqueer / genderless?

To me being transgender is normal.  It is who I am.  I have known nothing else so it would be normal.  What made it seem abnormal was society expects of me because of my body.  Things like "Your dude so how could you have maternal instincts?", "You say your a woman, but why don't you want to look like one?","Girls wear that not boys" and so on.  When you get messages of expectations like that then it messes with your mind.  I think if I was born transgender in a society that didn't care what I did based on my body then my life would of been a lot easier despite being transgender.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

 

 

Although I don't identify as trans, I can remember so many times when I was very young, when I was told 'don't sit like a man' (I used to manspread a lot).

I haven't got the feeling of being ether man or woman, just person, so it doesn't matter whether I act male or female, I'm still just acting. I guess I have to be something!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Toothlesss]

For the first time ever- I'm beginning to seriously contemplate getting my hair cut like how Hiccup's is in the sequel. It's not terribly drastic of a change, considering I already have short(er) hair. I just haven't had bangs/fringe since elementary school. 

[i_am_me2]

i am still trying to figure out how i feel about my realising i am gender neutral, i have to confirm in myself that yes i always felt weird being called a girl and or a boy if someone mistook me for the opposite sex. 

it would have been cool if i had known my identity back when i was young. the confusing feelings really got to me sometimes. 

i think relieved is all i can say i feel now, that i know i am agender. 

[Altroid]

I'm on another plane knowing I'm male, but entirely realizing gender is subject to your culture. It's a mess of well I feel this way, but I know it's subjective and ultimately irrelevant at least emotionally/behavior wise. I entirely embrace non traditional masculine things. It's my body parts that seem the most distressing. Idk too much how other binary gender identifying trans people feel though. 

 

It creates some comflicting emotions that maybe I am too subject to gender culture. Which is not a good feeling to have tbh. 

[TheDemi_Urge]

"i am a man trapped in a society that assigns gender by body type".  - oh man! I've never agreed with anything more! I've experienced bodily dysphoria in the past - mostly during puberty when I wasn't happy with the changes going on (not that I understood I was trans at the time or even that this was dysphoria) but overtime I've gotten used to my body and even started to love it in some ways - thing is I can wander around with long hair and a non-flat chest (generally female presenting to an outsider) whilst still feeling fully male - however I often bother with cutting my hair short and binding simply so that I can be treated as a male, be referred to by male pronouns and a male name because the feeling of not being recognized as a male is harmful and dysphoric.

[Homer]

I have not worked my way through all of this yet, so please forgive me if this was already brought up. The question of how it "feels" to be of one gender or the other seems to be a key issue when discussing gender related things. As always, that's a purely individual experience and there's no real chance to objectively compare sets of feelings of different people. My hardware is male, I'm okay with that and I don't have any issues identifying as such. I cannot, however, identify with any of the male stereotypes (sex, cars, beer, you get the point). I cannot, however, identify with any of the female stereotypes either. These just don't make any sense to me.

 

Genderfluids out there, you're probably those who can shed a light on this. Is there anything that makes you feel more like a specific gender at times? Is there anything you could point at, anything that makes you say "Today I feel like [gender] because x?" Is there any way to influence it? Are there any major differences in how you perceive the world and your surroundings, depending on your identity at some point? Are there identities that you prefer (or, at least, prefer in certain situations?)

 

Thank you for bothering with that clueless cartoon jerk

[Sapentia]

My particular instance on my gender is this: 

It feels completely irrelevant. I feel like my mind is my mind, not a gender. My thoughts, likes and dislikes etc, none of those things are influenced by my "gender". I am generally called a "she" because my anatomy is female, and I look feminine, and I'm okay with it. Actually, I'm apathetic to how people perceive my gender, but deep down, I don't feel like my personality/mind/essence, or whatever it is, has a gender. 

 

Actually, for the most part of my life I assumed everybody was like this: they called themselves male or female, because they have a penis/vagina. Only recently I've come to educate myself and find out how wrong I was, and that most people have an inner sense of what their gender is, regardless of their anatomy. I am the minority. 

