Difference between gender identity and gender expression?

[Manthus]

This is a thing I think I do need to understand. There are lots of curious questions in my mind right now.

So, I was born a male, did identify as boy but almost by age 5 or so, found myself having little in common with the typical other boys of my age. I was quite aggressive, but wasn't into sports, liked dressing up and playing with barbies. I used to help mom in household works and was quite sensitive by nature too. I was quite often even bullied for this in school too for being effeminate sissy one. But somehow I did not get why I should enjoy being too boyish, I just find myself more happy along the girly side.. I have grown up as a 20 yr old guy but I still don't pretty much get how other guys like rough masculinity. I don't really find anything appealing in a masculine outlook at all. So, when people say- "Boys love masculinity and girls love femininity", I quite naturally feel I am like one of the pretty girls, rather than one of the macho handsome dudes.

I don't crossdress now but my feminine feelings are intact. I am as feminine as I always have been. I asked in one online forum that is this how transsexuals are and is this the reason they transition? The answers I got were not convincing but I did get the answer that it is not. Transsexuals have a gender identity which is opposite to the body they are born as. Someone even told me I am just a feminine guy (similar to a tomboy girl), but transsexualism is more of "being trapped in wrong body". He said gender identity is internal, gender expression is external and that I sound like I have feminine gender expression.

This is the term which confuses me. What exactly is identity and what is expression? I do like to express femininity and I would therefore surely be more comfortable if I were born as girl to be very frank. But now I am born as boy, have a male body,have this femininity, and I am living with it fine. People identify me based on how I look, okay fine. So long as I can express my femininity and girly expressions without earning ire, I do think I am fine. But then, transsexuals feel the same way, right? What exactly is identity? I do have feminine gender identity, so does a transsexual, right? Or is it something more to be transsexual? Why exactly would a transsexual feel trapped in wrong body? Is it that they also have some body dysphoria type thing? Or is it that they feel trapped because of the wrong gender expressions (I mean when a girl ends up feeling too tomboyish type thing).

I just need to clear up this issue, nothing else.

[rahuls]

Firstly, a and a nice hug.

From your post, I do think you are just a feminine guy wanting feminine expression.

Our gender expressions and what types of things we like and dislike don't really always denote our gender identity.

But this is way different from being a transsexual, though it sounds to be same. Do you feel female inside? And by female, it means, do you want to have a female body, female organs, and be identified as female? Do you wish to dress in female clothers because you want to look bright and beautiful or because you want to send the signal you are female from inside? If the former, your just feminine guy, if the latter, more likely to be transsexual in need of transition. I have heard lots of transsexuals would want to transition even if they got changed from a good looking guy to an ugly girl, because they need to be comfortable with themselves. Is that what you are?

I just got the answers to these questions and now I do think I am a feminine guy, possibly just a bit genderqueer. Being somewhat off the stereotypical norms of your biological sex is nothing too horrible, and does not even mean you are the opposite gender or even transgender. Its just that society makes you often feel like that. Its crap.

[Decisive Pink]

I actually ran something similar around in my head recently.

I'm a girl, but I am very 'masculine' despite my thin frame and small curves. Masculine expression is more comfortable for me; I don't like the way acting feminine makes me feel--usually helpless and unimportant--and find a more masculine expression convey my personality better. Does that make sense? I very much look like a girl but I often act like a dude.

That said, I have no interest in changing genders. My gender is female. Having a cunt or boobs doesn't bother me at all (although I'm glad my boobs are on the smallish side). I even enjoy dressing up in a masculine style, but I don't feel like I have to kill myself because I can't pee standing up. That's the difference. My sex is girl and my gender is girl, even though my personality is a bit boy. Transgender individuals looks at their body and see the wrong parts. Although their sex is boy, their gender is girl and they have trouble coping with the dichotomy. They don't recognize their own face in the mirror. Things like periods or having to shave facial hair can really fuck with their psyche.

I saw a documentary about gender recently, going over the cases of hermaphrodites, etc. who had their sexes chosen for them by their doctor when they were born. At the time, people thought gender was a purely environmental construct. Boys acted like boys because we treated them like boys, so doing surgery on an infant of indeterminate sex to give them a specific sex seemed harmless. But the hermaphrodies, despite being given penises and being told they were boys and being treated like boys, didn't work that way. At five years old, they would adamantly insist they were girls. They weren't necessarily girly, one of the hermaphrodites that found out about the sex change at birth changed back to a girl, but she was quite butch and liked to work on cars. She didn't start wearing make-up or heels. Still, she insisted she was a girl. Scientists are not coming to understand that while are XY chromosomes determine our sex, other genes determine our gender.

