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Genderfluidity life stories

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by OrangeWolf, Mar 20, 2017.

  1. OrangeWolf

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    Hello :smilewave

    Are there many people on here whose identity is Genderfluid. I would like to hear from people on here that are and perhaps read their stories about being genderfluid. I will also be happy to explain my situation again, if asked.

    I ask because I am having trouble approaching people on here who are of the same gender identity as me :icon_sad:


    Any help would be appreciated,

    OrangeWolf
     
    #1 OrangeWolf, Mar 20, 2017
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  2. Hats

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    Hello! :smilewave

    I'm genderfluid, but still working out what that means for me in practical terms. When you say, "stories" do you mean how we came to realise we are fluid, or how we live our lives now we know we are?
     
  3. OrangeWolf

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    Hi. I mean both how you came to realise and how you are now.


    OrangeWolf
     
    #3 OrangeWolf, Mar 20, 2017
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  4. Sebby45

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    I considered the possibility that I may be genderfluid, but I never really feel feminine so the concept never panned out for me. Probably not what you are looking for, but I find it interesting how people can switch between genders.

    P.S. OrangeWolf: Love your avatar!

    Sebby45
     
  5. dvxqnc

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    Can someone explain to me what genderfluid is? I genuinely do not understand how someone can "change" gender identities from one day to the next.
     
  6. OrangeWolf

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    Gender fluid is a gender identity which refers to a gender which varies over time. A gender fluid person may at any time identify as male, female, neutrois, or any other non-binary identity, or some combination of identities. Their gender can also vary at random or vary in response to different circumstances. Gender fluid people may also identify as multigender, non-binary and/or transgender.

    Gender fluid people who feel that the strength of their gender(s) change(s) over time, or that they are sometimes agender, may identify as gender flux.


    Definition from Wikipedia:
    Gender Fluid | Gender Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia



    OrangeWolf
     
  7. Krishebble

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    Genderfluid is, simply, exactly like it sounds. Our gender fllows along the gender spectrum, though, for me at least, stays around the middle and one end of the spectrum. I am AMAB, but I tend to stay agender to female most of the time, though there are times that I do transition to male.

    It took me 33 years to figure out I was Genderfluid. Before I came out, I hated myself and never felt right in my own skin. I blamed everything, from being autistic to even being a sciociopath, somethin, anything to explain why I didn't feel right in my own skin. I think I always knew, you don't fantasize about becoming a woman if you didn't have some inking. The last time I wanted to become a woman, I said screw it, and started to research what and who I was. That was when I first heard about Genderfluid. After listening to a bunch of stories, and realizing it was almost exactly how I felt my entire life, I finally excepted the truth.

    I don't want to really change my gender expression too much, as I dressed pretty neutral before, but I did shave off my beard and grew my hair out a bit to stave off disphoria. Other than that, I feel great when I am female (except with Dysphoria) and anytime I'm male, I try to get through it. I have anti anxiety meds if I need them and I am going to be seeing a therapist in a month, which is great. Overall, good times
     
  8. actualdust

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    Hi! I identify most closely to agender but I feel a bit of fluctuation between masculine and feminine energies. I mostly just feel no connection to the concept of gender at all, honestly.
     
  9. Hats

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    It’s been a long, complicated, and difficult journey.

    As an AMAB child I was very boyish, but I had this…girly side which I didn’t know what to do with. I told myself I was just a girly guy, even though it didn’t feel right. I envied girls and their freedom of clothing expression and the social interactions they could have with each other and, while hyper aware that I wasn’t allowed to behave in a similar manner, resented this fact. I didn’t see my male peers feeling the same way.

    A few years ago, I started having these mini identity crises which would come and go perhaps a few times a year. Initially I blamed it on the fact I’d just moved to another country and that I had Asperger’s (I didn’t believe that my new friends accepted me because of it). But after I was able to reconcile that, I was still having these mini crises and I realised they were clearly connected to my sense of gender. It didn’t help that around the same time I heard that a rumour had spread amongst my schoolfriends that I was gay (I’m not) and one of my “adult” friends, who is a lesbian, told me that she was shocked that I wasn’t and that I gave off a very feminine vibe. Admittedly none of these things are really conclusive of being not cis, but I still felt there was something a bit off about my masculinity, if that makes sense. I’d later remember that these gender crises had been happening since I was in my early teens.

    In 2013 I woke up one morning feeling terrible, and questioned both my gender and my orientation, but after a fortnight ended up concluding I was cis and straight. My mini crises went away initially, but then came back.

    At Christmas 2015 I was talking to someone who identifies as genderfluid and although we weren’t talking about that, I felt a strong affinity for and envy of them in my core which couldn’t be explained simply by liking their personality. I knew something was wrong with my gender identity.

    In February last year, I started to fall for my current partner and had the thought, “You can’t date her because you might not be straight and you might not be a boy." This had never happened with any other girl I’d crushed on. I knew it was serious, and started questioning myself pretty hard.

    At the end of April last year, I had this undeniable change in my core identity from male to female, coupled with intense dysphoria. My identity then slowly slid back to male over about 90 minutes. Cue three months of monitoring my gender changes and nine months wrestling with denial. Some of the switches were horrible – I started getting these weird combinations where I’d feel androgynous but with 100% female overlaid on top, usually accompanied by intense dysphoria as my male side fought with my female side to be the exclusive gender. Other times I could be either androgynous or female or some mix of male and female, but feel fine. Denial made things worse and intensified both my switches and my dysphoria. I went as far as to question whether I was MtF and couldn’t admit it, but concluded that my boy side is just as real as my girl side and my androgynous side and none of these states contradict each other – they just are what they are.

