I have recently encountered a problem in my life. I have become unsure of my gender. My sex is male, and i have always identified with male gender. Though, I have never fit the cliche "masculine" male gender role. I have always been talkative yet reserved, exuberant, and very emotional. Since I came out to myself as bisexual 2 years ago, things seemed to be different. I feel uncomfortable referring to myself as male. I am fine with and appreciate my male parts. but i don't feel very male like other than that. ive dyed my hair purple, and i really want to shave my legs. lots of male mannerisms disgust me. i am uncomfortable with the way i look (physically), and become wicked conscious about how i dress i seem to get emotional more often, and i noticed that i "mimic" female behavior/actions. i certainly dont feel female either. i feel like neither of those two at all. i have read about the genderqueer identity, and i feel like that fits me well. i feel just like in the middle, the same as my sexual orientation. but all of this is still really confusing to me. i really want to talk to someone about it, but it is so hard, and i get scared when i try to. I guess i am looking for some guidance from the EC community. should i identify myself as genderqueer? how do i become comfortable with all of this? how can i talk to my friends about it? Any help would be appreciated.
I'm just going to hop in here and say, first of all, welcome to EC, Sam. Pleasure to have you here, and I hope this place can be helpful for you (I suspect that it will be). Secondly, while you don't feel like either gender, I sort of feel very distinctly like both. Primarily, I appreciate my body's capacity to bear children. I don't reject femininity per se, and display some characteristically female behaviors. I can semi-comfortably identify as female. At the very least, being female doesn't cause me pain, really. But on the other side of the coin, I wish I had a more masculine body (a boobless, hipless, facially haired one) and behave in a way that's more masculine than it is feminine. I would love, love to be a man. If men could give birth. I kind of got off on a tangent, there, jeez. My point was supposed to be that I too find the term "genderqueer" to be illusive and difficult to... work in to reality. The reality of society as it stands, anyway. So I'm with Sam. Does anybody have some advice or explanations?
Hi Sam. Have you read through the sticky thread on gender identity? I think there's some information there that would help with coming out to friends. Just getting familiar with terminology can be useful. I use the term genderqueer to include pretty much anyone who's not completely gender-normative, so I'd include FtM and MtF. It can be used more specifically for the many gender variations that fall between male and female, to make three gender categories: Male (including FtM), Female (Including MtF), and genderqueer (All the rest of us).
