A dream

Trying to decide whether the dream I had last night had any meaning to it or not. It centered on a het romance and was told from the perspective of the guy, who may or may not have been trans* or intersex, and who may or may not have been a projection of myself. It was actually a pretty entertaining dream, and I wanted to see how the story panned out.

I suppose it was probably a result of a combination of my recent androsexual phase (yay, fluid sexuality) and the reading I've been doing about trans* and nonbinary issues. Still, it makes me wonder if maybe my brain wasn't trying to tell me something. I don't experience anything like dysphoria, but I do feel discomfort when I'm forced to seriously consider the gender I was assigned at birth. Not all of the time, but enough to make me wonder.

I also realized the other day that I don't seek out media (books, video games, TV shows, etc) about women because I identify with them. In fact, I can only name one work where I identified with any of the characters (Madoka Magica). Rather, I think it has more to do with my preferences for social interaction. Women are more interesting to me in real life, and that extends to the fiction I enjoy.

I don't know where I'm going with this. A part of me thinks I'm just a confused cis female, but another part thinks there really is something to this gender questioning. Any thoughts or support would be appreciated.

 

I don't hate my body or being perceived as female. But the thing is, you can love your body and not mind being seen as the gender you were assigned at birth and still be trans* and/or nonbinary. All that matters is that you prefer to be seen as a different gender.(See, for example, this post by Zinnia Jones.) Also, it seems wrong from a skeptical point of view to view cis as the "null hypothesis" -- that which needs to be conclusively disproven before a hypothesis of trans* or nonbinary is accepted.

When I don't treat cis as the default, when I ask myself what gender my experiences point to, I don't have much more evidence for female than I do for anything else. I'm good enough at constructing narratives from meaningless events that I can easily view my life story as definitively pointing to any gender I choose. I think that what I was trying to get at with my post was that some evidence that I had previously taken to support the hypothesis that I was female or lean female -- I am usually female in my dreams, I gravitate toward media with female characters -- might actually not be as solidly in support of that hypothesis as I thought.

I suppose it all comes back to how I feel about myself right now. The problem is, I'm still not sure. Some days I don't mind being seen as female. Some days I even like it. Others it makes me feel...weird. Not right. Could I live my life as a female and do okay? Probably. Would I be happier as something else? As times goes on, I'm increasingly leaning toward "yes," but I really don't know.

---------- Post added 19th May 2013 at 07:30 PM ----------

Edit: Double post. -_-

 

It's all good. I didn't really have a good understanding of these issues either until after I started reading Natalie Reed, Zinnia Jones, and others. Even now I wouldn't say I have a particularly good understanding of them, hence the confusion.

 

That's pretty good advice, and definitely something I need to work on. I think you're right about being fluid. It sounds right; it fits how I experience myself, my gender, and my sexuality. I just wish it weren't so ridiculously confusing.