I have been dealing with GID all summer. Lately I've had these days where sometimes I'm feminine and sometimes I'm masculine and sometimes I'm both! I wish that I could just be one thing so that I don't confuse others. I wear boy clothes and I have an androgyne haircut, but I wear makeup and I have a girl voice, and I have boobs and a period! What am I? How long does it usually take to know what your gender is?
I don't think there's any one average time for figuring out your gender identity. I can tell you what I've experienced so far in being gender fluid. It's all I can offer you. So, since I was about 17 or 18 (21 now), I began questioning my gender. I realized all these aspects about me that were feminine. I started having dreams where I was female, and I started wanting to wear female clothing. Online I started using female avatars to interact with people, to see how it felt. Everything I was doing just left me with wanting more, even though the majority of the time I spend around family and friends I was male. They use male pronouns with me and I've always dressed with male clothing. I told some of them about my internal feelings, but rarely acted on it. Well, last Halloween I dressed as female around family (as a "custom") and this summer I went to the mall dressed completely female. (makeup, shaved legs, shaved arms even!) It was amazing. Unlike with my family, so many people thought I was female. It was the experience I've wanted for years. For people to take me as the other gender for once, and treat me as they would anyone else of that gender. I even used the female's restroom. I WAS female. For that day... But here's the interesting part... Now that I've done that--now that I've gone all the way to the other side--I'm suddenly more comfortable with my male self than I have been in years. It's like, I freed myself... I mean, I could do it! I could be completely female! But I realized I didn't want or need to right now. But just knowing I have the option has put me at ease. Now I'm willing to give my born gender another try. Maybe I still use those female avatars every now and then. And I'm still perfectly open to the fact that some aspects of my personality are feminine, but I don't hate my male side now. So, my suggestion to you is this: Maybe if you're having trouble deciding what you are, you should go to the extreme on both ends to find a better definition. It must be confusing when you're doing both genders at once! Try making yourself all male for awhile, then go back to female and do it without any of the male things you might normally add on (if you're comfortable with that) and see how it feels both ways. You have a lot of time to figure this all out. Use that time for experimentation. You'll learn more about yourself than you'd expect, I'm sure.
