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How did you know you were nonbinary/genderqueer/etc.?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by cakepiecookie, Dec 8, 2016.

  1. cakepiecookie

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    I keep questioning myself and I'd really like to hear how other people reached the conclusion they were nonbinary, or at least started to suspect it.

    Deep down, I know I am – I feel it in my soul. But at the same time I keep going back and forth on it. I see other nonbinary-identified AFAB people and they're often wayyy more dudely than I am, so I start feeling like maybe I'm "not genderqueer enough" and that maybe I'm appropriating something from a community I don't belong to? Which is crazy because I'd never think that of any other nonbinary person, only myself. (FTR, I know appearance /= identity, but the two are somewhat connected.)

    Also, maybe this sounds really weird but I feel like an effeminate man way more so than a masculine woman (though kind of a bit of both and neither). Any other AFABs feel like that?? If I look back even as far as my childhood, nearly all the celebrities or characters I've identified with have been effeminate/androgynous men. That's what I identify with.

    Some of my self-doubt is also related to societal norms. If roles were reversed and I was AMAB and dressed fairly feminine-but-not-completely-girly, it would be obvious that I was defying gender norms. But because it's more socially acceptable for women to wear masculine clothes, there's this assumption that I'm just a "tomboy".

    I'm not sure whether any of this is making any sense but I needed to get it out. I'd love to hear what other people's journeys have been like, especially if there's anyone who also struggles with feeling "not genderqueer enough".
     
  2. EverDeer

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    Yep, I definitely agree with you on this. I have always felt more like an effeminate man or cute boy than a masculine girl or a "tomboy" and have always connected with effeminate men celebrities/roles. I also agree that if I had been assigned male at birth, I probably would be more self-assured in my femininity than I am with my masculinity as an AFAB person since I would've had to have gone out of my way more in order to be comfortable with myself since "men" who are feminine are often looked down upon more than women who are masculine.

    However, I also learned to recognize that regardless of roles, its not gender roles or expression that make you nonbinary- its how you truly deeply feel inside, like how you originally mentioned. I have never truly felt like a woman "deep down". I've always accepted the title with ambivalence and indifference. I am aware of how I am sexually different than those who are biologically male, and I fear how straight-cis men see me, because I know they see me as a woman and I understand what that can sometimes entail and I've been conditioned to see that as predatory...but I look at and interact with other women, and see things that are meant to be for women, and I am filled with this certain detachment and resentment... like I just truly do not understand anything about it. The harder I've tried to understand all my life and put myself into the context of "woman" the more confused and upset I become. I just don't see and feel how others see me and expect me to respond...and I don't pick up on how they are acting either. It's like everyone else has tickets to this secret club, and I put on a disguise to get in, I have to learn the secret language, and none of it is second nature and its all just extremely disorienting and confusing and I want to leave and go home but I don't know how to get out or who the real me is anymore or where home really is.
     
  3. cakepiecookie

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    Thank you so much for your reply, I relate to so much of it. I also don't understand the rules of female interaction. I try to play along, but it comes across as fake and awkward.

    You've pinpointed something I wasn't consciously aware of, which is how exhausting it is to deal with people constantly assuming you're something you're not. It really takes a toll.
     
  4. EverDeer

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    I'm glad I was able to help you realize that :slight_smile: I think you seem more sure of yourself and who you are than you personally believe that you do- its just going to take a bit of time to adjust to getting those ingrained boxes you've had to force yourself into out of your brain, and allowing yourself to fit where you truly belong and just be yourself. I hope you find things will become less exhausting in the future as you adjust to how you see and accept yourself, it also makes it easier in learning to brush off those heavy weights caused by those who don't understand, and not feeling such a need to blend in or put on a disguise to fit into their expectations.
     