You call yourself a boy, and later a guy. That's because that's what you are. You don't really identify as a girl, you just relate well to girls. You're a sissy. You're girly, but not a girl. Does that make sense? It's complicated, and I'm just starting to grasp it myself. Probably someone around here has a much clearer understanding of it than me, but I wanted to let you know that I'd run through the same questions as you and came up against the same problems.

[Sciatrix]

I had a bit of the same issue--I'm cis female, but I definitely don't really present as terribly feminine, and there are a lot of aspects of my personality which are typically coded "masculine." My interests aren't necessarily coded feminine, my preferred gender presentation leans rather butch shading to "don't give a damn," and I'm sure you get the picture from there. If I had to express femininity all the time I'd be bored and frustrated and probably pissed off a lot more often.

But I'm a girl. I'm amused when someone mistakes my gender because I'm pretty secure in my femininity, but if someone was to tell me that because I'm analytical and opinionated and not really all that great emotionally that I'm somehow not a girl, I'd be seriously pissed. I look in the mirror and I see a girl. I think of myself and I think of a girl. I'm a butch girl, but still a girl. My performance of gender doesn't actually necessarily have much to do with my gender identity.

I don't know how you identify, and I can't tell you either. Obviously, that's something you're going to have to figure out on your own. But having strong feminine traits which you want to express doesn't make you a transwoman any more than my having short hair, a direct manner, and a preference for analyzing everything rather than emoting makes me a transguy. Identifying as a woman despite being male-bodied would make you a transwoman. You might decide you identify as genderqueer, or cis, or trans, but it all comes down to how you see yourself.

[rahuls]

I had a bit of the same issue--I'm cis female, but I definitely don't really present as terribly feminine, and there are a lot of aspects of my personality which are typically coded "masculine." My interests aren't necessarily coded feminine, my preferred gender presentation leans rather butch shading to "don't give a damn," and I'm sure you get the picture from there. If I had to express femininity all the time I'd be bored and frustrated and probably pissed off a lot more often.

But I'm a girl. I'm amused when someone mistakes my gender because I'm pretty secure in my femininity, but if someone was to tell me that because I'm analytical and opinionated and not really all that great emotionally that I'm somehow not a girl, I'd be seriously pissed. I look in the mirror and I see a girl. I think of myself and I think of a girl. I'm a butch girl, but still a girl. My performance of gender doesn't actually necessarily have much to do with my gender identity.

Yes, this is where I am too in just the reverse way. I am guy, look at myself in the mirror and still see myself as guy, no girl. Yet most of my interests are related to girls, femininity. If someone asked me to express masculinity all the time (which I even tried for some days in a bid to change myself), I would not only be bored and pissed off, but would feel like putting a stop to my whole life altogether and killing myself.

I have to be in touch with my feminine side to live a meaningful life.There is some energy in femininity I can connect to so much that it gives me everything. Infact, truth be told, I can be very masculine too sometimes, but not without being feminine. I need the feminine energy to do even the masculine things.

But most of the time when people have called me a girl for that, I have also been deeply embarrassed, angry and pissed. Sometimes the social stereotypes do make me wish I were better born as girl, but then, I conclude that the problem is not with me, but the narrow-minded society which fails to see people by what they are comfortable as, and rather bunching everyone into boxes and stereotypes.

In other words, nothing to gain much by changing to female just because of rigid stereotypes. You have to feel female from inside to qualify for transition. The ultimate aim is to live as you are from inside, not to make others happy by being into stereotypes.

[Vinita]

I would say transgender is really a very borad umbrella term encompassing all types of gender-variant individuals who for various reasons, feel like transgressing traditional gender norms. They could include all of the following and even more:

Feminine men

Butch women

Androgynes

Gender-benders

Gender-fuck

Genderqueers

Bigenders

Agenders

Crossdressers (the obolete term is transvestite)

You could have traits belonging to one or more of these classes but not be transsexual or be one very well. It all depends on what you identify yourself as, alongwith what personalities and outlooks you find appealing, both of which are entirely independent of each other.

As a woman, I do feel female inside, but I would be almost 90% dead without being masculine. I do relate mostly with males in my day to day life but that is totally different from being a man. I don't see myself in mirror and feel I am a man in woman's body, or that this vagina is gross, or my chest nipples are too big in the form of boobs. I do want to be masculine and direct, wear some masculine clothing, but that does not mean I have any discontentment with my physical gender. If I had the latter I would be definitely transsexual in need of transition.

I identify myself as a butch woman, and I think it somewhere does fit in the big TG spectrum, but where exactly and what label precisely I need not figure out. So long as my gender expressions go fine and people don't object to it, I am fine having the female body.

It sounds you too are just a feminine guy rather than anything more, since, you do say that so long as you can relate to girls and be girly, you feel fine in male body.

[gulmatan]

Hello there.

I started at age 13 (I'm 44 now) crossdressing because I wanted to wear girly/womanly things. Later on, my family wanted to get me to STOP THAT SHIT. During this time, I fought tooth and nail with every therapist I was sent to and with my family because I knew that I was not gay but rather, wanted to wear feminine clothes.

As the years progressed and the family realised my identity and aversion to the feminine was NOT a phase, although they would harass me, by the time I was 20, I knew that I wanted to be in women's clothing. Further on, as I continued to crossdress, I realised that I would rather have been born female. So, it wasn't just the apparel but, it was also that I actually wanted to express myself in the feminine ! all the time ! Obviously, my straight-laced, ultra-conservative family would harass and torment me because my 'thing' was not stopping.

As I reached my mid 30s, I had more strength and assurance of who I was and who I wanted to be was a woman. In addition, I found myself more accustomed to expressing a feminine persona. It was becoming more natural that my gender expression from the inside was openly feminine. And so, naturally this femininity started to easily find expression despite my family's disapproval of such gender expression. But, I didn't care what they thought. Not to be arrogant and disrespectful but rather because, I knew and felt more natural in the feminine.

On another note, because of my surgical history and my utter joy in expressing my femininity in dress, personality and gender, I resigned myself to the fact that surgery was out of the question. Although, because they were not surgical, the other feminisation procedures were within my grasp (electrolysis, vocal coaching, hormones, cosmetics & makeup). So, since my transgender identity, my crossdressing as well as my feminine hygiene was now a definite permanent mark of who I was, my family realised that this is who I am.

But, as my family was still struggling to accept me, the emotional and mind games continued. This only served to strengthen my comfort and confidence in my transgendered identity. So, it was becoming simpler to disregard, ignore and care less what my family thought.

This strengthening has helped me become so confident and self-assured in my transgender nature that I live a life as a transwoman almost exclusively.

I hope you can grasp some hope, comfort, insight and confidence from reading my story.

[Vinita]

Hello there.

I started at age 13 (I'm 44 now) crossdressing because I wanted to wear girly/womanly things. Later on, my family wanted to get me to STOP THAT SHIT. During this time, I fought tooth and nail with every therapist I was sent to and with my family because I knew that I was not gay but rather, wanted to wear feminine clothes.

As the years progressed and the family realised my identity and aversion to the feminine was NOT a phase, although they would harass me, by the time I was 20, I knew that I wanted to be in women's clothing. Further on, as I continued to crossdress, I realised that I would rather have been born female. So, it wasn't just the apparel but, it was also that I actually wanted to express myself in the feminine ! all the time ! Obviously, my straight-laced, ultra-conservative family would harass and torment me because my 'thing' was not stopping.

As I reached my mid 30s, I had more strength and assurance of who I was and who I wanted to be was a woman. In addition, I found myself more accustomed to expressing a feminine persona. It was becoming more natural that my gender expression from the inside was openly feminine. And so, naturally this femininity started to easily find expression despite my family's disapproval of such gender expression. But, I didn't care what they thought. Not to be arrogant and disrespectful but rather because, I knew and felt more natural in the feminine.

On another note, because of my surgical history and my utter joy in expressing my femininity in dress, personality and gender, I resigned myself to the fact that surgery was out of the question. Although, because they were not surgical, the other feminisation procedures were within my grasp (electrolysis, vocal coaching, hormones, cosmetics & makeup). So, since my transgender identity, my crossdressing as well as my feminine hygiene was now a definite permanent mark of who I was, my family realised that this is who I am.

But, as my family was still struggling to accept me, the emotional and mind games continued. This only served to strengthen my comfort and confidence in my transgendered identity. So, it was becoming simpler to disregard, ignore and care less what my family thought.

This strengthening has helped me become so confident and self-assured in my transgender nature that I live a life as a transwoman almost exclusively.

I hope you can grasp some hope, comfort, insight and confidence from reading my story.

Do you consider yourself as transwoman though you haven't got the surgery?

[Elliott Ford]

Do you consider yourself a trans woman though you haven't got the surgery?

I know a lot of trans people and I'm a trans man myself so I hope it's okay if I answer this question.

Most trans(sexual) people I know consider themselves to already be trans women, trans men or neutrois long before they have any surgery, if they have any at all. In fact, lots of trans people never have gender reassignment surgeries or have only some of the available treatments / surgeries. Some (like me, my partner, others I know) are living as our preferred gender until we decide we need treatment and open to the idea that we may never need treatment. Others (like a few more people I know) choose to live as the gender our body was assigned as and never seek treatment. There are loads of different ways to be trans and being trans doesn't depend on having had or wanting to have any surgery. Being trans is just very simply being a different gender to the one that a doctor said you were the day you were born.