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What does it mean to be a man or a woman?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Fairyglitter, Dec 5, 2015.

  1. Fairyglitter

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    I say I don't feel like either, but how can I be sure if I don't even know what it means to be one or the other? I mean, I understand that gender is a spectrum, but I would still like to know what they both mean or at least mean to people. Thanks :slight_smile:
     
  2. darkcomesoon

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    For me, I define my gender by two parts: how I want to be physically and how I want to be seen socially. I want an androgynous or male body and to be read as male by others, so I'm a trans man. I also naturally see myself as a guy in the mirror (my brain kinda skips over my chest, hips, and other feminine features and focuses on the masculine ones because that's what it expects to see; when I'm not binding or my hips are too obvious I feel dysphoric because my brain can't skip over them like it wants to). Trying to see gender as a feeling was never helpful to me because I don't think there's any one way that men or women are supposed to feel. Identifying gender by its physical and social aspects has always felt very concrete and logical to me.
     
  3. Just Jess

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    To me, it means growing up. It means no longer being a girl or a boy. That is what transition is to me, growing up all over again. I know that is not quite the question you asked, but I believe that a part of your gender is your life experience, and that we all discover a subjective answer to that question, and that no two people's answers match up perfectly.
     
  4. baconpox

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    To me it's how I want to be biologically.
     
  5. Fairyglitter

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    Thanks for your help everyone :slight_smile:
     
  6. denouement

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    Ahh, this exactly is what I've thought, but I could never word it right! When I was trying to figure things out I saw everyone going "Well, I feel like a man! I can't explain, I just feel like one!" and couldn't decide what that meant.

    I'm in something of an awkward pre-t androgynous stage, so I can say for sure that I'm equally uncomfortable being read as neither/both, as if I'm read as female... and as I want pretty much all masculine sex characteristics, I think that places my dysphoria solidly in the 'male' side of things instead of anywhere nonbinary or androgynous.

    So for me, when I say "I feel like a man", I mean more that I feel much more comfortable with having a male body, and being seen as male by others, than I ever did as female.
     
  7. AgenderMoose

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    What's in a gender? A person by any other gender would exist just the same. How's that modded Shakespeare for ya?

    In all seriousness...I don't know. I just know I'm not either man nor woman. I can't even define it, it's just...a thing.
     
  8. Lacybi

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    Well I see the fact that I'm neither by the way that I look at guys and say 'nope, I'm not one of them' but then I look at girls and think the same. Also I look at jewellery and makeup and can't see myself wearing any of it but at the same time I can look at farming and sports stuff and can't see myself interested in that either.

    The gist is that I think it all comes down to how society sees men and women.
     
    #8 Lacybi, Dec 6, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2015
  9. Michael

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    Best answer so far...
     
  10. MetalRice

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    It means meaning things I guess, but I just say be yourself.