After all this time I'm facing identity confusion once again. I had the trans male marker for a really long time. However. I just don't feel gender in such a distinct way any more. And I don't think anything is gendered. What if it all means I'm a tomboy? (And - does it matter?) I came out as transgender almost two years ago. I said I'm non-binary before, but it seemed to not hit home. It was almost transparent. I used to have the problem that people didn't see me for me, they just saw... "a girl". Once I came out, it slowly changed and it is not the case any more. My personality is for sure not girly. I'm quite... extremely masculine in many ways. Laugh at me, but this is who I am. I like sports like football or martial arts, if I were to drop out of college and take up a job that doesn't take a degree, I would be a taxi driver, a policewoman or I would work in real estate and renovations. *shrug* My college degree is a male dominated tech degree. I also move like a dude, like heavy music, shooters, sci fi, and fast cars. I'm "one of the guys" - I have a lot of guy friends. And I get sirred every now and then. I'm not sure if I count as a butch lesbian? I don't really think I fit the common image, and I'm bi. But I am masculine. Now I really see where the problem came from. If this is my personality, or a personality I feel good in, then this is nowhere near being considered appropriate or possible for a girl. But I don't think there is anything neccesarily wrong with being someone like me? Or that a woman can't be like me? I dunno. I think "trans male" and I imagine someone who goes through all the medical procedures. And this is not me. I just feel like a guy, whatever it means for me. Or I imagine someone who dresses like a man all the time and changes their name and gets their hair cut short... and this is not me either. I might cut my hair short, but I don't dress like a man all the time, becuase I don't want to, I like some feminine styles (and they look on me good as hell). It's just... it's not because I want to look like a woman on these days, it's just clothes I like. Same goes the other way, initially, I wanted to dress like a dude in order to look like one, but now I just like the clothes, I abandoned trying to look like a guy. It just feels so strange to try to look like something. This is why "trans male" seems to not fit. But this is just a label problem... It's good to even write it out.
I mean, I know the number of masculine stereotypes I listed makes it hard to believe that I'm not making it up or not trying to be masculine, but I'm not trying and it's all true xD I'm not completely out of touch with my feminine side, though. I like art and cook. That's about it, lol.
I suspect people who are trans are often times somewhere in between genders because of their biology. For example with me, I wonder if my brain was examined if it would show that I have something closer to a typical female brain than a male brain? Except it would technically be a male brain "on the way" to being a female brain. It would explain why my personality is closer to many of the women I've known and why I get along with women way easier than I usually do with men. Something similar might be happening with you. If you are biologically trans it might be that your brain is closer to being male than female, but still not quite. So you enjoy typical male things, but still don't feel entirely incorrect as a girl. I think it might also explain why so many trans people (both MTF's and FtM's) are also bisexual. There is some attraction towards both in a brain that is somewhere in between. I think for me, it would be difficult to just wear women's clothing and be accepted. I would also feel weird about not trying to pass. I just can't wear a dress without padding my body. I've tried before, and I just feel awkward. I just won't put a dress on if I can't go all the way. I think for you it's different because society is much more accepting of women displaying stereotypical masculine traits.
I think with men's and women's clothes it's a bit different. The men's clothes I wear and like are straight cut loose tshirts or I have a denim jacket, or a hoodie. Some ripped jeans. You know what I mean? They are not made to flatter any body type, just have a certain loose style. And this is how I wear them. Or shoes. Accessories. And those are just cool clothes that are unisex in my opinion. Women's clothes are more fitted. Or at least the feminine clothes you like. I had a teacher once who wore women's loose floral tops and I think he was non-binary/ transfeminine. He uses a feminine name on facebook too. I would even argue that my brain is almost completely masculine. With a couple of feminine traits, but who is 100% one gender or the other, with not even one trait of the opposite? I think someone who has a truly in between brain would not instinctually understand what it means to have a gender and would attribute everything to hormones or society, projecting their own experience onto others. Or liking and wanting. And someone with an in between brain would not feel the need to say they feel like the opposite sex. But I don't think the brain structure determines gender identity. What it indicates is gender expression: if someone is feminine or masculine, gay or straight, occupation, personality, hobbies, and so on. Which might have an impact on how someone identifies and whether they decide to transition or not, but not... not so much. Do you understand what I mean? It's not even that I feel not entirely incorrect, I just question the notion of correctness in being a gender. I think it is not about completely about gender, I think it's gender (brain, personality, masculinity and femininity) combined with personal factors. I think I might feel vastly different about this whole issue, for example, if I was not attracted to men at all. Although... I think it's harder by nature to be on the MtF spectrum than FtM and I think that the threshold for feeling uncomfortable is lower. Simply because a masculine personality gives a confidence boost and a certain degree of toughness, as opoosed to a feminine personality that makes people more concerned what others think, feelings, niceness. As for the society, I think it's the primitive and not too thoughtful men of the more aggressive type that are the worst part, in my opinion. I can't speak for MtF, but when you are transmasculine and cross the line where people are not sure which gender/sex you are, it gets difficult too. Back to the topic... I wonder what gender identity in itself is. I mean, when I think "trans man" it doesn't feel right, but when I think "non-binary", it also doesn't feel right.
