Non-Binary Introductions

[jesseofthenorth]

Hey
I'm jesse.
I'm way to old to still be figuring this all out. I guess the journey takes as long as it takes.

I have been lurking these boards for a while looking find a place for people like me.  And by people like me I mean Androgyne. I have a female body that I am not overly fond of. I would prefer to be entirely flat chested with no outward indication of gender, and will one day find a way to make that happen. I am not interested in transitioning, not fully anyway.  I just would like to be comfortable in my own body for the first time in my life.

Editing to Add: For me personally the greater portion of my journey has been less and less about the body I was born into than the acceptance of myself as being a perfect blend of genders. I am both and neither and still finding my way through everything that means

I live in a small town which can feel a bit like a fishbowl because I am visibly different from everyone around me. I have people who love and accept me exactly as I am even through the course of my developing outward identity. I am very grateful for that.

I think I am mostly really looking to connect with other people like me because for most of my life I had no idea I wasn't alone.
Thankfully I found the internet and my world got bigger and better 

[Keira]

Hello Jesse

I'm Skye

I also live in a small town in western Canada. As you can tell from my profile Im a non-binary trans-girl. I don't call myself androgyne, but when I start dressing in my preferred gender I will most likely present as andro-feminine. So, I tend to fit in more with non-binary trans people.

You can PM me if you want after you get 15+ posts.

-Skye

[Taka]

welcome jesse, julie, dentifrice, pluggy, benji, d0ll (and others)! i should get better at visiting this thread...

For that reason, my favourite type of hentai is futanari. ;P

should we start a futa club? not the right place for hentai discussions, but... futa is my preferred body type, probably. most futas are female, but i like male ones as well, can't really decide which one would be best.

[Mike+Char]

Hello

My name is Charolette(like the Spider) and my Male sides name is MIke.

I guess I should tell you a little about myself. As a Child I was always call a Tom-Boy, I played All the boys games and I always had to be better then the next guy. As I Hit My Teens and through out I was Always "One of the Guys".( that pissed my female side off) Now that I am 23, I have been Questioning Myself. There is no one that I can really talk to about this so... Here I am.

I guess my Male side just wants to be reconized more then just being the "Tom-Boy" or "One of the Guys". Then starts the fighting with myself.
As my Male and Female fight each other I start sinking into depression and can't really seem to pop my self out of it at times. I am an out-going person and love being with people and with this starting to consumes my mind I'm just not happy anymore and it start to slow me down.

So the Question is am I  Androgynous?
Or am I just wanting to be a hermaphrodite?

If I am In the wrong place please if you can point me in the direction i need to be in.

We Thank you
Mike+Char

[Jamie D]

Interesting questions.

Just by way of background, and how some of our members identified, we have a staff member several years ago name "Mia and Marq," who used "we, they, them, their".

Also there's another retired staff member, "Ken/Kendra," who presents as "Kendra", who still occasionally posts.

After you get 15 or more posts, you will be able to use the personal messaging system, and look at the profiles of your fellow members.

You are in the right place.  We sometimes call it the "Unicorn Forest," because of magic of our members.

I can't wait for you to meet "Edge".  And "Auntie Shan." And the grand and great guru of all things non-binary is "Ativan."  But the fact of the matter is, we are all accepting and caring in out own way.  Glad you posted.

[Taka]

Welcome, Mike+Char!

This is a place where it's very ok to not know what it is you really are. If you're uncertain, then i'll recommend you to search for answers by reading and asking.

The true answer is only within yourself, though. There are many other labels than just androgynous and wanting to be a heemaphrodite, feel free to try on any that you find mentioned around here or other places, and toss away the ones that don't suit you.

