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Questioning if I'm Bigender/genderfluid?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by WardenTabris, Nov 16, 2016.

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  1. WardenTabris

    WardenTabris
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    Hi,
    I'm currently trying to work out if I'm genderfluid or Bigender, I'm not sure if I am or not.
    Basically, I have thought for a while that I don't always feel female? And sometimes I feel neither male or female?
    I don't know if I'm just imagining it, I might just be female and just be completely wrong but like, I'm trying to research and work this out? I haven't really had dysphoria much but I don't know. I used to really hate my body parts that made me obviously female but I always put that down to not wanting to be sexualised. It's only recently that I'm realising it might be something else. Yesterday I was thinking about and tried out he/him and they/their pronouns with myself and couldn't stop smiling.
    I mean, it also seems to not make much sense - yesterday I felt definitely not female, but I wanted to wear a dress. I don't know.
    Basically...I wanted to ask about anyone who is either genderfluid or bigender about their experiences working this out, and what you might suggest for me to try and figure things out.
    Sorry if this is stupid or anything I just kinda feel like it might be important to work out? Even if I'm okay with being seen as female most of the time.
    Thanks, sorry!
     
    #1 WardenTabris, Nov 16, 2016
  2. Irisviel

    Irisviel
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    what you describe doesn't sound like you're experiencing any kind of trans "problems"... cis people don't "feel their gender" all the time. It's being disconnects and uncomfortable with your gender that defines being transgender.
     
    #2 Irisviel, Nov 16, 2016
  3. EverDeer

    EverDeer
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    Well, I'm non-binary and my gender has small amounts of fluidity to it. When I was first questioning I did have an inclination like you do to believe that I just didn't want my (female) body to be sexualized, however, when you say you don't "feel your gender" sometimes, I think its important to see how this results. For example, I've talked to some cis people about how they don't think they feel/experience their gender, but what they really mean is that they don't feel any kind of disconnect so they've actually never had to think about it, so they don't even know what gender feels like sometimes. For example: I once asked my cis boyfriend how he knew and he said that he didn't he just didn't really feel anything, but there was nothing wrong with the boxes society already put him in and he would feel wrong/different in any other box. But on the other hand for me, I've always felt mild discomfort in what I was assigned, I just had to learn over time that the discomfort was not normal and not what everyone else was experiencing- I went almost my whole life believing that everyone else also felt, to some degree, like I did- so I never questioned myself. Also, be sure to keep in mind that gender expression is different from gender identity- you could want to wear a dress any day of the week but still not internally feel like a woman.

    I guess my advice would to be examine how you feel being treated in almost every day situations. Being called ma'am, how men are taught to treat you, how you've been taught to hold yourself or the assumptions others make about you, if you feel like you "fit in" with other women or not or if they're apart of some secret club that you don't understand how to be in- and even if you don't like these things, why? Is it because that's just not who you are as a person but you still don't mind others seeing you as a woman or being addressed as one? Or does it bother you that others automatically see you as a woman? Why do neutral and masculine pronouns appeal to you? Could you see yourself using them all the time, or is it more just like a fun roleplay to get away from gender roles rather than actually being your true self?
     
    #3 EverDeer, Nov 16, 2016
  4. Hats

    Hats
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    I kept a log for three months in Excel with percentages of boy, girl, and neither, a column for emotions I felt during what I thought were shifts and the things I was doing. At the end of each month I turned it into a graph and could see all the spikes. Ultimately, though, I worked it out because there were times when I felt a core feeling of being female and during some of these periods it felt very wrong knowing that my body was stopping other people seeing the girl that I was inside.
     
    #4 Hats, Nov 16, 2016
  5. EverDeer

    EverDeer
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    Super interesting, I actually have done something similar in the past though not quite to that extent. I just kept a log of when I felt "more girl", "more boy", agender, or androgynous and then totaled them and split them into fractions after several months. I would totally suggest doing this if you think how you feel changes often, as it definitely decreased a lot of my natural dysphoria because it made me learn to identify how I felt at different times and when "shifts" were coming up which would better prepare me for dealing with my feelings.
     
    #5 EverDeer, Nov 16, 2016
  6. Hats

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    Yeah, I got the idea from Delta. :lol: It's been very useful in determining the difference between "feeling like a girl" and "feeling I AM a girl" or a mixture of the two, and whether there's any kind of pattern in frequency.
     
    #6 Hats, Nov 16, 2016
  7. WardenTabris

    WardenTabris
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    Hi again! It took me a while to work out how to respond to your responses, thank you all so much!


    Thank you for all this! Yeah, when I say I don't feel female, I mean I feel like I'm something other than female. Sometimes it just feels like I'm something else instead.Mostly it doesn't matter to me or I still feel female, but occasionally I feel like I'm definitely not. As I've become more aware about gender identity and so on, I started to wonder if there was something but I always sort of felt, it wasn't as bad as what others experience? I mean, as far as I know I don't have massive dysphoria or anything, which is what made me most hesitant about it. I don't really know how to describe it, to be honest. It's just...sometimes I feel like I'm definitely not a woman, and other terms seem to fit much better. I've been wondering for a few years now but been kinda nervous to try and figure it out, because what if I'm wrong and it's nothing? But. The other day, I was reading a story about stuff like that and I just sort of related? And I told my twin, which made me feel more confident about then trying to research more.

    Yeah, recently I've been thinking a lot about stuff like that. I've always hated a lot of 'how men are taught to treat women', and I've always hated being treated that way. And yeah, with the not fitting in - I have always sort of felt that way. A more recent thing is, I was always taught to correct people who spelt my name wrong (it's a unisex name of sorts, one spelling more feminine, one more masculine), but a lot of the time I kind of wanted them to use the more masculine one so don't bother correcting it.
    I don't think I'd want to use neutral or masculine pronouns all the time, because sometimes I do still feel female, but...sometimes I also very much feel either male or something else. It's times like that that those pronouns appeal to me. I'm also not sure I'd be brave enough to explain this to some people in my life, because whilst my sisters who I'm closest too would accept it in a heartbeat, other people I know would probably think I was making things up. I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to deal with being told that.
    Thank you so much for your response, it really helped me think about everything. I'm not sure I've explained how I feel about everything very well, but thinking about it I'm definitely leaning towards the idea that there's something. I'm not always female, and that feels right to say. Sometimes I'm other genders. I'm going to keep exploring this and work out what I identity as, and what it means for me personally, in terms of pronoun usage and so on. But your response was so kind and understanding and it just made me feel more okay about the fact that I am questioning this. Because to be honest I'm kind of worried most people will just say I must be wrong because of various reasons, whereas you actually suggested what I can try and work out and so on. I really appreciate it, and I'm so grateful. Thank you.


    Thanks for this idea! I've now started making a chart on my noticeboard that I'm going to write in every day about how I identify, I might put it in excel at some point but at the moment that seems easier. I'd sort of been doing that in my head recently but I think it'll help me think more about how I identify and how it changes. Thank you so much for helping!


    Thanks to all of you who replied, I really appreciate it. Thank you for helping me try and figure this out :slight_smile:
     
    #7 WardenTabris, Nov 20, 2016
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