    As for how I live now, that’s a work in progress. I still struggle to accept it. It became obvious a fortnight ago that my switches are linked in part to feelings of sexual attraction, which complicates my relationship. It’s pretty annoying for both me and my partner when I’m being physically affectionate and then get unexpectedly slammed with femininity and dysphoria. I’m experimenting with pronouns, a more gender neutral name, and growing my hair out to cope with “off-camera” switches when nobody’s around. Dysphoria sucks, it really, really does, but when I’m female or androgynous without dysphoria, it’s actually quite enjoyable. Unfortunately my switches only tend to last for a few hours, so progress in discovering what my non-male aspects are like is slow. Still, I’ll get there in the end. :slight_smile:
     
  10. OrangeWolf

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    Thanks a lot for your post. I really appreciate you posting that here for me to read :icon_wink :slight_smile:
     
    #10 OrangeWolf, Mar 20, 2017
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  11. Hats

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    I feel that, too. It's like, even though I'm AMAB, sometimes there's a tension about my gender when I'm male. I wonder if it’s because since I’ve been socialised as male, I’ve internalised a lot of the societal baggage which comes with that, whereas when I’m not then I’m free of it.
     
  12. Krishebble

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    For me the tension is more "I know what I'm not and this feels wrong." I wonder, though, if some of it comes from a life of trying to be something I wasn't. You are right, socialization is powerful. Our society still says if you are male you must act manly, and forces this stereotype on us
     
  13. PianoKeys

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    What I would like to know is...do genderfluid people want this gender to be recognized as an official gender?
     
  14. I think forms should look like this:

    Medical sex: M F I Th Ts
    Pronouns: ___________

    Your medical sex is the one that your hormones and anatomy correspond with, in case that information is important to how you might react or health needs... this would only be for confidential records in case of emergency and the like. M would be AMAB people who haven't gone through any medical transition. F would be AFAB people without transition. I is for born intersex individuals. Th is people on HRT, and Ts is for people who had gender confirmation surgery but may not be going through HRT at the time.

    Gender is what would be printed on your ID and everything instead of a gender or sex. A published list should be released to choose off of, including an official gender neutral pronoun set. (Probably they/them/theirs, but maybe xe or ze will start gaining popularity).
     
  15. PianoKeys

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    Honestly I have no clue what your saying :lol: apart from you would like to be a selection of many genders and that its on the ID? I dont know all the abbreviations, I dont understand all the desired genders..I am so confused.
     
  16. Saminthenile

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    Why wouldn't they?
     
  17. I explained it in the paragraph immediately following; it would be almost a completely new system.
    And I don't think ID's need your sex, but if you're looking to ID someone their gender would be more useful, since for a lot of people our gender and our presentation match. I was saying that for ID there should be a published list of genders so that we don't have a million different versions of the same thing. Gender queer vs. genderqueer vs. gender-queer for example; they're all the same word in different formats.
     
  18. PianoKeys

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    I want to know because at least it has to make sense for the majority to see why this is so important ? For it to happen ? or to the ones having a say in this?

    How does it work to feel like a man and then like a woman, I dont know, and I can try to understand. But for it to be official how does that work ? I dont understand how shifting between genders can be an official gender and what it contributes to life quality to have it on paper ? Is that strange for me to wonder?

    I think physically you are a woman or man, documented on papers that is for instances like border control and police etc. to find criminals etc. etc.

    what u feel in your heart, does not per see always have to be on a document ?

    Transgender I get, and that it needs to be recognized on paper. But gender fluid I just dont. And I want to fight for rights and help out and make the world a bit better for anyone wherever i can. But if theres a struggle within a struggle that doesnt make sense that kind of undermines the rest if its put on the big heap? I dont feel its should be connected with the same fight then? It feels that by default it is one community fighting for the same thing ?

    And maybe I have it wrong and I dont understand like I said, but I like to.
     
  19. Saminthenile

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    I guess I don't see why having a non-binary/"other" gender marker in the same place as any male or female marker would be an issue. It's inaccurate to label someone who doesn't fit into either category as male or female, it would be just as wrong to insist that a man should just deal with the F on his paperwork. of course, for people who feel fluid in their identity, there's no perfect solution that does not involve having multiple sets of identification. (Which wouldn't be the end of the world, tbh.) On a cultural level, it matters because it normalizes identities that do not exist within the binary, which in turn helps decrease rates of violence and discrimination amongst non-binary individuals.

    It's a basic respect thing. In a perfect world, genders that don't align with the tradional binary would be respected. But that's not the world we live in, unfortunately, but I'd like to see it shift.
     
  20. Krishebble

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    This is just me. I spent 33 years of my life hating myself. A lot of this came from an internal conflict because I had no way, I felt, to describe myself nad I was desperate to understand who and what I was. Once I learned about being Genderfluid, this conflict started to go away, not totally, but I am at a place where I can start to love myself.

    The first thing about having a label that matches how we feel is the elimination of the internal conflict that plagued us before we found this identity. We belong to a group, we are no longer just an other. The ability to understand our place within a subset of the human species gives us a meaning and definition to ourselves.

    Secondly, it helps us to explain to others who we are, and begin to give voice to how it feels. How do you describe the color red? Imagine doing this without a starting point. Labels allows us to have a starting point. Being Genderfluid is a lot like it sounds, we flow back and forth within the gender spectrum. This is a much easier way to begin so that we can allow for a greater understanding.

    Third, but not the last, is that sometimes when we are called something we are not, it hurts. I am biological male, but there are some times when I am identified as Male there is an emotional, spiritual, and psychological pain that accompanies it. Again, growing up, I did not know what I was. But I knew what I was not. I had to be a boy, and because I was forced, I suffered from, and still suffer from, depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder. Asking for society to see us as we are helps to decrease the pain. Though it is still there