[Edge]

Hi Mike+Char. Welcome to the forest.
Personally, I think there are as many identities as there are people and that it is a personal thing. The labels we use are just to try to communicate what our identities are to other people. As for what yours is, only you can figure that out.
For the first several months I was here, I identified as both male and female. I had a lot of trouble fighting with myself to try to figure out what to do since my male self had dysphoria and I was worried my female self would if I transitioned. It made me feel miserable. What I did was I started journalling what I felt like each day and keeping track of it. It helped me be able to step back a bit and, to use a cliche, see the forest instead of just the trees. Other than that, all I can recommend is time and doing what you're doing.

[Mike+Char]

 We Thank you guys. Not only did I find A place that just for me, For the First time in awhile my Male is happy i Guess this will be his outlet for the time being and a coping place for my female. WE thank you All for the fact that ya'll are willing to help Us and point Us in the right way how to handle ourselves. I, WE, feel happier, lighter, like We are heading in the right way.


We Thank You
Mike+Char 

[brainiac]

Everybody else has already said what I would've said, so I'll just say WELCOME, Mike and Char!

[Mike+Char]

We thank you For the welcome!

[Rinzler]

Hello, everyone! I'm Rinzler, a 22 year-old Psych major from the Southern United States who just joined this site a few days ago. Although I've known my whole life that I don't always identify as female, it's only been within this past year or so that I've given these feelings more thought and realized what they mean.

For a short while, I suspected that I might be FTM, but that didn't fully encompass what I was feeling. As I learned about non-binary gender identities, I realized that I wasn't the only one with these kinds of feelings that couldn't be sorted into only either male or female.

I find that I shift from female gender to male gender depending on who I'm with, what I'm doing, and what sort of situation I'm in. I haven't admitted any of this to anyone aside from my best friend and my boyfriend, so I still generally dress in feminine clothing. My only experiences dressing in masculine clothing have been when I cosplay male characters or when I experiment with face contouring make-up late at night when everyone else in the house has already gone to sleep, haha.

I still don't really know if or when I'll ever tell any of my family members or any more of my friends, but I'm very happy to be able to come here where people can relate to me!

[Shantel]

Hello, everyone! I'm Rinzler, a 22 year-old Psych major from the Southern United States who just joined this site a few days ago. Although I've known my whole life that I don't always identify as female, it's only been within this past year or so that I've given these feelings more thought and realized what they mean.

For a short while, I suspected that I might be FTM, but that didn't fully encompass what I was feeling. As I learned about non-binary gender identities, I realized that I wasn't the only one with these kinds of feelings that couldn't be sorted into only either male or female.

I find that I shift from female gender to male gender depending on who I'm with, what I'm doing, and what sort of situation I'm in. I haven't admitted any of this to anyone aside from my best friend and my boyfriend, so I still generally dress in feminine clothing. My only experiences dressing in masculine clothing have been when I cosplay male characters or when I experiment with face contouring make-up late at night when everyone else in the house has already gone to sleep, haha.

I still don't really know if or when I'll ever tell any of my family members or any more of my friends, but I'm very happy to be able to come here where people can relate to me!

Hey good for you and welcome to the family, we're all in this together, everyone different and unique in our own ways. Glad you found us, being a psyche major will be interesting as you will have a lot of different and interesting personalities to observe and interface with. There are times that your two bits worth will be invaluable here.

[Rinzler]

Thank you very much, Shantel, and I'm very glad that I found y'all, too! And yes, just from the short time that I've been here, I've been enjoying observing and interacting with some of the wonderful, varied personalities here. And thank you very much, I know I'll try my best to contribute to this community and I hope that my two bits worth might be helpful to someone in some small way just as others' insight on here have been helpful to me!

Thank you so much, JulieR, it feels good to be in the right place! I can relate to that feeling of not quite knowing what to do with it all! I know for me it can be confusing trying to sort through the different thoughts, feelings, and often conflicting needs of both sides of my identity. And thank you, I know it has been helpful for me to recognize when I'm identifying as male or female and what triggers the shift, whether gradual or sudden, from one to the other.

