Gender Identity Questions (Personal and General)

If people are saying mean things to trans people they aren't "phobic". They are just dicks.

As for pronouns, I've been called "he" my whole life so I'm used to it. Considering myself bigender I don't always hear what I feel in my head, but I don't have a need to correct people.

It's like being gay, you don't tell everyone you meet. They don't need to know. They probably don't care.

The people using the pronouns you prefer should be those who you are close with. Everyone else kind of doesn't matter.

That's just my opinion on it.

 

I don't think so. Some people might be a little confused if they didn't know you were genderqueer and assumed you were a cis male, but I've seen other NB people who use the sexuality related to their assigned sex (so, an AMAB NB person attracted to women who calls themself straight, for example). Another option is gynesexual, but since it's not a commonly used term you may have to explain it to people.

No one ever has to come out. If you feel it is unsafe to do so, or you feel like there isn't really any benefit to yourself, then you don't need to tell people. I'm stealth myself, except to those who knew me before transition and to my uni lecturers - if people misgender me, I don't tell them I'm trans, I just look at them weirdly and say "uh... I'm not a girl?" as if it's the most obvious thing on the planet.

I don't really have any experience with this, sorry... maybe a solution would be to pick a name that's gender neutral? With pronouns it's a little trickier - maybe just ask people to go off of how you're presenting, so if you're presenting masculine they'd know to use he/him and if you're presenting feminine they could use she/her.

From experience, that gets very confusing when people meet up with each other. It is something that you could do, but be prepared to explain why a lot of people know you as one name and a lot of people know you as another. It also could be awkward with work or school - if your birth name remains your legal name, that name would be on all the systems, and you would need to correct people to the new name (unless they have a "preferred name" system in place, which a lot of schools are adding now. I don't know about workplaces though), so as long as you're understanding of that I don't think there would be much issue. Would you be satisfied with this though, if you're feeling male one day around your family or if you're feeling female around people who know you as a male name?

Yep, that's transphobia still. Transphobia is any act of hate towards trans people, and like you said trans is an umbrella term that includes MTF, FTM, and NB identities.

I don't fully know the struggle of being recognised as NB since I'm binary trans, and we're generally more easily accepted. I have explained them in the past though (and one of the people was an incredible bigot at first... now we're great friends haha), and I always mention that before western civilisation came along a lot of cultures had "third genders", which is a slightly outdated term for what we tend to call NB identities. The western world has pretty much the most well-known culture, and since we don't acknowledge NB identities, it's basically erased them from existance in other places too. You could mention the Native American's Two-Spirit people (their body houses both a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit), or Hijras from South Asia (AMAB people who take on a feminine gender identity, but are not fully female). If all else fails, you could just say that being the way you are now - female - sometimes makes you very uncomfortable and unhappy, while being able to be recognised as male at those times makes you feel incredibly happy and comfortable. It isn't just something you are doing because you feel like it might be fun, it's something which is genuinely affecting you and your ability to function comfortably in this world, and that something as simple as letting you express YOU will make all the difference.

Because parents get worried about their "innocent" children's minds being exposed to "sin" and "immorality"... at least, that's why we weren't allowed any sort of LGBT club at my secondary school. From what I've seen, those against LGBT people seem to think that if a child is told about LGBT people they'll immediately become gay and trans.

People are afraid that men will attack women or they get "squicked" by the idea of peeing next to someone with different genitals. Both ideas are completely ridiculous if you ask me. It's just PEEING, dawg... If they're that worried for people's safety, put CCTV in the bathroom at a height where you can't see into the stalls or have bathroom attendants. Once they realise, oh wait, this man or woman actually DOES just want to pee and isn't waiting to molest people, then everyone can relax a bit and we can acknowledge the US's temporary insanity.

You might get a lot of strange looks, yes. It depends on how well you pass as male. If you're worried and don't want to use a male changing room then maybe use a disabled or family changing room, if you can find them.

I don't really know for sure what the difference between them is, so I'm afraid I can't help here. I hope someone else can give you some assistance!

I hope at least some of this helped, and good luck with everything!

 

1. I think it's totally fine to identify as a lesbian as long as you don't 100% identify as male. If that's a label you're comfortable with, and you feel like it suits you then use it! No one can really tell you how to live your life, and no one is ever going to know all the tiny little details about your identity. I know tons of nonbinary people who identify as lesbians.

2. You don't owe anyone your life story. If you don't want to come out to someone, you don't have to. No matter the reason.

3. I have friends in group chats who will send out a daily name/pronouns text. Or if we're hanging out irl I'll ask what names/pronouns to use for them that day. Stuff like that. It's not super hard if you have friends who are supportive of that sorta thing. There are also lots of cool etsy nametag pins you can write your name on and all sorts of pronoun buttons you can get and just wear around for anyone who knows you to just sort of notice when they see you so you don't actually have to talk about it.

4. I do that all the time. I use my birth name with the people in my home town because honestly I don't really care about most of them enough to really bother with coming out, and I don't see them that often. And when I introduce myself to new people I use my prefered name. Even some coworkers I have still use my old name but it's w/e. It hasn't been that much of an effort and people haven't gotten super confused yet. (Usually if people do get confused, they'll either just ask me or my wife about it in private later.)

5. Yep, still transphobic.

6. Ho boy I have had to explain being NB to my parents, to my friends, to my friends parents, and what I've learned is that either people are going to be accepting and either do research on their own or ask you the questions they need answered, or people aren't going to accept it no matter what you do. Honestly, I've learnt to just let it go. There are more parts about me than my gender, and not being accepted on one part of that isn't the end of the world. That being said I also probably wouldn't be super fond of that person. It sucks, it absolutely sucks that there are parts of you that people won't accept or like. But some people just suck like that.

7. Basically because it's seen as 'immoral' and stuff like that. In the US where I live everything is super dictated by religion, even in public schools. And because lgbt orientations are often seen as against religion, we're not really going to be broadcast. All the school's I ever went to up until college had bans on GSAs because the couple of times we tried to get one, there were protests. The majority always wins, and when there's more bigots than queers we get stepped over.

8. Because of how ingrained gender is into society. To cis people who aren't educated about trans identites; the only reason to have a gender neutral bathroom is because there was only enough room to have one bathroom and not two! There seemingly isn't a need for another option when there's 'only two genders'. Luckily that's slowly being changed, not only by trans people but also by families who need access to restrooms and things like single dads needing public facilities to go to the bathroom with children and whatnot. We'll get there.

9. Maybe, maybe not! Plenty of women dress masculinely. You'd get weird reactions if you had a beard and looked like a lumberjack maybe. But just dressing masculine won't make anyone too uncomfortable.

10. Honestly the only one who can tell you that is you! If you don't feel fully satisfied with either label, maybe just try identifying as nonbinary until you find something that really suits you? Either way, you don't have to have a label. The only real reason labels exist is to find a sense of community with similar people, and no one label is ever going to fit every single person perfectly. It's okay to have more than one label or none at all! Or enjoy parts of one label and other parts of a different one. Don't feel like you have to choose one or the other. You can be a genderfluid bigender person. (or a bigenderfluid person)