I am confused about myself / need validation. I do not personally know anyone who is not cis, so I do not get to talk about my feelings often. I am in my late twenties, in a heterosexual relationship with a very masculine cis male, and I have two young children. I've always been mostly interested in women (I thought I was a lesbian in middle school and part of high school) but have had long term relationships with men (like my current one, which has been going on 5+ years). Although, I do not think that I can or will be with another cis male again if this relationship does not work out. I love my partner very much, but I find myself thinking about (all types of) women often. I identified as bisexual for awhile, but in my early/mid-twenties began to identify as pansexual (after discovering that pansexuality was even a thing) with a strong preference for femininity. I am typically submissive with male partners, but dominate with women. I have come to realize that part of why I think about women so much is because when I am with them I actually feel male. I used to fantasize about having a penis for this reason. I also used to secretly dress as a male and draw facial hair on my face as a teenager, no one knew except for my best friend - she would tell me how attractive I looked as a guy and it made me feel really good about myself because I hated how I looked otherwise. Whenever I dressed this way, I was Jon and I wished I could be Jon all the time, but I couldn't do it. That was years ago and I still think about dressing that way sometimes, I've joked about dressing as a drag king for fun just to gauge my partner's reaction. On the outside, I just appear to be a tomboy; I always have. I wear eyeliner and lipstick sometimes, but my makeup is not super glamorous. I mostly wear t-shirts and jeans, but I don't mind dressing in a more feminine way, I just don't go out of my way to. Most people know that I am pansexual, but I do not ever speak about doubts with my gender. Because of this, I'm pretty uneducated when it comes to my own feelings because I don't know how I identify. I do not have a preference with pronouns. I do not feel the need to transition, but there are a lot of times that I fantasize about being male and there are times that I feel like I should have been born male and I feel really good when I cross dress. I want to understand what this means.
So gender identity is all a personal determination based on how you feel. From what you said, It does sound like your gender feels like it is sometimes male and sometimes female? do you sometimes feel like you are both at once? or any other gender? or no gender? Assuming you are AFAB (Assigned Female at birth). Do you feel female sometimes? If you switched to having a male body tomorrow would you be questioning if you feel female sometimes or would you feel completely comfortable? If you just feeling like you are male in a female body that is transgender. Many other gender identities fall under the umbrella term to mean gender that doesn't fit with what was assigned at birth. If you experience two genders (female, male, or both female and male), you could be bigender. It sounded similar to what I feel like where I go between being male, female, or both male and female. It could also be genderfluid where your gender changes between your genders and can go between 2 or more genders. From what you said it sounds like you are most likely bigender.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. (*hug*) I feel female a lot of the time, but I don't know if I've ever felt fully male. I feel both at the same time though, especially when I'm pursuing women. I know that sexuality does not determine gender, but in my case I feel most male whenever I'm intimate with women. But never fully male. Sometimes fully female and sometimes a mix of female and male. I think that if I switched to a male body tomorrow, I would still question feeling female at times. Dressing and presenting male does make me feel good, although it has admittedly been quite a while since I've done that. The way I feel changes at times.
It sounds like you are bigender, where you are going between part female/part male and female. Bigender just means going between two genders. For some people I think that their gender can change based on the situation or environment. For me it changes each day to every few days. I didn't really realize I was bigender until I had a day where the only way I could describe it was that I was male. Perhaps try recording how you feel every day for a while to see how you feel and how your gender changes.
