Hello everybody, this is my first post I suppose I could say I came here because recently I feel like I've become much more engaged in becoming more open and aware of who I am and how I feel. I really don't want this to become an unnecessarily long monologue about myself and how I feel, but honestly I don't have any other outlet—well, no other outlet I truly feel comfortable telling this to. I'll just keep this relevant to my sexual identity. Recently I've become very confused as to what I should call myself. In fact, I've become confused with discerning exactly how I feel and laying it out before myself. All my life I've been in this male body, and I am happy with it, although I don't feel as if I am fully male. This body is mine, and I don't wish to change it (much), but I've become increasingly perturbed by the fact that I've called myself a male for the entirety of my existence. Just to lay out how I've felt, I've always had a large part of me that was feminine, and I was always ok with it. I've always had these feminine mannerisms, feminine interests, and the desire to express myself in a feminine way. I've always shied away from it or been too lazy to embrace it fully, but this feeling of wanting to be more "girl-like" has always been inside of me. Looking back on my life and recalling memories of my early teen years, I realize how I wanted to be pretty, meek and... girl-like! These desires never seemed perverse to me, they were just part of me as they always had been. But now as I more actively pursue the solidification of my identity I become more and more aware of my ignorance. Ignorance that is, of my actual sexual identity. In my confusion I come to you all, in part because I'm genuinely unaware of what I should call myself. Perhaps I'm just overwhelmed, learning about all of these labels and not being able to decide which one fits me best. To describe how I feel in short, the body I have feels completely fitting and I am comfortable with it, but mentally I feel as if I rest somewhere in between the gender I am assigned and the gender opposite of my physical form. I'm making myself dizzy... can someone give me some guidance as to what my sexual identity may possibly be?
Hey friend! Don't worry too much about labels, that's what your explanation sorta sounds like. Not everyone falls into clear-cut definitions of Male/Female and that's totally okay. Take your time to learn gender identities, there's a LOT of them, don't feel like you have to learn anything too quickly. You've got time. I'd suggest maybe playing around with the idea of being nonbinary. It's a good place to start if you're really stressing out about your gender. Neither Male or Female is a comfy place to sit and sorta figure things out, and since Nonbinary is an identity and an umbrella term you can just sorta chill out until you find something really 100% you. Just focus on not stressing out about it too much<3 You'll be fine and you've got a ton of people here to help you!!
As a quick addendum to this post, I'd like to add that I just took the COGIATI test, and it placed me in the "Probable Transsexual" category, and noted that my traits were "Mostly feminine, with some masculine or androgynous attributes", placing me in the fourth category... I must say that I do agree that I am quite feminine, but certainly not at an extent to which I feel any dysphoria or discomfort with myself at all. I recognize and am happy with my masculine side as well as feminine. Although I know that this test is by no means a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of my sexual identity, this leaves me wondering more about what label I might fall under :icon_bigg ---------- Post added 23rd Apr 2015 at 04:52 PM ---------- Thank you very much I will happily rest underneath that happy little umbrella while I learn more. I've always loved exploring my sexuality but never my gender, so I am quite uneducated when it comes to all of this :lol:
