Often, when I've came out to people as a male, they have stated that they have always 'sensed', or 'felt' that of my current gender identity but couldn't quite describe why. I have been contemplating on this for a while now but I haven't come up with much. Have you experienced it as well? Is there anything you would like to add onto it?
I feel it mostly have to do with behavioral gender. No matter how feminine or masculine, men and women do tend to behave differently, and depending how how subtly someone acts, if you're a particularly intuitive person I feel it's easy to sense a person's motive and thinking style in relation to how they may be seeing a situation or thing compared to how men and women often see things based on social roles and also brain patterns. I've always been told that I have a very androgynous approach to things- it's clear through my behavior that in my motives towards others gender often just doesn't enter the equation unless necessary or required. I've also sensed this before in several other trans friends of mine. It's like the little instinctual lights that should mark things as gendered for us don't go off in our heads, so it's easy to see how we overlook certain things and orient towards certain genders based on a lack of bias.
I see it everyday. Online, where people can't hear my voice or see my face, I'm usually assumed to be male. In person, I'm assumed to be female because I have a female body and voice. The truth is I'm both or, neither and, when i look at the big picture, that's what people are picking up on with me. As they get to know me, I stop being a gender and, I'm simply a person and, that's how I like to be seen, as a person that doesn't need a gender.
When I came out to my online friends (many of whom are trans too) they mostly said that they felt it about me a while beforehand. Before that in random online games people expressed surprise when I said I was a guy, it was back before I even figured out for myself that I'm a trans girl, not a guy.
It looks like online I am assumed to be a man pretending to be a woman, lol... IRL, I dunno, I can see many people sense it, but it's in most cases completely subconscious. But when it comes to explicitly telling... No.
I had a friend or two say "that makes sense" after I came out to them. I agree with what KippertheDeer was talking about. Even before you know, you're still you. There could be some social cue or behaviour that makes you 'different' from the gender you were given that people pick up on. It's like you've given them various puzzle pieces that make up you, but they have no idea what the image is supposed to be until you tell them. Once they know, they can see it. (Same goes for our own self-discovery!)
I get gendered as male a lot these days until someone looks at my face for a longer period of time or I speak. I think because of this fact, it hasn't been a massive shock to the people I've told. Not completely out but I can imagine most not being at all surprised.
Online, despite using my birth gender I have always been a "he". Not that I did mind but it seems I've got something male to me. Also I know a transbro and honestly it doesn't shock me at all. He was a little boy just as I was.
Ever since before I knew I was trans, I had people assume I was a dude all the time online. When I came out to my dad, he said that he wasn't surprised at all. Really the only person that used to say I don't give off "boy vibes" was my mom, and I think that was mainly because she was clinging on to her "baby girl." Nowadays she actually goes out of her way to point out when I am giving off masculine energy- the other day I brought our food to the table at a Burger King and she laughed and commented that I had a very introverted masculine gait, saying "you're all hunched over but your shoulders are the biggest part of you."
Not exactly. One person said I seemed uncomfortable with myself and she understood why after I came out. In online things where I don't state my gender either way I get read as female, so there's that.
A friend in secondary school said "oh, yeah, I already knew that" when I came out, but I don't know if that was true or not because they're the sort of person who likes to pretend they know things. Besides that, online I tend to get read as either male or female, there isn't really one that outweighs the other. I once had someone ask me if I am non-binary online as well. So I guess my overriding presence falls somewhere in the androgynous area, which is fine by me - anything except female. :lol:
Definitely. I remember friend who passed away several years ago. I was saying like, "I know I" then I stopped in the middle because I couldn't remember what I was going to say then she added "you know you are gay." She was laughing at this joke and asking me to come out. That was when I was 20 years old. And I was like surprised to hear that and i could feel my ears feeling very red and hot. It took me probably 2 mins to pull myself together and laughed it off and hit her. Another time was at work when I was 25 yo and exactly the same situation when I stopped talking in the middle of my sentence and my bubbly colleague said the same thing as what my friend said. Only that time, I took it very lightly and just shook my head while laughing about the remark. I didn't have my first "aha" moment until I had same sex relationship a decade ago. Isn't it interesting to find out that some people already can see this part of you even before you realise that you've got this in yourself?
