I've been going back and forth about my own gender for maybe a few years now, and for most of that time I wasn't really sharing with anyone, not even to mention that I was questioning it. Only recently have I started sharing with a few people I trust, but no one I know in person, and haven't said much about it even to them. I eventually decided to stop worrying as much about what category I fit into and just do what I think would make me happy, and it makes me happy when I'm referred to as my chosen name and with neutral pronouns. But when I consider coming out to people I know, it's terrifying for so many reasons and it doesn't help at all that I'm still not quite confident. I don't want to call myself trans or cis because of how they both refer to gender but I know having a firmer grasp on where I fit would help me to explain to other people. So basically at this point I just feel the need for validation or for someone to at least make things more clear to me even if it's not what I suspect myself. For that reason I want to try to get into my thinking process so far as much as possible, so apologies for the long post. It was a long time before I started really started questioning my own gender, or lack thereof. In a sense I think I always thought of myself as not really having a gender. Even before I started questioning if anyone asked what my gender was my immediate thoughts would be something like this, "I hate gender and I want nothing to do with it." But slowly as I became more aware of how I feel about being referred to in certain ways and as I read information from people who were non-binary or agender specifically, I thought of it more and more. At first trying to brush it aside because it seemed too confusing to me, then trying to brush it aside as I thought what it might mean. And now I'm not sure if I can do that anymore or for much longer. For a while I figured I've gone this long without thinking about it and was relatively fine so maybe I should just ignore my feelings on the matter because just going on as usual seemed easier than having to deal with fighting people over how I want to be treated. Last night though as I was seeing articles about Trump, I thought maybe I should stop thinking about coming out to people, that I should just try to deal with it and go on as a woman, and the thought made me want to cry. I don't know, maybe it's just depression and it doesn't mean anything but it did make me want to reach out for reassurance and clarity. I suppose I'll try to sort out my thinking in somewhat chronological order. While I don't think it's necessary to have signs back as a child in order to validate oneself, I do think it's natural to look back and look at things that may have been an indication. I'm sure most of this is irrelevant but I want to include as much as I can just in case it is important in some way. Looking back at my childhood is a bit confusing. Even at a young age I had trouble relating to any one particular sex, although I've always explained it away with things besides gender. I accepted the label girl. In many ways I looked and behaved in stereotypical feminine ways and had no problem with that. In some ways I behaved in nonfeminine ways as well and never really thought of myself as girly or a tomboy or anything. These things alone probably don't mean anything but I do remember somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8 I did for a time think a lot about how I wanted a gender neutral name. I hated my name. It was too girly and I didn't want a girl's name or a boy's name. Eventually I started to find ways of dealing with my given name so I didn't mind it as much, but it didn't last and I'm sure if legally changing my name was a bit easier, I would have already done it by now. I didn't think anything of being called a girl or feminine pronouns at this time but I wonder if I would have if I had been aware of options besides girl or boy and his or her. Another thing that I didn't give much thought about until well later on, was that by fifth grade I was thinking about getting rid of my breasts. Which of course would have been ridiculous to do at such a young age, but they had already began developing and it was noticeable. Throughout my early teens I tried to hide my feminine body most of the time by wearing really baggy clothing. I also primarily dressed in masculine clothing covering most of my skin. I didn't necessarily hate my body. When I was alone I was fine with it. Didn't even really think about it. But I hated when anyone would mention my body in any way. For the longest time I associated this with sexual harassment and simply not wanting to be sexualized, and for a long time after I tried to embrace my body. A big step there was finally wearing tank tops because I couldn't stand the heat and eventually becoming more comfortable with my body being shown, especially when I recognized that wearing baggy clothes didn't really stop anyone from noticing my body. Even after I started questioning I didn't give this much thought for a while, I think because I thought being trans meant hating one's body. Or at least having a much different experience than what I did. But when I started thinking of trying out a binder to see how that would feel, I found myself excited. Scared, but excited. Even though for a while I didn't even want to entertain the idea because I worked so hard to be comfortable with my chest. A couple more things I noticed about my body... I started talking about getting my uterus removed as a teenager. Another thing I always dismissed because I would get extremely painful periods and figured that was my main motivation. But now that I have some months that aren't too painful, I still find myself dreading them. Then again, it's probably completely normal to dislike them. Either way I still want it removed. Also as a teenager I started to occasionally think of myself as having a penis. Sometimes it would feel more right, and still does sometimes. But at the same time I don't think that would be much different than how I feel about having a vagina now because sometimes I think that would be better. And sometimes I don't want anything at all but that's just confusing. I know none of this would point to agender specifically, but I have wondered about it. I'm sure it's