 

I don't know WTF I am. Somebody labelled me as agender, and I think I'm fine with that. I have noticed that I tend to feel more comfortable around people who are not "extremely" masculine or feminine... I tend to like "androgynous", or non-gendered kind of personalities, if it makes sense.

[Finn.]

6 hours ago, Homer S. said:

Genderfluids out there, you're probably those who can shed a light on this. Is there anything that makes you feel more like a specific gender at times? Is there anything you could point at, anything that makes you say "Today I feel like [gender] because x?" Is there any way to influence it? Are there any major differences in how you perceive the world and your surroundings, depending on your identity at some point? Are there identities that you prefer (or, at least, prefer in certain situations?)

(not genderfluid between male and female, but fluid between demiboy/transmasc and agender and... both at the same time I guess)

 

It's a... feeling. Also my gender can change very slowly and I am sort of inbetween or both for a while. I think it would be different would I not have the vocabulary. But I have the vocabulary for some of this stuff. So when the feeling is very distinct, it's like "oh, I'm agender!" or "oh, I'm both!". But most of the time it's some sort of mix and I couldn't label it.

The social dysphoria can change. (my body dypshoria changes independently from my gender, as does my gender expression). My desire for more masculine terms varies. My hatred of she pronouns varies. My envy of boys varies. The divide between how others perceive + treat me and how I see myself varies. I might change my voice, posture and mannerisms slightly, it's mostly subconscious so I don't know how much of it is directly connected to gender. For me personally it doesn't have any effect on my stance on gender roles or stereotypes, I always do my own thing.

 

I like agender because it's so clearcut, it feels specific and free. I like demiboy because I also like the (more) gendered feeling from time to time, it's strange but cool to experience that after being agender for a while. I have some personal issues to work out in regards to the masc side of the spectrum I guess, it comes with some idenity crises for me. Idk, any and all of those have their ups and downs. My preferences change along with my gender I guess. I prefer being agender to any masc/boyish situation around my family, so I feel less fake or like I am hiding something.

[Dodecahedron314]

Genderfluids out there, you're probably those who can shed a light on this. Is there anything that makes you feel more like a specific gender at times? Is there anything you could point at, anything that makes you say "Today I feel like [gender] because x?" Is there any way to influence it? Are there any major differences in how you perceive the world and your surroundings, depending on your identity at some point? Are there identities that you prefer (or, at least, prefer in certain situations?)

(not genderfluid between male and female, but fluid between demiboy/transmasc and agender and... both at the same time I guess)

 

It's a... feeling. Also my gender can change very slowly and I am sort of inbetween or both for a while. I think it would be different would I not have the vocabulary. But I have the vocabulary for some of this stuff. So when the feeling is very distinct, it's like "oh, I'm agender!" or "oh, I'm both!". But most of the time it's some sort of mix and I couldn't label it.

The social dysphoria can change. (my body dypshoria changes independently from my gender, as does my gender expression). My desire for more masculine terms varies. My hatred of she pronouns varies. My envy of boys varies. The divide between how others perceive + treat me and how I see myself varies. I might change my voice, posture and mannerisms slightly, it's mostly subconscious so I don't know how much of it is directly connected to gender. For me personally it doesn't have any effect on my stance on gender roles or stereotypes, I always do my own thing.

 

I like agender because it's so clearcut, it feels specific and free. I like demiboy because I also like the (more) gendered feeling from time to time, it's strange but cool to experience that after being agender for a while. I have some personal issues to work out in regards to the masc side of the spectrum I guess, it comes with some idenity crises for me. Idk, any and all of those have their ups and downs. My preferences change along with my gender I guess. I prefer being agender to any masc/boyish situation around my family, so I feel less fake or like I am hiding something.

