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What's your definition of Non Binary?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by enjeruciel, Oct 15, 2016.

  1. enjeruciel

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    Just curious for my fellow non binary individuals out there, how do you define non binary for yourself?

    I'm a non binary transman. Essentially I want a male form and voice yet I'm afraid of leaving the female gender role/norm/binary and treading new and unknown territory. I still want to wear cute things, use the women's restroom if I can, and be an accepted part of female friend groups for example, but I know I am not female. I essentially hope to be read by the outside world as a gay man once my transition is over because I feel like that's the closest thing to my gender identity that people within the binary world can understand. I tend to define myself as an effeminate male with a fluctuating sexuality.
     
  2. pinkclare

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    The way I see it is that male and female are the binary genders, therefore everything else is nonbinary. While everyone is free to define themselves, obviously, I would never say someone is nonbinary based on their gender expression or their gender role, which are very separate issues apart from gender identity.
     
  3. CJliving

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    If someone identitfies outside the binary, they could use non-binary.

    In my case, being referred to as a woman is "cringe", and being referred to as a man is "yeah, sure, okay".
     
  4. enjeruciel

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    I think to elaborate I understand that non binary is obviously what's in between or outside of the binary roles of male and female. I'm asking what that looks like in individual people's cases. I'm curious about the diversity and individual experiences of non binary. This post is not intended to define non binary generically or generally or to create an implication of invalidity. I just want to know people's individual experiences if they feel comfortable sharing.
     
  5. EverDeer

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    Well, as for my personal experiences...
    I'm AFAB, and when I'm around groups of all women publicly, or in a women oriented/dominated spaces, I feel very unsettled. I feel like the air of "belonging" and the social cues that becomes heightened is foreign, scary, and deters me further. I feel like a spectator, someone who is politely ill-at-ease, I may understand and share many of the same views and interests, but nothing 'clicks' and I don't feel like I suddenly belong just because of my gender.
    The same goes for male-dominated spaces as well. However, differently though, something about them makes me curious, feel excited and more comfortable, though the energy-levels often overwhelm me, make me sensitive, and can sometimes frighten me as well, but unlike woman-spaces, I don't feel like the odd one out or irritated/bored. I feel I share less similar views with men as a generalization, and have a much softer presence than many of them, but I feel less irritated/bored even if I do get overwhelmed or tired easily...

    When cis-women interact with me for the first time, sometimes I feel I involuntarily put on a mask to react in all the correct ways without trying, out of fear of judgement. Often, if I act like myself, I'm met with confusion, or people will think I'm rude or blunt. Around men, I don't have to put on this mask, but I often someone feel I am not able to "keep up" with them socially, and they don't automatically see me as one of them, I'm not quite sure how else to describe this, but it could just be because even though I am more stoic I don't have a very strong nature...

    I feel like I deeply understand many aspects of social gender because I had to learn it, and to me almost all of it is a performance (I almost always feel agender). To me, the only reason I feel dysphoria and the reason I do want to be gendered in female ways some days/ways, and male others, is because it is a balance game that always has to neutralize in the end. Because I understand that no matter what I feel, unless I can fit it into one of the two boxes for others to understand so they can truly see the real me, they won't. It is the feeling of otherness I get from everything that actually makes me love gender and androgyny and want to present fully androgynously so that I may exist in this world in a way that makes sense and I can communicate with others.

    It is both a deep understanding and mild belonging and love to both binary genders, but ultimately belonging truly to neither that defines being non-binary for me.
     
    #5 EverDeer, Oct 15, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2016
  6. Synesthesia

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    Kind of hard to talk about everything or to know where to start... I'm afab btw. I've written this on my phone so there may be many errors, it also won't cover everything.

    My memory isn't good but I know I was a very girly child until a certain age when my interests and such became more diversified gradually. I never felt like I was a boy during this time, and probably felt like a girl? I mean I was really into the spice girls as a young child and I don't think it was for the music, and that's about as girl power as it gets.

    Later on I had what I suppose you could consider my first 'sexual' experience at about the age of 8 with a boy around my age. Now I didn't know what sex was or involved at this age and had no awareness/knowledge of my genitalia either. But I dressed up in this girly outfit I had that was fancy and I was messing around with this boy and playing this kind of role, I was too young to understand but. in hindsight I'd describe it as me giving him a lapdance. I know I didn't know what that was though at the time and I wasn't trying conciously to be sexy... Yet afterwards I just felt kind of disgusted and tried to suppress the memory especially of his reaction to how I acted (which is to say positive,) at one point he asked me to do it again and at that point I was like hell no.

    I don't know why but I was thinking about this recently and feel like it might be significant in understanding myself.

    then later when I was 11 or so, before I started masturbating properly with intent, I have vague memories of putting on some like children bra type things my mum had bought me and climbing into bed and being sort of aroused by that... But these memories are very blurry now.

    I wasn't attracted to guys until I was about 12 and got a crush on this famous guitarist.

    As a child I tried to play with guys on occasion and was told I couldn't because I was a girl, so that probably had a begative effect.

    I remember not wanting to grow breasts I was in denial about it for a while and wouldn't wear bras for years but eventually started doing it because of others making a big deal out of it. Almost always since then, I've avoided looking at them in the mirror, avoid touching them. There have been times in my early 20s where I was. more OK with them I think? But yeah I just never really got used to them. In the beginning I didn't like the idea of physically becoming a woman and it seemed like all the girls were insecure in other ways like they weren't attractive enough or their breasts weren't big enough and I was just like thinking about how I wanted my chest to stay the same and didn't like the idea of having to wear a bra.

    I also hated starting my period, was deeply ashamed and even hid it from everyone for as long as I could (eventually having to tell my mum,) I'd been disturbed about it since I was told it would happen to me at about the age of.. 10 I think. It felt like this great weakness or something.

    But eventually, I'd grow to become OKish with periods, and by the time I was in my 20s mostly liked how talking about it because everyone treated it like some taboo.. But I have some antisocial tendencies in this way.

    I spent a lot of time as I went through puberty and later being annoyed by people pointing out gender differences, by any difference I had from guys. I always wanted to be taller, felt like having bigger feet was better, didn't like being weaker, increasing discomfort with the female gender role too. Little things like that that I didn't think about too much.

    Then later I started to notice reocurring patterns of wanting to look more like certain guys. I never wore makeup or wanted to but suddenly would get the urge only when seeing femme guys wearing like gothic kind of styles that were kinda androgynous eg: Marilyn Manson. There was also the urge to imitate behaviourally which went much further back usually after watching some film, playing a game etc. Not always femme, but yeah.

    That I think was what finally made me question things more. But often they'd be guys I was attracted to, which I felt invalidated things a lot, even when I wasn't really it'd often be a look I'd find attractive on other guys (since I do like feminine and alternative guys a lot,) still not sure about that really and the role it might play.

    I'd been reading slash fiction from my early teens too, almost exclusively for years and I found it hard to fantasise with my body so would usually imagine two guys. Later I'd sometimes imagine women too (not me,) but would be mentally frustrated because they did not have dicks. At the same time the idea of intercourse for me seemed appealing (though my thoughts about that have fluctuated.)

    It took a long time before I'd start to daydream about myself having sex with people, in first person and when I do at times I imagine doing things that involve male body parts and at others female.

    I realised that I didn't like most female words being used on me lady m'aam etc thought sir sounded better.

    At some point in my teenage years I started to feel more comfortable around guys and kibd of weird and alien around girls. This was lessened signifixantly if they were more tomboyish but the sense of being a bit different was still there. This may not be related to gender entirely though. I do have long term social anxiety and I am generally just quite awkward with people.

    There was a point last year where I went into a very crowded female toilet after a concert and felt like I shouldn't be there and that they'd somehow figure that out (which makes no sense I know, they can't read minds.)

    pronoun wise I was OK being referred to as she/her maybe the tiniest weird feeling but that may be bias because of how I feel now which is to say depending on the day it can be mildly upsetting or ruin my mood for a while afterwards.

    I haven't tested male ones at this point even online and I'm not really out.

    I feel sad about being left out of guy stuff and at the same time unable to really connect with women in the way it seems women do. So it feels lonely at times and a bit like I'm in no mans land.

    I still have many traits I'd consider more female though also some that are more stereotypically male and almost like two sets of desires for an ideal relationship in terms of my role and certain things.

