I know this is a weird question. I've always felt comfortable identifying as a cis female. Recently I have decided to play with androgynous style because my understanding of gender has changed a lot this year. Gender is a cultural concept. I like the idea of the freedom a pansexual gender queer person has. I'm also very spiritual and feel like God is gender queer. This is turning into kind of rambling but what are your thoughts?
You cannot choose your gender any more than you can choose your sexuality, no matter how much you like a certain label. Saying gender is just a cultural concept is denying the experience and undermining the legitimacy of trans people. Those are my thoughts.
"God is genderqueer". That's a new one to me. ^^ Well, genderqueer is usually seen as a thing of identity rather than expression. Something that many trans people would argue against, but which I would not, is that expression and identity is very often closely linked. They are not the same, but they overlap and interact within the individual person. If you feel comfortable identifying as female, then you are probably not genderqueer in the usual sense of the word. However, many people who identify as just queer, which can apply in this form to both sexuality and gender expression, are rebels against gender norms. If you want to be one of them, go for it. You can dress however you want and carry yourself however etc. That's entirely up to you. Also, you don't need a particular label to do that. Gender is very often, most often I will say, seen as a mostly cultural concept within academia, and according to most people's understanding of the word it does have a lot to do with expression, and some forget about identity. Identity is how you see yourself, while expression is what you want to wear etc.
I think you can choose to be gender non-conforming. Express yourself outside of your own gender through clothes and mannerisms etc. But that doesn't make you any less of a cis-female if that's how you identify.
Genderqueer, like all the transgender identities are labels that describe a core part of ourselves. While we all experience gender in our own unique fashion, at its heart lies a knowledge that something is deeply wrong when we try to see ourselves as the binary identity that is associated with our body. Deciding to identify as one of the transgender identities is something that shouldn't be taken lightly as coming out as one of the identities can lead to pain both to yourself and to your family. We do so despite the pain because it is who we are, how we feel inside and we want others to see us as we really are and not as the mask that we have been forced to wear for all of our lives.