Wait, @Finn., are you actually me? Because while I'm mainly agender, my gender does occasionally do an odd transmasc/demiboy thing, and I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. However, for me it's often a much quicker shift, though I might not realize it immediately. I often notice it because I'm suddenly a lot more dysphoric, and a lot more critical of how close I am to passing (and I notice myself actively trying to pass as more masculine rather than just hoping to maybe confuse someone on pronouns like I usually aim for). I notice myself being a bit more aggressive than usual, but I don't think it's necessarily an intrinsically male thing so much as my brain going "oh crap, we suddenly have a gender to operate within and we're not anywhere even remotely close to physically matching what we currently are, time for all the overcompensation!!!" I don't know, these bouts of genderedness are short enough and infrequent enough (they usually only last for a few days at a time and happen once every few months at most) that I still haven't quite figured out how they work or what their effect on me is. That's part of the main reason I'm a lot more comfortable when I'm agender--no gender, no problem--but I haven't quite figured out the whole masculinity thing yet, and truth be told it still kind of freaks me out a little bit when it happens (I can very much relate on the identity crisis thing). Sorry if this wasn't as helpful as you were hoping, @Homer S..

[Dodecahedron314]

Double post

Edited December 23, 2016 by Dodecahedron314
Double post

[Homer]

@Dodecahedron314 That was actually a lot more helpful than you seem to think  still curious about other's perspectives...

[meh12]

On 5/28/2009 at 2:37 PM, Sabriel said:

That was a brilliant, brilliant explanation, thanks for sharing that.

I'm very confused about my gender, but I've sort of come to the conclusion that it doesn't really apply to me. I am who I am; my body is female shaped, and I don't have any great problems with that. Sometimes I wish I didn't have breats, but for me that's a similar feeling to how sometimes I wish my hair was a different colour, or that I could have a thinner face. The problems I get when thinking about my gender are more about the stereotypes society gives for gender roles, but really if I want to ignore them then I do. I don't feel I'm being less 'feminine' if I wear jeans and t-shirts, or have a good time watching sport - I just feel like I'm being more 'me'.

That's a lot like how I feel. I hate gender roles, like so fricken much. I think I'm a flexible female haha. I fall somewhere in between the two genders; I ID as female because it feels closer to "me", but if I had short hair and wore more obscure clothing, I'm not sure whether I'd look "feminine." That's always been a source of confusion for me. I've always felt pressured to look feminine, but ever since I got to grad school, I've felt more comfortable expressing myself in a more gender fluid way; at least outwardly. 

[CentaurianPrincess]

Like others have said here it bothers me to be seen as either male or female. I'm female bodied and the only reason I haven't taken male hormones is because it would look more strange if I looked male and wore womens clothing than if I look female and wear men's clothing. I wear the clothing of both genders and I feel like it wouldn't be acceptable for me to like female things if I appeared male after testosterone. So that's why I won't take T. I also don't want all the body hair and think I'm more attractive as a "girl".

[Nylocke]

I found this article fairly interesting

 

https://spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/living-between-genders/

 

Its like destiny bruh !!

[Roo]

On 6/17/2009 at 4:19 AM, Sammie said:

Great answer. I'm going for "both".

I'm more of a "meh" 

:))

[Alex the Queer]

i identify as demigirl, but i'm thinking i'm probably more genderless. me, i would describe it as this. gender is just this obscure, abstract concept that most can make into a distinct, defined shape. like an intangible blob inside your mind. for some, it takes the form of something that's clearly female, for some it's clearly male. for others it can be constantly shifting and changing, it can be both male and female at once, it can be a defined form that's something else entirely, it can be a shape that has every shape you can imagine in it all at once, it can be nothing at all or something that doesn't even exist in your mind. for me, it still exists, but very vaguely. but it doesn't have anything clear or definable at all. it doesn't have any edges, nor curves, nor corners or lines or anything else that can be seen. it stays that intangible, undefinable, shapeless blob of almost-nothingness. it's like one of those bizarre colors that's so unclear you can't tell if it's more grey, brown, blue, or green, and even though it's like a blend of them or an in-between hue, it almost seems like it's not any of them at all, and it seems as though it's something that can't be properly seen or named at all. like a black hole, it just exists as nothing. that's what gender is to me.

