As someone who is gender fluid, what do I even do now that I know? I never asked real questions like that until recently. When I was little and the children around me started gendered play, it didn't matter that I played the mommy, the daddy, the husband, and the wife and found all of them satisfying and natural because I was a child. Children play. When I was a teenager and I began to view myself in an obviously sexual light pretty much simultaneously as male, female, with a penis, with a vagina, etc, I just told myself my own childhood had messed me up, that I'd read too much fiction, or that I hated myself and my body and was trying to depersonalize sex by sometimes fantasizing, feeling, or viewing myself as something other than female and with the genitals that I have. If I sometimes felt as though female, vagina, and breasts were not correct or had a mental image of myself that was male or without gender, it was a fantasy brought on by my own abnormalities. That or I told myself I just hated the female gender role and that I'd feel better as soon as I was okay with not fitting it. I stopped fitting it and I didn't feel any better. I feel like I don't even exist, because I look around and I see so much for other gender identities and aspects of the LGBT+ community. There's a clear sense of, "Well, what do I do now that I know?" There are books, and articles, and extensive FAQs, and all kinds of things. Gender fluid? There are no articles. There are no books. There are no communities. There are no inspiring and touching stories, not that I can find, anyway. Just a handful of definitions, a couple of blogs, and a few sentences on a Wikipedia page. It feels as though everyone else is a specific thing that either wants to be another specific thing, doesn't want to be the specific thing that other people want them to be, or wants to be free to be that specific thing without fear. I am no thing, and a number of things. People - which I don't feel as though I really am - think in shapes, structures, associations, and categories. There's no set "real me" to let out, dress as, or identify as that will soothe my dissatisfaction with what I am versus what I am in the eyes of others, how my voice sounds, the body I have, and the gendered interactions and social settings I receive or belong to. That I will receive or belong to one way or another, whether I'm viewed as male, female, or no gender, or that people will fight me over if they can't identify me. And what do I do when people fight me over it? How do I gauge the value of resisting versus standing strong? What routes do I take? Who knows.
Well, I'm n not sure I have any valuable input here, as I'm genderqueer and trans feminine. I am a "Daddy" to 4 children ages 7 and younger. My partner married me add a man, and we nearly divorced when I figured out I'm trans feminine as first I thought it meant I was transsexual female. Now, my wife calls me "partner" rather than "husband," which is FABULOUS! She is just fine with me wearing misses clothing and mixed dress. I do wish people would use feminine or neutral pronouns, but yeah ... With you (speculative thinking here as I'm not really fluid, just have some more masculine traits some days), I would probably try not to live too deeply in my own head. Just be the you that you are. If you are more masculine some days, then just let it be. Same for feminine. You are uniquely you. I'm uniquely me. Masculine, feminine, trans, we're all HUMAN. We should all try and stop worrying about it and just be ourselves. It can change at any time. For what it's worth ... How you get it figured out! (*hug*) All the best! Emma Feel free to post to my wall if you like ... Need to talk, whatever.
