First of all, I am aware that in the end, I am the determiner of my gender identity, so despite the title, I'm not asking you to label me. However, I'm a bit confused as to exactly what I am, and I'd sort of like to figure it out, so any help in that regard would be appreciated. Secondly, I'd like to mention that I have identified as cisgender almost all of my life (I believe my biological sex to be irrelevant here, so I'm not going to say what it is, but suffice to say that I've identified as it for most of my life, and presented that way for the entirety of my life) so the fact that I am questioning this now feels odd to me, and I have this lingering feeling that the fact that I'm only just now questioning this facet of myself makes it somehow less legitimate, and that if I really weren't cisgender, I'd have "always known". I'm sure that's baseless (and please tell me so, because I need to hear it from someone else), but it's a nagging feeling that's hard to shake. Now, on to the main point of my post. I'm going to describe how I feel about my gender below, and please tell me if the term "genderfluid" does or does not fit this description, or if there is a better term for it (bigender, perhaps?): I feel that I have a female part of myself and a male part of myself that are always present, but to varying degrees. Some days I feel very masculine, some days very feminine, and occasionally I feel about half and half, but both are always present to a lesser or greater degree. In a perfect world where I wasn't afraid of being judged, I'd present as male some days, female some days, and perhaps androgynous other days. As it stands, I only present as my biological sex, because I fear being read and consequently judged if I do otherwise. As an aside, I play an MMORPG, and have two "main" characters, who are essentially male and female versions of the same character. I play them both in relatively equal measure, and find I identify very strongly with both of them as my "virtual avatars," and often wish that in real life it were as simple as choosing which avatar to embody on a given day.
That's pretty much the definition of genderfluid IMHO, it means in terms of gender you feel changeable and fluid. Though personally, I consider bigender as "either male or female" with less of a grey overlap.
There are a lot of ways to repress things. A lot. I repressed gender fluidity my entire life by telling myself that I hated the gender role attached to my sex, I hated my body, I messed myself up in childhood by not participating in the right gendered play enough, my parents messed me up, I had a fetish, or I read too much fiction. I could probably think of more if I sat down and took the time. As a result, I had persistent dreams as well spontaneous fantasies of myself as the opposite, especially sexually if I was involved with someone. l had sudden mental image shifts. I had bouts of being unable to engage in sex and sexuality because my very body felt as wrong, sometimes even more so, than the roles associated with my sex. There were also subtler signs that I was pressing myself out of shape and behaving in ways that weren't natural to me. There are many ways to "escape" from yourself, and many signs that things aren't right. Some people run out of fuel for that later than others. My understanding of gender fluidity in others, though, is that it involves presentation and mental image. I've yet to hear of anyone else who feels as though their body and voice should be fluid and that being in fixed gendered social interactions feels unnatural. Having browsed a handful of the very few resources out there on gender fluidity, that's all I've seen talk of. I can only conclude that I'm one, very extreme case.
Thank you both for the replies. Sherlock, that's more or less how I saw the difference between bigender (or perhaps trigender if one identifies as male, female, and neutral at different times?) and genderfluid, but I wanted to make sure. Lorn, thanks for that. I keep telling myself things like "I just made up these feelings for attention" or "I just don't want to be cisgender because it sounds 'boring' after all the research I've done into Gender Identity (personal interest, school project, etc.)." I also tell myself that this is a "phase" I'll get over. Basically, I act like the classic misunderstanding parent towards myself, constantly invalidating my own thoughts and feelings. The one thing I hold on to through all of this, though, is the fact that for as long as I can remember, I've not only been a staunch advocate for equality of the sexes, but I've wondered what it might be like to live for a day as the opposite sex. In fact, I've wanted to do that (and be able to do it at will!) with an intensity that I now realize is probably not typical of most cisgendered individuals. As for you being an extreme case...just going on what you've said here, if that's true, then I probably am an extreme case as well. Remember what I said about my ideal, where I wouldn't be afraid to present as male, female, or neutral/androgynous on a given day? In my true ideal situation, I'd be able to freely alter my body and voice at will to match how I felt, and the fact that I can't do that does, indeed, make me feel very, very disappointed at the limitations of our physical world, because I feel like the ability to do that would give me so much freedom and liberation. I suppose that's one of the many things I love about video games, though. It's still not perfect, because I have to create and independently level two separate characters, and there's no option for a gender neutral or androgynous character, but nonetheless, the ability to have both a male and female persona in the game world to choose from on any given day feels really nice. Anyway, Lorn, as a genderfluid person yourself, would you say from what I've written so far that I could think about changing my profile to say "genderfluid" (as soon as I'm comfortable with that myself) without it being presumptuous or appropriative? The last thing I want to do here is step on any toes.
If we were a scientific research institution of some kind, we might need verifiable proof beyond any chance of change of our identities. Since we're a a support forum, we don't. Anyone who's offended has their own problems. When it comes to extremity, I'm just going off of what I've seen (or the lack thereof). I don't understand how anyone could face these feelings that I have and not need to talk about them at least as much as definitions and presentation. I had to step out of a class the other day for a minor mental breakdown during which my own brain named me an aberration and perversion of the system other human beings need to function and suggested that I remove myself from the system to end my dizziness, confusion, and just plain wrongness. I'm not a danger to myself currently as I reached out to people close to me, of course, but just as an example of the intensity and visceral nature of what I'm going through that finds no comfort in the resources showing up on Google, in people who aren't gender fluid telling me to just be myself and dress how I want (*facepalm*), etc. All things that only made me more confused, because I could not find my feelings anywhere but within myself while everyone else could. Everyone else had entire websites, articles, books, and more analyzing everything from parenting such children to debates on terminology. Maybe there are many like me, but for some reason or other they don't feel the need to share where it can be found. Maybe they're just stronger people.
You're right, age is no determining factor in figuring out your gender identity. I'm 32 and only in the last 2 months found myself to be gq. Don't let that discourage you. Try and find a therapist if you need major help, but the people here won't judge. They were very helpful to me in this struggle. All the best!
I feel the same way - I often find myself wondering what I actually would do (how often I would choose to be what) if I did have that ability. You absolutely have the right to identify yourself any way you see fit and shouldn't have to worry about what anyone else thinks of it. Based on the short time I have been on EC, I really don't think anyone here is going to judge how you identify yourself. For what it's worth, the feelings you describe sound very similar to how I feel, and so far (again, new to all of this) genderfluid seems like a good fit to me too. And by the way 23 is pretty damn young - you really shouldn't worry about not having sorted this all out yet. I am 41 and am just starting to figure some of this out.
Thank you all, and sorry for abandoning this thread. I really, really appreciate everyone providing support and affirmation here. I made this thread when I was really seriously stressed out about not knowing what I was, but I think, thanks to another transgender forum I joined shortly after making this thread, I've finally figured it out. Turns out I was wrong (or at least I'm pretty sure I was wrong) about being genderfluid. I can't be certain that my identity won't change, or that my understanding of it won't change again later on, but I'm certain enough to be happy with the gender label I've settled on. Lorn, I'm glad you're not a danger to yourself. Take care, and I hope you can stop thinking of yourself as an aberration; you're you, and that's fine . I'm probably not going to stick around here. I'll be deleting my account if such a thing is possible, just to get a sense of closure and such, but if it's not possible, I'll just be logging out and likely never logging in again; this place is great, but I've found another forum that feels like a home now, and I have not the time, energy nor desire to keep up on both. Thanks again, to everyone who replied to this thread. Best wishes, and take care.
