Hi everyone, I'm slowly coming to accept that I really am genderfluid. For me, my gender fluctuates in a fairly complicated way, but I've noticed in addition to this the flips can be triggered by situations and events. At a wedding I feel male (top hats and tails, yes please!) at ballet I feel myself, and then last week I was reading a completely innocuous article about how badly the local professional netball team had done against another team elsewhere in the country, and suddenly I felt undeniably like a girl (yes, it was incredibly painful emotionally). The thing is, I don't know how to present myself. I'm amab, which makes dressing androgynously exponentially harder. I'm okay with my current dress styles although I'm told that on my more girly days I dress much more vibrantly. My behaviour becomes much more effeminate, too. But I feel at this point I couldn't exactly walk up to a netball coach and say, "My name is Hats and I'm a girl, can I play?" and have my gender taken seriously. Also I fear that people would struggle to take me seriously if I identify as a girl in one setting and as a boy in another, even though this would match how I feel. What's the best way for me to handle this dilemma? :help:
Perhaps if I rephrase the original question: should I identify publicly as a girl when I'm with a bunch of people who make me feel like that, or should I aim for a consistent presentation regardless of who I'm with and how I feel at the time? How do you handle the fact that your gender changes but your presentation can't always change so rapidly?
Presentation and identity are separate. I change my presentation in that I dress differently, wear makeup differently or not at all, and act in certain ways to portray the way I'm feeling that day. But for me, I am not "a girl" that day and "a man" the next. I am always a genderfluid person. My answer to their questions about my identity is always the same. For the people who are closer to me who care, they can ask me how I'm feeling that day and I'll let them know where I am in terms of how I want to present and want to be addressed, but because I know that almost definitely will have changed within 24 hours, saying "I'm a man" doesn't feel honest. I'm a genderfluid person with a consistent identity, but changing feelings and inclinations. I do change my presentation when I get the chance. For example, I never get dressed based on yesterday's presentation, I get dressed for today's feelings. And if that means I go from the manly manning it one day straight to girly girling it the next and give some people a bit of whiplash, so be it. I don't have a consistent presentation, and I feel much better that way. There are still gender shifts that happen when I -can't- change my presentation, like at the start of a class, or when I can't get home easily, and those are rough. I mostly adopt a "keep my head down, just survive it until the earliest opportunity to get out and change" I know I get much quieter than usual. I also worry about being taken seriously. I don't feel I have other options but to follow my feelings on presentation, really. Besides being closeted and miserable, which I've already determined is unsustainable. So... Either they'll learn to take me seriously, or I'll learn not to care.