    Interest wise I'd say I'm pretty balanced now, have been since mid-late childhood but that's stereotypical anyway.

    When I think about transistioning I know it's not for me. If I had a button I could press to be physically male but could switch back when I wanted I would and probably stay male most of the time but. To,an extent I feel a lot if compassion to my body now and feel like I'd be betraying it in a sense. Almost like I see it as someone else sonetimes lol.... Probably not healthy.

    But it's depressing sometimes more than others that I have to live as female.

    I'm also not sure if I can really have a decent sexual relationship though, my experimentation before wasn't enjoyable and the only stuff I really liked didn't involve my body.

    Sometimes I feel like I'd be OK with being a woman well in a fashion. I can't even say that like I am a woman, there's some disconect there. But I do identify as one to some extent, always have done to varying degrees.

    Hmm this is probably enough for now. I haven't written everything down before tbh probably should since it might help me..

    ---------- Post added 16th Oct 2016 at 09:50 AM ----------

    Fuck OK I had no idea that was so long, probably want to skim it or something.
     
    #6 Synesthesia, Oct 16, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2016
  7. Mihael

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    As a child I was apparently a girly girl, and was okey with it, but I had some very masculine tendency. Nobody noticed it of course, and in the feminist gist I grew up in, as long as I wore girly clothes, and I liked them, it was all fine and normal, and I was ... everyone liked it that I'm so assertive (over-assertive...), indepedent, energetic, good at math, especially the adults liked it. With other kids it was no problem. Now I notice things like... I had no idea how to play with dolls, my Barbies were spies and jumped bungee, lol. I liked to dress up dolls, the stroller I had was more fun than the doll, a complete skew of mind.

    Until puberty hit, it was fine. Then I got periods and hated it. From what my peers and other women told me, it just didn't compile in my head and something ran wrong. I don't know what happened. Puberty was supposed to make me feel more like a woman, but I became deppressed for some time, and then I only felt more like playing football and I don't know if I became like this or only discovered what has always been there, but to me what the girls were doing and talking about, was just nonsense. Anyway, I felt fake in so many ways. I thought about sex, and dressed provocatively, dreamt about becoming a fighter pilot. Slowly the line of understanding with my own sex ripped and finally broke. I noticed about 15 that I was different. What I already said about something not compiling was that I felt bad about being female, physically, and when I noticed how much of that was because I was unlike other females, it just vanished. I noticed how many things are justified "because you're a woman", but don't really result from being a female, physically. So it was the expectation of "being normal" that made me feel this way.

    I came across the concepts of being trans, and I was like... hm... I'm definitely not FtM, I'm maybe... demigirl, I don't feel like a boy, I wish I was genderqeer, am I a lesbian that I feel this way? And why on earth don't I like girls then? But the truth was that I identified as one of the boys. And I didn't realise or understand it. I had a male alter-ego in stories I wrote, and imagined crossdressing as a guy a lot, but never did it, but when I realised I was different, I started dressing more tomboyish, stopped shaving, and started excersicing more, because I wanted to, and also decided to feel good in my body. Also a lot of characters I came up with were ... quite masculine women.

    Then I became increasingly uncomfortable with being treated like a woman, and being constantly pressured into the feminine role all the time, so I took the business of looking androgynous more seriously. I was already comfortable with myself, but I was not okey with how others interacted with me. So now I'm androgynous.

    So I guess for me being non-binary is not either-or. I'm not too FtM, but not too cis either. And a bit of both. Mentaly a man, physically a woman, and not upset by it.
     
  8. Daydreamer1

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    It's a weird thing, since my thoughts change often.

    Initially, I thought being non-binary meant not identifying as male or female--which didn't click for me. But, when I found out it isn't a black and white term, it made more sense. For me, I know I'm not a woman That's that. However, I don't identify with traditional masculinity or femininity at all (by that, the hyper end of each end of the spectrum). I do find "traditionally male" terms (like dude, bro, man) and stuff like that flattering and endearing, and hearing them honestly makes my day and keeps my dysphoria away.

    When I talked to my partner about this, I also told him I have some days where I'm apathetic about gender--that I'm just doing me and I don't have time to worry about labels. I added that as long as people respect my pronoun and me as a person, I won't have any problems with them. So I don't know if that's sort of agender or what, but whatever. Also, I'm pretty sure if I was physically male, I'd likely be pretty genderqueer.
     
