I thought I would post some of my reflections on gender. Somehow non-binary gender identities are not spoken of so frequently, and understood even worse. I can see that trend or something to identify as agender if you're not binary. For me, being genderqueer is very, very confusing in a way. When everybody expects you to make up your mind in the end. So. I'm quite bad at getting to the point. It kind of raises brows over and over again, the way I experience gender. I give many, many signs of being trans male. I am trans male. I identify as a man, because psychologically I reassemble a man much, much more than a woman. I naturally behave masculine. I have some sort of swagger in my blood. I just know how. I still wrestle with my dad. I have a luck to choose male-dominated hobbies, professions, likings. I respond like a man would in most situations, I make my way without much strain in situations where I "serve as" a dude. I often do. The way I feel and think is often this stereotypical man. That's why I feel like a man. I believe it has to be something neurological. I struggled to understand it for a very long time. However. I am a woman. I associate with being a woman. In a completely different way, but I do. In a way. I identify as a woman. Because experiences. Because when I was a child I was nothing but a girl. Identifying. That's all it takes. So I am a cis woman. I might have a quite vague feeling of belonging to the group called females, but it doesn't matter as long as I see myself as woman, whatever it means to me. Same applies to being a man, except that this identity is based on something different. So all in all, no, it's not that I'm not a guy that don't relate to some issues of trans men, or that I'm less of a guy, or that I don't entirely feel like one. I do. But I also am a woman. Probably a very strange one. A very unique woman. But a woman. One doesn't exclude the other, it's like bisexuality. I am into men. And I am into women. One doesn't exclude the other. Then. Labels. Agender. No. Clearly not agender. I don't believe that gender roles are good or right, I don't follow them in any manner. I change oil in my car, carry heavy stuff, and then go cook and do my nails. But it doesn't mean I'm agender, just like not having sex doesn't mean I'm asexual. I'm hesitant about the androgyne label, because it would I'm chemically in the middle, my brain, I mean. And I'm definitely not. I have some very dudish tendencies. Not genderfluid. Bigender? Maybe. But I don't switch. I just am both. Something more exotic? Nope. Transmasculine? Yes and no. How does it look like in percentages? No idea. Am I more a man or a woman? But am I more of a student or my parents' child? The question doesn't make sense. I honestly give up on labels. So in case you were wondering if you're trans or not and were confused with contradictory signs... Sometimes stuff is complicated. Thank you for reading. A bit of a rant. Ask something if you want to.
*googles bottom line* Nope. My conclusion is that stuff is not always clear or simple. But yes, gender roles and identity are two different things. ---------- Post added 25th Sep 2016 at 11:34 AM ---------- *googles bottom line* Nope. My conclusion is that stuff is not always clear or simple. But yes, gender roles and identity are two different things.
Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but it personally annoys me how most people think of non-binary as just a synonym for agender. It seems that's what it's become now so more specific terms are needed.. Nothing against agender people this is assumption I usually see cisgendered people make. I've even had people ask me about being 'non gendered' in their words. In a sense, it's almost the opposite. Also having read your whole post now, you sound kind of bigender. I use that label, I don't really switch either. I actually relate completely to your 'in the middle' issue with androgyne as a label. Bigender is usually used for switching though. I'd say there are times where I feel I'm probably more in the middle, but both identities are always there.
EDIT: I just thought, you sound a lot like a two-spirit person. Some people have an issue with non-Native people using that name for their gender identity, though. I don't know if there's an equivalent that isn't culture-specific? It might be something to look into, if you were interested. /EDIT From what I understand from other people on this site, many bigender or genderfluid people often have a "baseline" which is partly male and partly female (for example, someone might say their standard identity is 70% male 30% female). Sometimes it shifts a bit (for example the 70/30 person might shift to 40% male 60% female) but more often than not they stay at their baseline. Other bigender or genderfluid people might go from extreme to extreme (ie 100% male to 100% female) but seeing the people on the site makes me think that it's less common. I wouldn't think there's any harm in you using either label if you wanted to. And a popular misconception is that trans only means FTM or MTF - that's just binary transgender. Transgender is defined as "having a gender identity that is different to the gender assigned at birth", so someone who has a NB identity is still transgender since it is (most likely) different than their gender assigned at birth. You're still trans if you are genderqueer or genderfluid or bigender or any other gender identity that you use to define yourself. There's some argument about agender being considered trans since it's usually considered "lack of a gender identity", but... honestly, what else should it be classed under? It's still moving away from your assigned gender and carries many of the difficulties that transgender people face, so it makes sense to me to include it rather than separate it and tell agender people they don't belong in trans communities. Sorry, tiny rant, not directed at you in any way.