normal to wonder what it's like to have different sex characteristics, but at what point does it start to signify that there's more to it than that? I know most people, at least that I know, don't talk about their imaginary penises, and definitely not to the same extent as myself, but maybe they just don't talk about it and what I experience falls in the range of normal. Usually when my mind goes towards thinking about physically transitioning I try to block it out because I don't have health insurance anyway, so even if I decide that it's definitely something I want to do it's not like I would be able to, so best to try not thinking about it in case that ends up making it worse. But it still pops up in my head from time to time and I'll start wondering about that, if it means anything that most of the time I don't like looking at myself, that sometimes seeing myself is strange but I have no idea why, that I hate my voice and so on, or if it means anything that sometimes I don't mind any of that at all or even like those things once in a while, and sometimes I suspect that maybe my entire thinking on this is just because I'm an open minding person who has a tendency to over analyze everything, but then that doesn't make much sense to me because I usually don't have that problem when figuring out other things about myself. I should just move on from this... I try to stick to more of the social side of things because that seems a bit easier for me. More obvious and more of a possibility for change. I know I don't want a feminine name, I want neutral pronouns, and I generally hate the thought of being called a woman. Or even female, although oddly I don't mind the statement "person with female sex characteristics" even though it basically just means female. It took a long time for me to recognize that certain things bothered me. Like with feminine pronouns, people typically only use pronouns when talking about someone, and rarely do I hear or see people talking about me in front of me. And once in a great while I don't mind it so much, but then I started noticing that at times when it occurs multiple times within a short period of time, it bugs the crap out of me and for a while I couldn't understand why. Even now I'm not sure I completely understand why, but I don't think it matters as much here. And I've been noticing the same with masculine pronouns. I didn't think that would bother me as much, but someone I know has started using them more often and while it hasn't really bothered me I've started to get the sense that it would start to if it did happen more frequently, whereas neutral pronouns always make me happy. With the idea of being a woman, one thing that has confused me is that in a specific context I don't mind being called one at all. I'll even call myself a woman and be perfectly fine with it. But the only way I relate to it is through how I'm seen and treated as a woman by others, and when discussing things through that context then it makes sense to refer to myself as a woman. For a while I thought that was good enough reason to think of myself as one but over time I've realized more and more that in every other context I hate being referred to as one. Well except in limited circumstances I can tolerate it at least for a short time but it feels like I'm adopting a role, same as when I refer to myself as a man. Even if I'm just being myself, using the label alone feels like roleplay. A couple other things that got me thinking or made me unsure are about when I was a member of a LGBT group (which focused on gay men with little said about trans people and even less about nonbinary genders). On one occasion we set up a drag dance and my first instinct was to dress ultra feminine, because that's what drag meant to me. Dressing in men's clothing was basically wearing every day clothes (even though I don't limit myself to it as much as I did when younger). On the other hand while attending a conference they had set up a gender neutral bathroom and I didn't use it. I was fine using the woman's restroom and it is usually what I use, although I do see it more as a habit from what I was taught than anything else. On that occasion though, I had wanted to use it, but the women's bathroom was more practical as no one was using it, I didn't want to stand in line, and wanted to avoid people who like socializing with bathrooms (all of them were using the neutral one). So I don't know, sometimes I wonder if not minding using the women's restroom is an indication that I might just be a confused normal person or something. But there are a lot of things that make me doubt myself even though I know it doesn't matter. For example I have long hair and have no desire for a typical masculine haircut. I also sometimes wear makeup (usually just eye makeup). However I'm a fan of certain music genres and subcultures where those things are common among men so I've never seen them as necessarily feminine, but because I know a lot of nonbinary and agender people have a particular look, or at least there's one that I keep seeing and little of any other looks, I feel like maybe I still don't belong because those things are seen as traditionally feminine. And while I know not everyone knows they're trans for as long as they remember, a part of me also feels like dismissing myself because I'm in my late 20s and feel like I should have been more certain from an earlier age, despite knowing that there are plenty of people who don't come out until a much older age than me. I guess I also want some kind of confirmation for myself instead of only looking for an easier way to explain to others. I still go into dismissive thinking and doubting myself and I want to know if I don't need to or if maybe I'm wrong about anything or I don't know. I read things that make it seem so easy and that there's no problem with me calling myself agender but despite feeling right I still wonder if it is, and I don't quite know the line that separates trans and gender nonconformance. Even if I don't want to call myself trans, I still have this desire of figuring out which I fall under. I'm not sure if I should have included more. Probably not. Probably ended up typing too much. I haven't shared a lot of this with anyone and I'm tired and I'm afraid I rambled on too much. Sorry.