  9. Cinis

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    My experience is roughly around those lines. I don't identify as non binary since I do not have a problem with my body and pronouns but I don't feel comfortable putting"Female" in my gender settings because people associate "female" with "feminine" which is something I feel uncomfortable with.
     
  10. enjeruciel

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    No worries I appreciate you sharing such an in depth personal experience. I can relate significantly to a lot of what you've mentioned, though with slight differences naturally, for exmaple for me I feel like being physically more masculine is the right step, but of course our experiences and decisions differ depending on ourselves. It is hard being born into a specific sex that has societal gender roles and expectations that we internally feel we don't fit. You are not alone, trust me. I'm glad you were able to put it all into writing and to share it with me and with others who can sympathize. You are here, you are valid, and you will find your way.
     
  11. EverDeer

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    Exactly how I feel as well amongst people. I also struggle with some back-and-forth like that in relationships as well...same with my interests. Many of the things I like seem so vastly opposite, I never know which to put more effort into, I feel pressured to just pick a side since I don't have time for everything, you know...
     
  12. genderbender

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    This is a great question, but one that's really hard to answer for myself. In a way, everyone really should be nonbinary because no one should just have to rigidly adhere to all gender standards. Reading your post, I want to say, don't let people tell you what kind of man to be! Just because you're trans doesn't mean you have to be trapped in a box that no person should be trapped in--everyone should have access to the full spectrum of emotions.

    On the other hand, there are definitely people, like myself, who fall more in the middle, and for whom gender labels might be more fluid. But seriously, man, I hate hearing about when trans people are forced by ignorant cisgender people (no offense to them haha!) to have to live up to rigid standards that no cisgender person lives up to.

    On the other hand, if you feel that non-binary better captures your identity because you identify with both female and male characteristics, I think that's a understandable way of identifying and all the power to you.
     
  13. Synesthesia

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    Thanks, nice to know someone can relate.

    It is a bit like being pulled in different directions sometimes, I don't experience it with interests though really (well not in a gendered sense anyway I do have a tendency to want to do everything and find everything interesting lol,) but I relate to the picking a side feeling with some things.
     
    #13 Synesthesia, Oct 16, 2016
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  14. Delta

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    For me, being nonbinary is kind of two things. First off, it means that I never fit into one of the M/F checkboxes. I'm not one or the other, so in that sense I'm always nonbinary. When you look at the integral total of who I am, it's both, and neither, and really not describable by one gender. I'm trying to transition to get a nonbinary body because that's what I feel like I'm centered at.

    But then, being genderfluid, I also feel specifically nonbinary sometimes, in the same way as feeling like a guy or a girl. It's not feeling a mix of masculinity and femininity so much as the neutral space outside of those.
     
  15. enjeruciel

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    I can definitely relate to the neutral space outside of binary gender as well. I've been feeling gender neutral all day today for example. I don't really care what I wear as long as it's relatively unisex, don't particularly feel dysphoria during these neutral phases in my case, and don't feel any kind of sexuality at all. I feel like gender neutrality for me is a result of me obsessively thinking about gender and exhausting myself. At least that's what I've been reflecting on and wondering about lately. Of course that's not to say that that's what I think gender neutrality is, it just tends to be that way in my case. Gender neutrality is so interesting I think it needs to be explored more.
     
  16. TheGreyBetween

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    I'm not sure my feelings as a genderqueer identified person match up with most other people's . . . but my sense of self as far as gender identity and sexuality has changed and grown over the years.

    I'm what I like to call a female bodied person, I was assigned female at birth, and I don't feel the need to change my body to create a more neutral or non-binary body. I have no desire to bind for example, or go on hormone therapy. But that being said, I don't feel female exactly, and I don't think I ever have. But I also don't feel male either.

    As a kid, I wasn't particularly what you'd call "girly" or feminine. I mostly wore corduroys and pants. My hair was midlength most of my childhood. Dresses were reserved for "special occasions" or "playing dress up". I don't recall ever really wanting to wear dresses unless it was for dress up. You couldn't run around and climb trees wearing a dress for example. I didn't play with a lot of other kids. In fact, I didn't like kids my own age really, when I was around them. I much preferred adults. I didn't really play with baby dolls either; I remember having one or two, but not really playing with them much. I found it boring. I did have Jem dolls, which I loved and would enact stories out for them. I also had a few Barbies, but more Jem dolls. I also remember loving Rainbow Brite, so there ya go. ;^) Rainbow colored even then.