[RK800]

I've posted here before, but I want to again so yeah.

I am a boy, my body unfortunately doesn't really reflect this, but I am a boy. I have no doubts, I am not uncertain of it.

Every time I have to look at my body I'm horribly disappointed. I wake up every morning, look down and just go....

 

 

I'm hoping, at some point, I can correct these unfortunate birth defects.

[Calamity Jim]

I'm pretty sure (?) I'm librafluid, which is demigender genderfluid. I'm still struggling with it because I'm trying to understand something other people feel that in don't, but I'm pretty sure I spend most of my time as agendered.

 

My genitals and secondary sex occasionally bother me and I'm sometimes a little stuck on wondering what the other side has, but I've also never cared enough to experiment because, while annoying, it didn't feel like it matters? 

 

I don't gaf about my pronouns as long as people don't use they (which is triggering due to mental illness) and I get a giddy rush when people mistake me for the opposite of what I am typical perceived. 

 

But usually I just don't care. I didn't really understand other people's investment in gender until I identified as cis to someone I wasnt out to, which made me pretty uncomfortable. 

 

I can only imagine how it feels to be super interested in your gender.  :/

[Binary_fiction]

Before I came out as agender to the world and learned to embrace who I am fully, I could only describe my gender experience as "something was off, some sort of echo always there but unable to fully understand what it meant".

 

Eventually a life event changed a lot of things for me and caused me to stop always looking to others for answers and instead look within myself for them. I understood a lot of things about myself and that day I decided that I was going to live my own life, not the one society wants me to live.

 

Now that I'm out as agender and fully live who I am, I feel a lot more peaceful and more comfortable with who I am. I consider myself trans because I don't identify with the gender I was assigned at birth and to be honest, I'm proud of who I am. It has provided me with a greater insight on society and my interaction with others.

 

I know that there's a whole world outside that doesn't want us to be who we are but I'd rather fight the demon in front of me than the one inside. The demon inside of you will always win while the one in front of you can only hurt you if you let it.

[TieganIsADork]

I wouldn’t describe it as being trapped in the wrong body or anything like that. It’s more like there are some body parts the I feel disconnected to and uncomfortable with. Same with the way that people see me. It’s more just a pervasive feeling of wrongness.

As for figuring it out, it should have been obvious, but I am incredibly dense and denial is a powerful force. From the time that I was old enough to speak I rejected dresses. I hated being included in girls’ activities and being grouped in with the girls. I had one of those “I’m not like the other girls” complexes. (I was actually pretty sexist before I came out. It was out of a subconscious recognition of me being a guy, but it doesn’t excuse my actions and I’m a firm feminist now). I gravitated towards “boy” interests. I was “one of the guys” with my friends and my family always grouped me in with boys rather than girls. I couldn’t think of a single thing I enjoyed about being a girl. I had internalized a lot of male socialization (and toxic masculinity) too. I remember being ashamed one time when I wanted to buy a fashion game at the store, despite the fact that absolutely no one would have had a problem with it. I never really identified as a girl. My therapist actually suspected I might be trans from when I first started seeing her when I was 10.

Body issues were significant too. I had tons of hatred for my body starting at puberty. I remember being confused about why all the girls wanted breasts. I cried for days when I got my period. Periods from that point forward were always hell. I would literally pass out, unable to function, for the first couple of days of every period, the dysphoria was so bad. When I imagined my ideal body, it was always androgynous to masculine. When I describing my ideal body to my mom, I basically was describing Benedict Cumberbatch. The same thing happened at a sleepover. I was described what I would ideally look like and everyone quickly realized that I was actually describing my male crushes’ body (the question before that had been crushes).

The most damning piece of evidence though is that being seen as a guy made me happy, feel at home. It just felt right. I felt like myself.

Now obviously some or even all of these traits aren’t exclusive to trans men, but it all added up to a very obvious answer that I somehow managed to miss. I wish I could go back in time and dope slap younger Tiegan. It would at the very least be cathartic

[fup]

I have just recently settled on a self-definition of being agender. I've had my suspicions for a while but could never quite come to terms with it.

