I am so confused. I don't know what/how to think of myself . . I've always identified myself as cis female. After first 'finding out' about transgender, I started to wonder if I might be a transguy; I've never been very girly, I was really unhappy with my breasts, and I was intrigued with the idea of having a male body . . But I have moderate clinical depression, and it was hard to seperate my dissatisfaction with my body from my dissatisfaction with EVERYTHING in my life. As I realized my problem and learned to cope with it, I came to be pretty content with my body. There are some things I quite like about it! and everything else doesn't bother me too much. More importantly, I became a lot happier with my headspace. I realized that I was okay with myself as a girl, despite liking a lot of traditionally male things and disliking anything frou-frou. I decided I was simply cisgendered and curious about genders in general. So why am I so confused now? I've been thinking more and more about what it'd be like to be a man. I'd love to have a male body for a day or a week. I'm a bit curious about having a male mind, too, and think I can sometimes be pretty masculine mentally, but mostly I wonder about the physical stuff. I find myself wanting to bind and pack and try to pass as a man. I don't think it's a fetish, since thinking about it 'arouses' me in the 'that's soo cool' sense but not in a physical way. It feels more like . . like some secret naughty game I'd be playing in public, but not naughty in a sexual way. Does that make any sense? Well, maybe that means I'm just a crossdresser. I haven't found a whole lot of resources for female crossdressers/drag kings, but there are some out there. So why would I be confused, again . . ? Because, in addition to wanting to dress/pass as a man in public, I also find myself fantasizing about being a male during sex. Not all the time, mind you, but every so often I think 'wouldn't it be cool . . ?' But stronger than the desire to be a man is the desire to play a man - to use a double-dildo, to have my 'cock' treated like the real thing. Okay, so I'm apparently into gender-play. So what's the big deal?? Well . . how can I want to be a man NON-sexually AND sexually at the same time? How can they feel so un-related? Am I in denial about my crossdressing desires having nothing to do with sex? Do I really just have a fetish that I'm taking too seriously and treating like a . . like a form of gender expression? Why is it that sometimes I fantasize about dressing as a man all day and coming home and doing genderplay with a theoretical SO, but other times I just want to imagine being something - someone - other than myself for a while? (It doesn't help that I've got a pretty low libido thanks to my medication . . maybe I would be getting turned on by all this if my hormones weren't 'broken' ?) I don't know what's driving me or what it really means. If I could just write it off as 'oh, this is a kink of mine' or 'oh, I'm a bit genderqueer, that's fine' then it would be easier . . If I thought 'oh, I'm actually a man, that explains things!' then I could try to start transitioning. But I still feel completely cis female. (Well, okay, 95% female, maybe . . At any rate, I don't in any way feel like I'm really a man. Probably. Most likely.) Yet I don't feel like it's just a kink either! I have no idea how important to me this really is to who I am, except for the fact that I'm starting to lose a little sleep trying to figure out where to put all these different thoughts in my big box of self-identity. Is presenting as a man something I want to try to incorporate into my everyday life? Is it something I should keep to the bedroom? Is it a sign that I'm actually bi-gender and just haven't realized it yet, focusing instead of the body? I probably sound incredibly stupid here. I feel a bit selfish for even talking about my 'problems' when I'm coming from the background of cis privilege; when people out there are struggling with much more important issues than whiny old me. . . but . . I don't have anyone to try out genderplay with and see how I really feel about it; I don't have any way right now to try crossdressing and see how I really respond. They're probably both stemming from the same part of me, whatever part that is, and I'm being way too picky by trying to seperate them somehow, but I can't see any way to really figure this all out by myself. And I know that I shouldn't need to know why my mind works the way it does or what that means for my identity; I should just accept that I am who and what I am, and try out whatever I think I might enjoy. But . . well, I am curious and I do care about my identity. I can't seem to stop trying to figure myself out. . . Can anyone help? Even just to tell me that I'm being silly and fretting too much about things I should just learn to accept?
First off Hello and Welcome to EC!! I can totally understand where your coming from. Most of the time I dress like a man in public and I fantasize about being a man. But I am totally conferrable being a woman. It's really confusing for me as well. I've just decided to take the label of bigendered for now. I think that we are just in that awkward middle ground right now and we have to accept that...
Thanks for your reply, The Cat I guess there's no shortcut to working through this confusion, huh? Oh well, at least there are safe places like EC for us to talk about it <3 May I ask, what if anything has helped you so far? Are there any websites or resources you've found helped you figure out what you want? Any things you've tried irl? *hugs* . . . it's nice to know I'm not the only one dealing with all this :icon_redf
Hi there and welcome to EC. I'm quite certain that you're not the only person dealing with this - so you've come to the right place. While I can't really relate to what you're going through, I'll assure you that you're not being silly at all. When we don't fit into society's picture perfect mold of what a man or a woman is supposed to feel and look like, it's tough. But I will say that to some extent it will require you to simply accept that you are who you are. You're you. And you are unique and special and not like anyone else. But you're not so totally different that you won't be able to find others who you can relate to here in EC - or in other places in real life eventually.
Sorry, I've had classes all day... Let me gather up some stuff and I'll respond later tonight, I have a few more classes today.
You can't help you were born cisgender; I don't think privilege is your issue here. The main thing that tipped me off is this: People who are transsexual will tell you outright that it's not playing. I'm sure you know that. I think that if you are absolutely comfortable being female and simply desire to "act like a man" day to day and sexually, as the mood strikes you, you're probably more along the lines of someone who is a crossdresser or maybe genderfluid. To me, if you were transsexual, then you'd be at least mildly uncomfortable in your body and want to "be a man." I don't think you want to be a man; to me it seems you want to experience what it feels like to be a man without actually being a man. Would that sound correct, or am I off? x_x But only you can know.
That's correct. I'm pretty sure I'm not a man . . but I'm not sure if I'm 'just' a woman either. Right now it feels like I just want to play at manhood, but I know from experience that I'm really really good at denying the truth to myself. So, I'm not sure if I'm just into genderplay, or some sort of 'woman plus maleness', or possibly some kind of bi-gender but in denial. I think it's most likely one of the first two, though. I just, y'know, don't know where to go from there . . Ahh, this is so confuzzling. But it's really helped just to come out and talk about it to someone, y'know? I still don't know what I really want or how I really feel but I'm a lot less stressed about it, hearing that I'm not the only person like this and that I'm not a bad person for it . . that I'm not somehow minimizing the problems of real transgendered people by having this desire to present as a gender that I don't fully feel I am . . Thanks for all your responses, y'all
Hi and welcome! Firstly, you don't sound stupid at all, discovering who you are is complicated and really only you can know. It's good that you're here to try and discover these things, and talking to others is a really good start. I consider myself to be bi-gendered, i'm physically female but about 50-60% of the time i feel male. I have no desire to change my body but sometimes i act more masculine than other times. It's really hard to describe.
What I did was I looked up a ton of info on the internet (that's what got me here). I also just looked at my feelings and how I felt, some days I just felt like I was not male or female. I was fine with being a girl, but I also at the same time felt like I wanted to be a guy. I found this extremely confusing. So I looked on the internet (again) and found other terms that fit me better. Right now I label myself as bi-gendered/agendered. It sounds wired, but there are some days that I just feel like I'm not a part of any gender, but other days I feel like I am a man or woman. So I just feel that I am in that awkward middle ground. I can understand, finding gender identity is really hard... it took me a while to sort it all out. Sorry it took me so long to respond... college got in the way...