  5. Crisalide

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    I've been questioning my gender recently, and now I'm questioning my questioning, so I agree with a lot of the things you say.
    Sometimes I tell myself: "Maybe I'm just a woman who really really hates gender stereotypes". And I think: "Look at those androgynous, not married, not having children women: you might just be like them. You are a woman, woman, woman… [echo]".
    But another voice replies: "I am feminine, but less woman of all masculine women".
    And I feel too sometimes not a masculine woman, but an effeminate man. Or an ephebus (a young man) with innocent manners. I just hate the word "woman" referred to me, it's painful; the rest of my life as socially woman looks like a long nightmare, a desertic hell. [*stops the pathos*] I feel partially female and partially male, but also partially man and partially… no, not woman. I am not a "male-woman" but a "female-man" (if that makes sense).

    There's nothing like "not genderqueer/queer" enough. Non-binary people with binary appearance exist. They can have beards and wear suits, they can be curvy and have long hair; they're still non-binary if they feel so.
    Read this: https://www.bustle.com/articles/165052-5-things-that-dont-prevent-someone-from-being-non-binary
    [This is a paragraph:
    <<As I mentioned, a friend told me when I first identified on the non-binary spectrum that he didn't understand because, during that particular conversation, I was wearing a dress and makeup. But to me, that didn't have anything to do with gender. That's just how I thought I looked most attractive.>>]
    A lot of non-binary people complain about this myth that non-binary afab look like "a kinda white, thin, androgynous butch who wear suits and always bind their chest".

    So… ask yourself: "Am I cis?" If you don't feel cis and don't even feel the opposite gender than the one assigned at birth, this is enough to be non-ninary. Period.
     
  6. Delta

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    I started out identifying as a lesbian, which sort of got subbed in for my gender identity too. That explained the gender nonconformity somewhat and gave me an identity outside traditional gender norms, so I had room to escape the trapped feeling femininity had with it. I think now that the trapped feeling is probably dysphoria.

    I didn't start to realize it until I went to college. I started getting involved with queer groups, but things were different than the queer groups I was involved with in high school. A lot of the lesbians were more femme, and I started to realize that identifying as a lesbian actually didn't explain why I was uncomfortable with being seen as feminine, at all. I had such a death grip on my cis identity though that instead of thinking "why do I feel inferior and sad when I see trans and nonbinary people and remember I identify as a cis woman? Oh, that must be my own issues and not them." I just sort of felt like they thought less of me for being cis, and avoided the group for a year.

    Over time I stopped having quite so much internalized transphobia. There's still problems I'm working out though, because of just how strong the negative messages about trans people were my entire childhood. The message from my parents was pretty much "Trans people are born into the wrong bodies, they can't control that. There's nothing necessarily wrong with them, but society hates them and if they transition it becomes impossible to be employed or loved. We should feel sorry for them. It's obvious no one would choose to be trans because being trans is the most excruciating and terrible social existence of all." Looking back at that now, it's no wonder I avoided recognizing myself as trans. Especially because I felt no connection to binary male roles, so there wasn't a narrative that matched my real feelings.

    One of the key moments of coming to self awareness was when I was home for the summer a few years ago, and I was with my mother, talking with our neighbor on her back patio. As they had been doing for almost 4 years since I got it cut short the first time, they were talking about how my curly hair is so pretty long and how I should grow it out. And, as I had been doing for 4 years since I got it cut, I was defending my short hair and being very open that it was never growing back. But unlike the other times, this time I kind of wanted to give them a reason why I couldn't instead of just saying I won't. I just blurted out without thinking "But I'm not a girl like that!" And I didn't mean, 'I'm not that type of a girl, I'm another type of girl.' I meant 'I'm not a girl.' It was a shock to me that it just sort of fell out of my mouth, like something inside me was talking instead of the me who chooses words before I say them. I got kind of quiet and went back inside after that.

    It really made me think. I saw something online before that that said "When a girl says 'I'm not like other girls', what she often really means is 'I don't want you to treat me the way you treat other girls'. I didn't know why I wanted so badly to be treated differently from other girls. A lot of the time, I couldn't really point out things that were seriously wrong with how people were treating women. My friends were feminists and good people, and my female friends seemed to feel understood in a way I didn't. Why was it I really didn't want to be treated that way?