    When I was around kids my own age, which mainly happened once I started school I played with both genders. I don't remember having a preference in the gender of the kids I was playing with. I had friends who were girls, and friends who were boys, starting from a young age. I had more playdates outside of school with girl children though, but I often found the play boring and I didn't like sharing all that well (was an only child, and as I said, I didn't really like kids my own age that much.)

    As I got older, I started to be more aggressive with boys. I would chase two shy boys around the schoolyard trying to kiss them. (Bad behavior, I know.) I would befriend boys and then later start "dating" them ("dating" as in hand holding and kissing them, what kids who "date" do) and then our friendships would end and I'd be upset. I realize now looking back, that I felt pressured to make more of our friendship then it was because of social pressure that girls weren't friends with boys and if they were together something romantic was supposed to happen. I also was probably pushing boys into doing things they didn't want to do. (Again, bad, but that's what I did.) I did some things I'm not proud of here, but I won't get into that and my suspected reasons behind my actions now.

    I didn't have any attraction to girls at this time, that came later. In fact I remember one time playing house with my main friend who was a girl who lived up the street from me and was annoyed at being deigned to play the "mother". So in our play, I went and had an "affair" on her (she was playing the "father") with my Raggedy Ann doll. X^D This is gotta tell you something about me as a kid.

    I always felt sorta different from the other kids. I didn't feel like I belonged with the girls but I also didn't feel like I belonged with the boys. I sorta fell into the female group by default because I was female bodied, but I felt just as lost there. I remember not liking the same music all my peers did: when New Kids on the Block was popular, I was into Enya. No, I'm not kidding. I just didn't relate well. My first crush was on the actor who played Yahoo Serious. X^D My second crush was Enya, though I don't think I acknowledged it as a crush until much later on. I remember seeing her video for Orinoco Flow and being enthralled with the music and her look. I was 8 years old.

    It wasn't until I was age 12 that I started to realize I wasn't really straight. I had a major hang-up on my fifth grade teacher and started developing a sexual attraction for her around this age. I still "dated" boys, however. And I "dated" one girl, the only other girl who identified as bi who moved away before we hit high school. I was the first out person in my school, and I wasn't accepted anywhere: at home, at school. I was ostracized by my family and bullied beyond belief at school. I was more interested in discovering my sexuality at this time and didn't give much thought to gender.

    In 7th grade, I cut my hair really short and started wearing more masculine clothes. I was still wearing girls clothes, but I would buy things that looked like a boy would wear them. Sometimes on occasion when I wanted to dress up like the teacher I was crushing on, I'd wear broomstick skirts. But again, it was on days I felt like "dressing up". At this time in my life I was identifying as lesbian, though I still "dated" boys.

    In high school, the same occurred, although dating got real. I realized I must really be bisexual, if I was still somewhat interested in boys, but also there weren't any girls to date, as no one was out. There was only one other out boy in my entire high school career as I grew up in the early nineties in a small conservative town in Connecticut. I dated a boy who later came out as gay, and I remember I was routing for him to kiss this other boy when we were together at a friends house. X^D He did come out, but he changed schools to another nearby school that was more liberal-minded and open to LGBT students.

    I was in love with this same teacher all through this time. I developed a very imaginative fantasy life (escape from the hell at home and at school) with this woman, and believed some crazy sh*t and did some crazy sh*t. Looking back on it, and my capacity to obsessively fall in love with people, I'm pretty sure I'm borderline. But I don't know. I haven't been diagnosed as such. In high school, I kept up the short hair and gender androgynous look. I would wear dresses for Halloween and things like prom and the occasional desire to dress up. I think looking back, it was like dressing in drag. It never felt like me . . . I would be playing a role and then would go back to myself after.

