How to question your gender identity?

Well they/them doesnt hold any gendered weight. So being called they/them and she/her together is unlikely to bother most cis people on a fundamental theoretical level. We're sort of pretty indifferent as you said.

Also I wear mens clothes and mens perfume and all sorts of crazy stuff but that doesn't make me genderqueer because I just have no problem with being female.

But on the other hand genderqueer people would porbably like to do that to, and not all genderqueer and other non binary people are strongly affected by pronouns. So yes the label could fit either of us if we felt fundamentally somethingnwas rong with us being viewed as female. Thats very personal.

Anyway, its a healthy stage of your development to be questioning, but you shouldn't be worrying if your questioning hard enough - if you're genuinely thinking it through and nothings coming up then that's fine, dont get hung up on it.

 

The amount of femininity/masculinity in your personality isn't a good indicator of anything to do with your gender. Feminine men exist, some of whom are trans men, as do masculine women, some of whom are trans women. If you were masculine, it wouldn't be automatically assumed that you were a trans man. It's a really common misconception that people make if they are questioning though. :lol: So, yep, it's perfectly possible to be someone who is AFAB, feminine, and genderqueer (or any other gender identity). I'm not the most manly man out there but I am definitely a man. While questioning, try to separate your actions and personality from your feelings about your gender.

The fact that you said you feel like being female is natural and whole for you tells me that you're probably not trans. The majority of trans people feel disconnected or uncomfortable or like there is something wrong with their assigned gender. One of the things I've often heard is the "wearing a mask" statement, it's a way people commonly describe having to go out in the world as their assigned gender. If you're feeling that way when you imagine yourself not to be female, it'd suggest that you are a woman to me.

Regarding pronouns, they/them really has no reason to bother anyone. They're completely gender neutral and are used for groups frequently or people you aren't sure of the gender of upon first meeting, as well as NB individuals. You've almost definitely been called they/them in the past without really registering it. If there's no gender attached, it's the same as being called "human" or "person", there's nothing about it that should make someone uncomfortable (like a man might feel if he is continously called "she", because it is a strictly female word). The only reason it might bother someone is if someone is deliberately using it to avoid what another person's preferred gender is and possibly invalidate them (for example, someone who refuses to call a trans woman "she" and instead calls her "they"). If you were feeling disconnected or unhappy with female pronouns, that would be a bigger indicator, but having indifference to pronouns doesn't imply being trans OR being cis. Many cis people don't care for pronouns, but so do some trans people.

As for me when I was questioning, my narrative is quite a bit different than other people's because I came out to my mom as questioning if I was a trans boy pretty much as soon as I found out what the word was at 14. It ended up being something I didn't do alone, even though my mom was mostly playing Devil's advocate and constantly saying "but what if you aren't?". I didn't really realise that there was a big stigma attached to trans people so I just thought "yes I can finally be right!", but having to prove it to my mom was difficult - I had to really dig deep into why I felt how I did, how to describe it, is that a common experience, etc., so I ended up cementing it and getting rid of my doubts that way. Most of the things that help me know that it's not just "being more masculine" are from my childhood, but some people don't have early signs that they are trans and not everyone has the same experience with it. I had always felt discomfort around girls and tried to mimic the other boys sometimes because it always felt weird to me that people continously put me with the girls - to the point that I had a screaming match with my mom when I was 8, the first time I wore a dress to school (before that point I had literally no issue with it) and saw that none of the other boys were wearing a dress. I just hadn't realised that dresses were a "female" thing until that point and I was really angry that my mom was making me wear it and making people even more likely to go "oh yeah, that's a girl". I had literally no idea that it was because "girls have one type of body and boys had another" until I did basic sex ed mostly focused on puberty in year 5 (age 10). You've probably realised by now, I wasn't very socially aware. :lol: Anyway, we did "boy's genitals" first, and for a solid twenty minutes or so I got very upset because I thought that my penis was really small and that the other boys would laugh if they found out, then we did "girl's genitals" and seeing... well, what I had listed under girls upset me even more. I pretty much became convinced that my penis just hadn't grown properly yet, and that once puberty properly started for me it'd grow in. Of course, that was complete bullshit and didn't happen, but I held onto that belief for a long time and still low-key hope it will happen. Those are the main things that help me clarify in my mind that I am a boy, though there are spots of other stuff. Things that I've felt or done that wouldn't make sense at all for a cis girl to be feeling. I've been 'officially' identifying as male since I was 15 and since just before my 19th birthday I've been living as male, and it feels like I've been reborn. I wasn't really living before, It like I was just doing the motions of living without any of the emotions and feelings and experiences.

Again, though, not all transgender people feel this way, and it might be a lot different for the average NB trans person than it is for the average binary trans person. I hope this helps regardless, and I wish you luck in figuring yourself out! (*hug*)

 

Does it ever bother you that you are viewed as female?

Do you ever feel that certain body parts you have are wrong in some way? If yes why do you think that is?

How do you see yourself in the future?

Do you ever feel like you're being trapped by your body because everyone sees you as female because of it?

do your feelings related to the above fluctuate?

 

You don't need to feel bad. Helping cis people who are questioning realise their gender identity is just as important as helping trans people who are questioning realise their gender identity. Everyone who is questioning should be treated equally, regardless of how they end up identifying in the end.

 

Tbh that penis thing made me laugh system glitch because I used to say to boys that I was actually a boy, I just had a really small penis and you couldn't see it easily hahaha. My defence was that I had a micropenis lol. That was when I was about 6. I believed it but I dunno sort of forgot about it later. But it always makes me laugh to look back on that.