    But my own words sort of egged me into understanding. "I'm not a girl" is pretty to the point, and it felt correct. It honestly felt like that first breath of fresh cool air after you've being in a tight enclosed space for a long time. But, if I wasn't a girl, like I'd been clinging to for my whole life, what was I? I knew I wasn't a guy, because being that all the time that sounded somehow even worse than always having to be a girl. I felt like going there would be like taking that breath of fresh air and then turning around and walking right into another tight enclosed space that'll eventually get claustrophobic and suffocate me as well.

    The only gender that didn't sound like a trap I'd suffer in was Genderfluid. There, that was a category that would let me be free. And I was so tired, and so out of breath, and I needed to be free. I need space to exist. And I need my identity to be a description of who I am rather than a set of rules I don't think I'm capable of following consistently, which is what most other genders feel like to me. That said, more introspection makes me feel like I'm "centered" around being nonbinary. I'd like to change my body to be more androgynous, so I'll feel a little more at home in it, and so it's less of a stretch for my presentation to follow wherever my gendered feelings go.
     
  7. realworldbound

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    Like a lot of people probably say, it definitely took me a long time to figure out. I remember growing up and realizing that I mostly liked boys, so I just assumed that all the times that I wanted to be a girl were just because of that. I think the defining moment was definitely when I was a guide for orientation at my university and they gave a talk on trans identity. I was suddenly reminded of all the times I would put a towel on top of my head and pretend that it was long hair. Or when I would want to put on makeup to look feminine. Due to always having anxiety, this all freaked me out. I was still coming to terms with my sexuality, and now I was suddenly thinking that I was transgendered all along and just suppressing all of it. I became very depressed and considered dropping my classes until I went into counseling. That's where I learned about gender fluidity. I realized that I do "feel male" a lot and that a binary trans person wouldn't know what that feels like or means. I also have had crushes on women before, but only if I feel masculine. I started feeling okay again as a realized that when I do feel female, it is temporary. I don't think I ever feel them at the same time, although I do sometimes kinda feel like a feminine man or a masculine woman. I still am very insecure about how this will affect finding a partner, but it is nice to know that what I am is understood so that now all I can focus on is better coming to grips with it.0:slight_smile:j
     
  8. Crisalide

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    I know that feeling. Sometimes talking I use masculine endings by mistake or tick the cross on "male" while filling out something on the internet. It's so weird. The letter "M" seems a magnet. Why D: "I'm not a male, shut up, subconscious". But the letter "F" seems so blah.
     
  9. Joie

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    My anxiety prevents me from going into detail but since the age of six or so I have felt like a gay man. At eighteen I questioned if I was a binary trans man. I convinced myself I was a cis female because I didn't want a sex change. I didn't understand to be transgender meant you FELT like another gender other than what you were assigned at birth and didn't depend on having surgery or dysphoria.

    Right about the time I realized I wasn't heterosexual I first heard the term gender identity. I knew in the past I felt like a boy and didn't consistently feel like a female. My gender felt too overwhelming to deal with so I worked on deciphering my sexuality first.

    Two years later I came out as polysexual and questioning my gender.

    It was confusing at first because I kept thinking about what I felt my gender was in the past. I had clear shifts from feeling male to feeling female. I didn't have those anymore and I thought I couldn't know what my gender was until I felt it shift again. I gave up on waiting and just focused on how I felt at that moment. I was neither male nor female and had felt that way for over a year. I definitely fit the definition for non binary but I kept confusing expression for identity. I shouldn't present feminine when I was AFAB. I felt I had to be masculine to oppose my feminine body. I wanted to be a feminine boy and that felt like a complete contradiction.

    I felt a little more secure in my transmasculine identity but I still hate that my gender isn't definite. Am I mix of male and female or male and something else or could I just be Agender? It feels all so vague.

    Now I have new problems like if I wear a dress I feel like a feminine boy in my expression at least and that makes me feel comfortable but I know the world perceives me as a cis female and that makes me uncomfortable. Likewise if I wear men's clothing I'll have more of a chance at passing but I won't be expressing myself in the feminine way I want and does that mean I'm just dressing for other people and not myself?

    On and on this cycle of thoughts goes with every piece of clothing I own.

    Instead of feeling that I'm not non binary enough I feel more like my identity is too damn complicated. I wish I was assigned male at birth and had a body that was more co operative with how I wanted to present.