Um is it important that I am borderline intersex, like, not in my brain but otherwise? I have really much androgens, and hence my whole body is somewhat androgynous. I have a mix of sexual characteristics, so to say, but my reproductive bits are fully functional. It's funny to get to know it after all these years of feeling like a boy who looks like a girl. But all that aside... what I also think is that gender identity might not entirely depend on measureable factors. So even if a brain is so-and-so, it is down to the person who is this brain which traits they find important. So even if I have a mostly male brain, I might still feel female, because of the traits affected and their subjective importance. ... but I don't feel female, I might be some kind of androgynous still. Omg, what a headache...
I am almost the opposite. Sometimes I find in myself masculine features and say: "ok, so it's reasonable I think to be trans". Sometimes I find feminine features and have doubts: "oh no, I'm just misled, maybe crazy". But vocing those doubts gives social dysphoria: what if people doubt with me and will never perceive me as a guy? Because, for some reason, being perceived as such is important to me. So we're the opposite. Oh, and my damned body has so few androgens that it's going towards health issues. Lol.
So... do you mean you're androgynous and want to function as / be perceived as / be a man? Or... to be honest I didn't completely understand what you mean by us being the opposite.
...yes? I mean that mentally I'm probably androgynous (?), but I'll never figure out completely because gender is a mess, a giant intricate mess, a tangle. But I wanna be perceived as a man. Who knows what that means or leads to.
I don't think anyone is 100% masculine or feminine, but I think a typical cis-male is like 90-95% masculine and 5-10% feminine vs a trans person who would be more like 60/40 or 55/45. I've found recently when I look at other guys I just don't see "me". I'm not biologically female, but I'm not whatever they are either. Granted there is a lot of variation within the male and female groups, so I can't say definitively that this makes me trans because I'm an outlier in terms of maleness, but I think it could be part of the issue. I don't think gender expression is gender identity. That's the cart before the horse. Gender identity is internal. Gender expression is an external manifestation of internal gender identity. If gender identity isn't in your brain, then there must not be such a thing.
Gender expression doesn't equal gender identity (as you probably know). Just because you don't like to dress in a masculine way doesn't mean you aren't trans* male. You can dress femininely and be a trans* man. At least for me, I guess pretty recently I have reflected on my gender identity and expression, and have realized that I don't want to have an androgynous expression. I was trying to force myself to look androgynous because I identify with androgyne, but this isn't the case for me. I want to appear masculine. Not all trans* men transition medically and not all non-binary not transition medically. I personally would like to transition medically to look masculine, because I don't think I could pass and this would help me relieve dysphoria about my body and how I appear to others. But I don't identify as a trans* male. I just say I'm trans*. At the end of the day though, whatever you label yourself as is your choice. No one else's. I hope what I wrote made sense to you.
I'm gonna preface this with the fact i didn't read all of the responses and i didn't reread your initial post, but i did read it earlier. So i'm going off of memory at 1am getting over a cold. So - how you feel about and relate to gender has changed, yes? Has how you want to be seen and express yourself socially changed at all? Because at least to me, especially when you are figuring yourself out, keeping it in your head only does so much. Its the action that counts. What pronouns you feel best hearing people use, your chosen name, clothes, haircut, if you chose to bind, etc. It might change overtime if you're more confident or comfortable - i know at first i wouldn't consider not wearing my binder if i had the chance, but now i'm more flexible with it. Because i'm more confident and comfortable where i'm at right now than i was before. Does this make sense at all? Does it help any or am i just not making sense or making it even more confusing?
Well, I don't know. I think I'm around 75-25. I'm more feminine than the average guy, but less feminine than the average girl. But I'm also more masculine than an average guy. If we separate the two scales. I outman most dudes I meet Well, they are geeks, so... They are not the masculine archetype for sure. So *shrug* ... so I am more masculine than feminine, but not a 90-10. I think it's a bad place to describe, because it's between being in the middle and being a man and for many people it's hard to understand something that matches neither of their "images" that they have in their heads. I don't have such a problem with identifying as bisexual, for example, because my gender split in terms of attraction turned out to be fairly even. My problem with body feelings... when I think "what do you feel about you body", I think "I'm pretty like a model " or " In my early teens I had a very short anorectic episode when I thought I'm fat and ugly" or "I wish my fitness was better and I could do more pushups and run more km" ... that sort of really practical approach. Oh, "I wish I had a penis" too ? (Vagina is not the best for penetrating vaginas) "I wish I passed better and looked like a beautiful boy in that" "I wish my hair was thicker" "I wish my nose was straighter" "I wish my figure was better" "I wish I had no cellulitis" and so on... I guess how I feel about my gender has changed, and has how I express myself. I used to feel more of a need to identify as male when this masculinity was more... hidden. During the past year or two, my gender expression has drifted a lot in the masculine direction, and I find that it makes me happy. I used to be somewhere in the middle, I think. In reality, behaving this masculine was what I needed to feel good. I felt the need to emphasise, reinforce masculinity. It has shifted from the inside to the outside. Yes, the confidence part makes sense.
*thinks hard* That I think about it now, that makes sense. I mean, I identify with cis men, but rather the less extremely masculine subset. So yeah, that might be causing me (and others) confusion, you have a point. I know that gender expression =/= gender identity and that transitioning =/= gender identity , right? but it’s hard to think about it this way. Especially after so many times being asked when questioning gender if medical transition appeals to me / how I feel about my body. I still have this voice in the back of my head. Ad Alex’s post... It’s good to know it’s not only me to experience this increase in confidence of sorts. That makes sense too.
