Hi there. This is something like the fourth forum introduction I've written in the last few days in various places, so hopefully all the practice has been helpful...
I'm Foosnark. Bio-illogically male, but my headspace is on the female side of androgynous. I've known that since childhood, but in the past few months have started feeling the need to figure it out. I was wondering if I was an MtF too afraid to transition, but after research and soul-searching and asking myself hard questions, figured out that I'm just nonbinary. Gender fluid is the label that seemed to fit best, but I am gravitating toward androgyny. When I think about how my personality is, how I feel, and how I'd like to look, it's all kind of in the nebulous center.
Not that I wouldn't mind waking up in an attractive female body, but then I'd probably own one dress, a couple of long flowy skirts... and a lot of mens' clothes. I thought that being a shapeshifter would be best, and i'd spend most of my time as a female. But now I think that female would look like Tilda Swinton or Annie Lennox, or... Andrej Pejic.
What else? I'm gynephilic (and maybe a touch 'auto'), married to a wonderful lady who is bisexual and really doesn't think this gender self-discovery thing is any big deal. We have a small dog of unknown mixed breed, an older cat and a new kitten, and a bearded dragon. I'm a gamer (currently into Champions Online, where all my chars are female and one is androgynously so), software developer, and taiko player (that's the big Japanese drums). (Taiko may seem like a macho badass thing, and it can be... but in North America there are more women than men in it; it's as much dance as it is ugh-me-hit-dead-cow-with-big-stick.)
I am out about my gender fluidity to my family and friends... and to anyone who happened to read my note on Facebook, which includes my boss and most of my coworkers. Since there were no comments among the 245 friends I have on there I have to wonder whether the post went under the radar... oh well.
or maybe it was already obvious anyway. But I'm also a bit on the stealth side too, and have never asked people to use neutral pronouns or anything.
The challenges I have to deal with are related: presentation/expression, and confidence. Sometimes I just want to go stealth, and maybe I'm already wearing something that prevents that. Sometimes I let myself get worked up about whether someone is going to make a smartass comment or talk about me behind my back, and it's like high school all over again for no good reason.
More practically though, I'm trying to find a look, or set of looks, that expresses the nonbinary in a way that suits me, makes me feel good and doesn't make me feel like a fool. I don't want to look like a guy in drag, and am not interested in passing for female. I'm tall, bald, bearded, overweight, wear glasses and tend to wear a driver cap -- and yes, have been compared to Jamie from Mythbusters. It's not a look that easily converts to androgynous. I usually think I want to keep the beard though, and have been trying to grow it into a goatee. (Would love to annihilate the 5 o'clock shadow from the rest of my face though.) So far, I've been wearing womens' button-down shirts in styles that are fairly neutral, and occasional mascara, and toenail polish with my regular guy clothes. Also have been getting Thai fisherman pants, which are nicely unisex, and pirate shirts without ruffles but lots-o-fabric. I wish I were bold enough to wear skirts outside the house, but not so far. As it is, what I've been wearing sometimes really makes me feel great and sometimes self-conscious.