 

I'm AFAB and always been referred to as a "tomboy". Have never worn makeup or jewellry, stopped wearing dresses or skirts as soon as I was old enough to dress myself, just never felt like a girl. For a while I wondered if I was a trans guy, especially when I got my hair cut short a few years back and it made me feel so much happier and more comfortable in my skin, but I also have no strong desire to be seen as a guy, or have the physicality of a man. I always called myself a girl because that's what I've been called all my life, and it never upset me. I've never had physical dysphoria (I think boobs are annoying but every cis woman I know also says that!). I've just learned about social dysphoria and I've definitely had that, I don't like being coded as female and put into a box because of it. And it does make me happy when sometimes people call me "Sir" by accident but I don't feel like I want it all the time. I just enjoy the ambiguity I guess.

 

I know a few trans people and I feel like I've learned a lot from them over the past years, and I never would have started this questioning without knowing them. But despite listening to their experiences and asking them questions I have never been able to get being transgender. Like it just makes no sense to me how you can know you're actually female when you were AMAB. Not to say I dispute it, I just can't get my head around it.

 

I thought my hang-ups were all about the trans experience but I've come to realise it's the very concept of gender itself that I don't get. I don't understand what 'female' and 'male' are. Once I figured that out it was easy to see that my own experience is a total lack of identifying with any gender. I'm just... a human? A me?

 

It's weird now that I've worked it out. Everything's the same but a bit different.

[<No longer active>]

On 17/06/2009 at 0:06 PM, Beardless said:

I realised last October or so that "gender-queer is contagious". Many people just haven't looked at their gender, and only start thinking about it when they see someone "odd". Then again, most thinking only occurs when something is odd.

here is me ^. I didn't start looking at my gender until I came across the pronouns ne/nem in a supernatural fanfic, of all places! So thank you, supernatural fanfic writer who views angels as genderless. You helped me find myself.

 

What does it feel like to be me?

 

I'm assigned female at birth (With cool initials that I'm keeping, but a name that has no masculine or unisex version), and agenderflux (genderfluid but only between demigirl-demiboy, so never fully male or female). I just call myself nonbinary.

 

Some days:

I wake up in the morning, look down at my chest, cringe, and wonder when I can get top surgery. I might bind my chest, or wear very masculine clothing. I'm insecure on these days, slouching to hide my chest. If I have to wear a skirt (say, if all my jeans are in the wash) I will end up not talking to my friends at all, sometimes avoiding them, but usually just staying on my phone whenever I'm around them. I don't talk much at all on these days, because my voice bothers me.

Spoiler

I'm most likely to be like this on my period, funnily enough.

 

Other days:

I wake up and realise I'm not feeling dysphoric. I fist pump and wear a skirt that day. I'm often more confident on these days, and less conscious of my body and mannerisms. I sometimes wear lipstick or hair accessories on these days.

 

Most days:

I wake up and ignore my chest. I get in the shower and don't look down. I don't wear makeup, and I wear jeans with either a black t-shirt or shirt. I cringe inwardly at the 'she' and 'her' pronouns that follow me like a bad smell, but don't protest them. I don't correct things or come out because last time I came out in person to someone I nearly fainted. Randomly thoughout the day I become aware of my chest and think hopeless thoughts, like 'they'll only ever see me as a girl'.

 

I get through it with the thoughts 'it won't last forever'.

 

(As I was writing this, my parents (who I am out to) just used my birth name about five times. In ten minutes.

Thanks, mum & dad, love you too)

[Finn.]