    I started dating the man I would eventually marry in high school, during junior year. He was two years younger than me. We would be together 10 years, 2 married. In that time, he sorta encouraged a more feminine look, which I think internally I resented. There was a period when I was with him of about a year or so when I started dressing in guys clothes and even went so far as to change in the men's dressing room at Kohl's. Which in hindsight was stupid, as a guy walked in on me. I could have gotten beaten up or assaulted. Luckily neither happened. I stopped trying to please him with being more feminine at this time, and took up a strong interest in fanfiction, mainly slash fanfiction. I think I felt at this time more masculine then I'd ever felt in my life, and I thought possibly about transitioning, but it was sort of vague and unplanned.

    I got out of this period of my life and went back to my more genderqueer presentation while still with him, but realizing more and more I didn't want to be with him but with a woman, a woman I'd met and befriended at the bookstore. Eventually I fell in another obsessive love with a woman I worked with, forcing me to resign from my job and ending my marriage.

    It was at this point in my life I went back to identifying as lesbian. I always felt like I had to pick a side throughout this time, hence the back and forth about my gender and sexuality. But the lesbians in my LGBT community didn't accept me any more than my straight friends did at the end of the day. Something was off about me with that group too. I dated a few women, but relationships with women didn't seem to pan out too well. I really loved the sex, but the relationship part didn't click. I was dressing at this time genderqueer, but I'd femme it up to attract a person.

    So now we're up to about four years ago. A friend of mine who was also my boss got divorced and I realized I was harboring romantic feelings for him. This distressed me as I thought (or was trying to be) lesbian. Also, I met my current boyfriend at this time and I had to pick one . . . though the friend who was my boss sorta rejected me, so I went with my current boyfriend. I had to accept myself that I wasn't gay or straight, I was bi. But I hate the label of bisexual, so I go with pansexual because I am very attracted to people who are non-binary as well. I don't want to be limited by someone's gender.

    I think it was around the last four years or so that I came to accept myself as androgynous or genderqueer. I have really short unstyled hair, I don't wear make-up, I don't shave. I wear women's clothes mainly, but largely more androgynous styles. Some things I have are on the more femme side, mainly shirts that my boyfriend's bought me. I don't really fit well into either women's or men's pants. That's annoying. My boyfriend accepts me as I am moreso than my husband ever did. I don't feel objectified like my ex-husband made me. Granted, it sorta sucks for me in some ways: I feel like I am more homosexual when it comes to sexual preference, but I seem to be heteroromantic when it comes to relationships. I'd do well maybe ideally with another genderqueer individual or transperson. I don't know.

    In gendered spaces, I don't ever fit like I belong. I work with mainly women and see lots of women coming through my library all day, almost all with kids. I don't like kids, as I already mentioned and have no desire to breed. I feel like with a lot of women I have nothing in common with them or very little, especially women who are my age. I do better with older women, and my friends reflect that. I do better with older individuals in general. My boyfriend is 21 years my senior and we do well together. Most of my friends are 10+ older than me. I think maybe as cispeople age, the gap lessens? I don't know, I can't really explain it.

    Most of the people around me are straight and cisgendered. While I do know and am friends with some LGBT people, I don't regularly communicate or see them. So I feel very alone at times. But I have to remind myself when I was active in the community around where I live, I STILL felt very alone and not really accepted. Part of the reason why I'm here.

    I don't have any strong desire to change my name, pronouns or body in any way shape or form. I use the women's restroom and don't feel weird about it generally. (Well, I do if it happens to be full of women at the time.) I would feel weirder using the guy's restroom. I think if I could change my body to be my ideal I'd have both a penis and a vagina down there, and I'd keep my breasts as is.

    So this is very long and involves a lot of my sexuality as well as gender identity (for me they do seem rather linked). But this is what genderqueer looks like and is for me.
     
  17. Eris

    Eris Guest

    im someone that is pretty much ambivalent of my gender. im not a guy and also not a girl (im a biological female). i dont really "care" about my gender, like i wont try to express myself. i just be myself normally, as a person. when websites ask me to list my gender i often just choose "others" because i dont want to be stigmatised as a particular gender.

    i do notice that my normal/serious voice tone is kind of low/deep and suppressed. when im happier and what not it pitches. (i dont know if this is relevant, but i heard that trans people often try to mimic voices of whichever gender they feel like)

    also me being non-binary means that i dont experience gender dysphoria. i know some nb people have it but i dont. however, somedays i do feel a bit more masculine (i dont know, i just like suits and ties).