One of the main reasons I found myself drawn to joining here was the hope of getting a little bit of advice regarding gender and sexuality. I'm 18, and openly bisexual with friends, colleagues, and though I've tried to bring it up or make it obvious to my parents, they're either choosing not to see, or they're not understanding. Regardless of them, though, I'm pretty happy with where I am in accepting myself for my sexuality - I'm a lot more open now than I was even a year ago, and that's all thanks to my friends. But my new question for myself now lies with my gender. I'm female, but I don't always feel that's right. Even when I was younger, and long before I was really aware of transgender or being anything other than male or female, I didn't feel quite right as a girl. It was at a stage where I hated being called a girl or having feminine pronouns used - but what could I do? I didn't really understand WHY I felt like that, I just knew that I did. I've always thought it would be "easier" and "better" to be a guy, and I still feel like that now. Yet, I don't think I feel only like being male, or only like being female. I have quite short hair and wear mostly jeans, t-shirts and trainers, and more often than not I get mistake for a guy. And I like that. When it happens at work, it really makes me happy, yet some of the people I work with say they would be really insulted if it happened to them and they seem to get offended on my behalf - which I don't understand. I find it hard to get people to understand that I like being mistaken for a guy, and it's something that I don't mind at all, but at the same time even I don't understand why I like it. I have a brother 2 years younger than me, and I find that my parents definitely seem to have a view of what is more for "boys" and what's not - there's been many occasions where they've been out, seen some nice cars, and taken pictures. They'll come home and show them to my brother, but they'll often leave me out - and when I question it, I get the response of "Oh, we didn't think you'd be interested in something like cars." Is that because I'm a girl and we're not supposed to be fans of cars...? Even last summer, I was buying shoes for my holidays, and saw a pair I liked which my mum didn't want to buy me because they "looked too manly". I was really annoyed with that, and although I did get them in the end, I was a little miffed that she wanted to refuse me some shoes because they apparently didn't fall into what the perfect woman's shoe should look like. I've spent the past couple of days looking around the internet to see if I can find any form of explanation, but I've been finding it all that difficult to make sense of or really understand that I'm no closer to knowing - so I was hoping that here, I could maybe get a little advice. The most likely things I've seen that sound right for me would be bi-gender, or gender fluid - but I don't really know the difference between the two, if I even fall into one of the other, or if I'm perhaps just over-thinking things. So any advice, or similar stories, would be much appreciated - I know there's no rush to label myself or decide who I am, but at the same time, it would be nice to have some form of an idea!
Bigender - Polar shifts between male and female. Being male one day and female another. Gender fluid - Being at different points on the gender spectrum at different times, for example male, neutral, female, neutral on the female side, etc. Then there are a lot of other terms like genderqueer and such. Non-binary also fits you well I think (although that is very broad.) Some questions that can help you: Who am I? (wow, deep stuff! ) Who do I want people to see me as? What do I have? What do I want? Hope that helps. Any questions, fire away. ~
So Bigender is identifying with both male and female at different points, whereas gender fluid is a greater variety? I've also heard terms like genderqueer, but I had assumed that was the same - or similar to - gender fluid, and non-binary is another term I'm familiar with hearing - although I'm not 100% on what it is, and if it applies to me? Trying to find out by looking online tends to leave me with more questions than when I started, as I'm not familiar with all the terminology used! But I'll have a think about those questions, and thanks for taking the time to answer!
Genderqueer is an umbrella term for any non binary gender identity. Bi gender is a gender where you shift between two genders, doesn't have to be only male or female. You can feel both genders at the same time or it can shift like it does for gender fluid people Genderfluid means you tend to shift around the gender spectrum (because gender is a spectrum just like color, there isn't just black and white). It usually has no rhyme or reason. Some people change gender every month, every week, every day. There are some who wake up female and two hours later feel a gender and a few minutes later are male. bi gender, tri gender, etc are like gender fluid people except that they have a set number of genders that they flow around. I consider myself gender fluid but usually am somewhere on the masculine end of the spectrum. So I just say I am trans masculine (another umbrella term that covers all masculine identities) since I do plan to transition to a male body.
This might help. You can see on the right hand side there's a lot of terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender Bigender is switching between the 'extreme' ends of the spectrum - male and female - if I understand things correctly lol. Gender fluid means that you can be anywhere between male and female at different times - your gender flows between the poles. Genderqueer is not the same as gender fluid - genderqueer is a very broad umbrella term and includes identities such as gender fluid, bigender, trigender, flux genders, etc. Non-binary simply means that you are not entirely male or female. Hope that helps Try to relax also! That can be hard when you desperately want to find yourself, but all things will come to you in time. Be true to your feelings and do what feels right! EDIT: Ninja^! Anyways, repitition never goes astray I guess haha.
Except you keep say bi gender is an extreme between male and female. The bi in bi gender is the same as bi in bipolar. It just means two, as in two genders. Male, female, a gender, androgynous, a gender that does not yet have a name, there are some people who are bi gender with their genders being trigender (they feel three genders at once on some days) and then just female the next, but they don't consider theselves gender fluid. Gender is a strange thing and there are many labels. Best advice ever given is to forget about labels and just focus on being you.
Oh okay, I've never heard of a for example male+neutral bigender person, I've only ever heard of male-female. But in the literal sense of the word bi means two, yes. I said I'm not sure if I understand it correctly...