 

after having no sense of gender at all for a couple of weeks it's coming back to me and I feel a bit masculine, for a lack of better words. i am glad, i missed it =)

[meh12]

I've been wanting to try out gender-neutral pronouns (I literally hate gendered things, I always have, especially growing up with a mother who is pidgeonholed in her gender role) and I don't know how to do that..? The only way I've been really able to (since I'm not really out at school as genderqueer/demigirl/NB) is online, but even then I don't really know how to figure it out. The question I guess would be is how did some of you figure it out? I'm not totally opposed to she/her (I'm used to it and not 100% comfortable in my non-cishet-ness yet because childhood) and I've been using that normally. I have a little bit of dysphoria (mostly me wishing I didn't have anything) and that comes and goes. Usually I just feel a general unease about my gender itself. I don't know if I'd consider myself agender because I consider myself mostly female, but not totally cool with the stuff that comes with it. I feel like I'm just floating around in the spectrum.

[Binary_fiction]

@meh12 

 

Sounds like you could fall into a genderfluid/genderqueer category if you want to bother with labels. ^^

 

To be honest, there are no sure way to know other than listen to your guts and feelings. Don't "overthink" it, when looking within yourself, there are no wrong answers but when you do make this introspection, don't consider the outside world. It took me a long time to understand that and I was always looking at how others would react over how I felt and that is why I came out as agender only at 33 years old. I wish I had taken the time before to try and look inside myself for the reasons why I was always feeling out of place and angry at everything. Ever since I came out to others, I have been filled with much more peace of mind than I ever thought possible and if I may point to one thing, there will always be people who aren't pleased with who you are but you should never be part of them. Always love yourself, dont let others tel you who you are.

[meh12]

@Binary_fiction

 

thank you! A lot of my insecurities do come from fear of what others will think of me/expect a genderfluid/genderqueer person to look like. Something I know I will have to figure out is how I am comfortable presenting myself: I have a very casual, pseudo-masculine style, and struggled growing up with being told to "dress girlier". Most of the feminine clothing I like is only because it's pretty and comfortable--I love florals and dresses because pants are the worst and flowers are awesome haha. Otherwise I wear clothes that are pretty neutral/non-feminine. 

 

I love being able to have the freedom as an adult to dress and act the way I want to, but I am learning it's going to take a lot of willpower to break away from who my family expects me to be and how they expect me to present; as well as who I have been conditioned to be. There's a big difference between having had these closeted thoughts most of my life and actually wanting to come out and express them. 

 

And there's still a lot I don't know about the NB community, too (using that as an umbrella for non-cisgender ID- not sure if that's correct--sorry, I'm new at this!). It just still is blowing my mind that I can actually say "hey, I don't feel like I'm 100% female" and that's a legit thing. 

I wish I'd known that that was okay to feel in high school and undergrad when I'd joke about how "not female" I felt. I would've had a head start on figuring this mess out. 

 

That turned into an essay, sorry!!! Thank you for the advice, though--it's always nice to have a reminder that it's my life and my identity, not the outside world's.  and the outside opinion that how I feel can fall under the label that I've been considering!

[Arvid of Rivendell]

I'm slightly freaking out over something, and this seems like the best place to put it:

Describing my gender is hard ("...it's complicated"), but one of the words I use is genderfluid because there are definite shifts in my gender (gender being a performance and my interpretation of it). I was in agender mode for a while, and I was transmasculine (with fluctuations) for the past couple of weeks. 

Today my gender shifted again, and... I am experiencing two genders at once (woman, which is unexpected, and transmasc). This is new to me, and it's strange in a good way (I think). This is actually nice in some ways: I am feeling way less dysphoric about my breasts, and I'm also happy/comfortable because I'm wearing masculine clothes right now. There's this pleasant sort of balance that wasn't there when I wanted to be completely masculine in expression; I'm embracing my more "feminine" features and living for the androgyny of having feminine and masculine qualities.

I don't know how much of genderfluidity is affected by outside sources, but I have been listening to a lot of Beyonce over the past 24 hours. Maybe that's part of it? I have no idea. 

I don't know how pronouns are going to work in this mode, but I'm guessing I'll be more indifferent.

[Bad]

my experience is fluid. i don't reject the gender binary; it's more like my gender isn't fixed.. i can go long periods of time presenting male or female but it always inevitably switches. i'm still trying to understand myself but i hope i can find comfort at some point in my life.