I've never posted anything on a forum before or asked anyone outside of my online friends what they thought on this subject. So I hope you'll have me. My sex is female. My gender... I'm uncertain. It was always my sexuality I doubted, till I questioned a friend of mine his gender and he questioned mine in return. When I was around 5 years old I told my brothers I sometimes felt more like a guy. They laughed at me and ran off. I've been in denial about this event ever happening since. As a child I've always played with both boy-ish toys and girl-ish toys. I've for the most part always disliked dresses, girly-wear and make-up. Sometimes I'm happy with having boobs, sometimes I wonder what it'd be like without them. I always want to be thinner, specificially I want my body, stomach to be tight, bit muscled possibly (not sure if that's a body issue non-related to gender or not). I got short hair. I'm happiest wearing my tanktop, sweater over it, beanie, skinny jeans, sneakers. Not showing much of my figure, 'cause that gets me insecure real quickly. On rare occasion in my dreams, I'm male, most of the time I'm female, but happiest in my dreams I am when I have no gender/am both. It's confusing, I've given up on labels quite sometime ago, but when I go shopping for clothing I always feel confronted by my gender. I feel like I never fit in. Sometimes I feel more masculine, other times more feminine and other times I feel neither or both. Often I am in denial about any feelings towards this subject. I guess somewhere I'd like to know what category I'd fall into, whether I'd be comfortable using the label or not. Would anyone have any specific ideas? Thank you for taking the time to read this, it's much appreciated.
Hey there! Labels are frustrating and never seem to fit well enough to fully describe something, so don't feel like you need to use them. But, if you wanted to see if any fit okay, you should look up gender-fluid, from what you've said, I would assume it would fit the best. A brief explanation courtesy of Genderspectrum.com: "Gender fluidity conveys a wider, more flexible range of gender expression, with interests and behaviours that may even change from day to day. Gender fluid children do not feel confined by restrictive boundaries of stereotypical expectations of girls or boys. In other words, a person may feel they are a girl some days and a boy on others, or possibly feel that neither term describes them accurately" But, I would recommend going into an in-depth internet search on the subject of gender just to be sure. Even if you still don't find a label you feel comfortable with, it'd be interesting!
And what bothers you about it? Why did your friend question your gender? It looks like you're at least somewhat masculine and don't fit into the feminine role entirely. How do you feel about all those things? I think that's the crucial part. What you have instinct for.
I definitely have never felt 100% comfy in the female role. Another example would be that I really, really dislike purses. If I can leave em at home I will, unfortunatelly girl jeans don't offer pockets that anything actually fits into. So often I am forced to carry them nonetheless. xD How I feel about it? All kinds of emotions come into play, but mostly just... not a sense of belonging. Or not understanding myself well. As in, who am I? As of yet I haven't been able to use labels without any discomfort. But the issue always comes back to me every once in a while. Guess that's what bothers me most, the confusion and no sense of belonging always come back to me.
Well... I think you should explore it further. Honestly, it's hard to tell. I - or anybody else - can't tell you what your gender is. It's entirely on the inside. You need to understand yourself to tell, and know firmy who you are, and that takes a lot of introspection. You could be anything really. You can experiement with labels and gender presentation. Try things out and see what makes you happy and feels right. Often it's possible to tell things only in retrospect, because you're so stuck in your ways of thinking, you have literally no comparison, you know nothing else.
