does femininity or masculinity have anything to do with gender???

No, it has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I'm a woman and I completely hate dresses, skirts, and make-up. I know trans men who wear all three. I know trans women who are tomboyish or butch. I know genderfluid people who are strictly masculine only and never feminine.

Gender has to do with your mental psychology and your dysphoria. If you hate having boobs, vagina, being called female, she/her, and so on, that's more of an indication (though it doesn't have to be both).

 

I'm going to disagree with the first sentence of the above and say the femininity and masculinity have everything to do with gender.

However, the rest of the post I agree with. It's important to remember that there are many aspects of gender, and while they are all inter-related, they do not necessarily follow predictable patterns.

What I mean by that is that your gender (or gender identity) doesn't dictate your gender expression and vice versa, your gender expression isn't necessarily an indicator of your gender identity.

Figuring out where you are comfortable on the spectrum of gender expression (which includes all the things you mentioned - clothing, binding, toys, etc) is a different journey from figuring out where you fall on the spectrum of gender identity (who you are and how you want to live your life).

 

I'm going to halfway agree with that first sentence and say it CAN have a lot to do with gender but it doesn't HAVE to, and agree completely with the rest of it for that reason. Also, even though I don't ever want to be called he or feel like a boy, I like to wear guy clothes. I like to wear really cool, cute guy clothes and I wish I could more often but even if you're a guy who dresses well people look askance at you sometimes. I get asked if my partner picks out my clothes for me a lot and I'm like, "No, I pick HER clothes."

So what I'm saying is, no matter how you feel or how you express yourself or your identity, or whatever you discover, that's you being you the right way. I think what you're describing is super cool.

 

I wouldn't say dysphoria is hatrid. It can be a lot more subtle. For example, I felt disconnected from everyone and myself (like I was in a dream), had a phantom-limb-type sensation, and felt really weird being called girly things, or simply disliked female-terms in relation to myself, and telling people I was a boy on online forums and multiplayer video games. I was also depressed for no particular reason since puberty, but I started "cross dressing" when I was alone and looked like a boy, the depressed and dissociated feelings went away. Personally, I do hate my sex characteristics, but I still could have felt all of those things without hating them. Dysphoria does manifest itself in that way for some people.

Apart from that, I agree.

 

Feminine men exist. Masculine women exist. Androgynous men or women exist, deeply masculine (or feminine) NB people exist. Your levels of masculinity or femininity do not dictate what gender you are.

 

Well, yeah, I overlooked the hatred thing. For me it's more like dissociation and dislike or discomfort more so than hatred.

 

You're right! Sorry for using such an extreme word. I know dysphoria manifests itself different.

I really apologize if I caused offense to anyone trans. I wasn't even thinking about the indications of the words I was typing down.

 

Back in the old days, blue was a feminine color and pink a masculine one. Don't sweat it so much. Be you.

 

Being feminine or masculine and identifying as a certain gender are two completely different things in my opinion. That's why they are feminine guys and masculine girls. Masculinity or femininity are the stereotypes of boys and girls that you like, or don't like to apply to yourself. How you identify is how you feel at heart. And is hard to describe, but everyone has their own gender identity that sometimes takes longer than others to figure out.

 

In my opinion, feminine/masculine stereotypes don't have a lot to do with one's perceived gender. These stereotypes are just stereotypes. I am a cisgendered female, and I enjoy wearing "masculine" clothing and I have a short hair cut. That doesn't make me any less of a girl. It just means that I have a fashion preference.

 

As far as I can understand, femininity and masculinity are tools that people use to reinforce their gender identities. This is most relevant when a person is establishing their gender identity which typically happens during puberty but sometimes later on, depending on that person. This is one of the main reason why parents instinctively encourage their children to gender conformity to a certain extent no matter what their views are about conformity. When you reach your late teens, early twenties people begin to establish more complex identities and non comformity is one way to do that as a way to differentiate yourself from other people. Trans people tend to go through this period much later in life and until then, their identities are much more unstable as a result, throughout their childhood. In general, femininity and masculinity are subjectively determined, depending on cultural and learned experiences. Modern ideas of femininity include elements that were considered non conforming in the past which does make things a bit more open with regards to how parents raise their girls.

Unfoetunately, the same cannot be said about boys and parents are much more likely to raise their boys in more stereotypically masculine ways and not give them the benefit of the freedom of expression that they encourage in their girls. You can see this clearly when you compare the clothes children are allowed to wear. I saw this first hand in my brother's treatment of his daughter and son. While the girl was from an early age dressed in her brother's clothes and encouraged to play with stereotypical toys for boys, the boy was mostly raised in a stereotypically male fashion, given stereotypically male clothes and encouraged to play with 'male' toys. Both parents are open and liberal but it doesn't matter as they instinctively take on more comforming behavior as a result of social conditioning in context of raising their children.