[Shantel]

Hi Reeding!
        Now I feel as if I know you well already just from the thoughtful introspection in your great post. Welcome, you are in the right place here and will fit right in! The way you describe your physiology among other aspects of yourself makes me wonder if perhaps you might be born with AIS. I have known women, a few even beautiful that have XY chromosomes. It may bear some investigation as it isn't that uncommon, but is often swept under the rug by parents. Nice meeting you dear!

[Shantel]

Thank you so much.

My interior female bits are apparently functioning and all accounted for, and have never raised any flags to healthcare providers, though I don't know if I'm truly fertile because I am averse to making babies (unto functional paranoia about precautions). My exterior bits have always been slightly masculinized, drastically so by contemporary porn-driven aesthetic standards, but nothing I have found difficult to live with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progestin-induced_virilisation

I wonder about these XX daughters, both those who were and were not given surgical intervention. The medical assumption seems to be that they grew up "normal," genitals either corrected or normal-enough that they normalized over time, are able to reproduce and that the effects of this exposure did not have lifelong consequences. I guess that is what people want to believe. I would not have wanted any medical interventions, but would like to hear other life stories.

Normally I might send this as a PM but I don't think you get to PM quite yet, anyway we needn't hide our stuff from one another, we are a support forum, but be sure and let me know if I overstep my bounds with you, I don't want to invade anyone's comfort zone.

So if I'm getting what you are saying is that you suspect that your mom may have been chemically contaminated by some medication at some point and that it compromised you as a fetus and you have thus come into the world as a female with some masculinizing propensities and possibly an enlarged clitoris which are the reasons that you have these suspicions that your mom is refusing to discuss so far, is that right?

You sound like a pretty healthy young woman and you've wrapped your head around it to the extent that it's not the end of the world for you. An enlarged clitoris isn't a bad thing either, some women feel blessed because of it.

I saw a program on TV a few years ago on Oprah where there was a panel of three young women in their late 20's or early 30's. One was born with AIS and had rather ambiguous genitalia, she had it surgically corrected in her teens. The next gal had some kind of mosaicism and the third was exactly as you describe yourself and I rather admired her because she was perfectly happy in her own skin and wouldn't change a thing. She was able to walk on either side of the gender fence and enjoy both male and female relationships. All three of these women were attractive in their own ways. I thought it was an excellent presentation and was handled well so that none of the panelists were set up for any embarrassment. They had an opportunity to educate Oprah's viewing audience about their issues and the fact that there are a lot of people like us that live in their world.

[Shantel]

Reedling,
        All I can say is WOW, you are good the way you dug up that article! I loved that gal Hilda the most because she had the most healthy and self assured attitude. ] Hilda says. "I feel blessed. I would not be a quote-unquote regular woman if you paid me."
After all we can all be different and still be just us and enjoy our lives without being poked and prodded by some curious MD type. I think you are absolutely right not to get all weird in the head and insist on having someone decode you genetically, that's totally unnecessary and intrusive both physically and emotionally. Glad you found Hilda and the other women. I'm going to bookmark that one for future reference because you and I are not alone on this planet, there are plenty of others with similar differences with their physiology. We can consider ourselves unique and special and be pleased that someone up there isn't just punching out little people using the same boring cookie cutter. (hugs) ~Shan~

[Shantel]

Jeffery Eugenide's book "Middlesex" is an excellent read! I suspect that he being Greek that there was someone in his family or neighborhood that he based his story on. It was not uncommon in Greek families for a child to be born inter-sexed. It was no doubt in part to the fact as he cites about Greeks marrying someone in their same village who could be inadvertently marrying a 1st cousin and their offspring might be a bit different. It was so rife within ancient Greece that it was not uncommon for a couple to leave their infant outside on a hot rock to die of starvation and dehydration rather than have to deal with the negative stigma of something that is easy to accept and fix today.

[Jamiep]

This is the first time I have dropped in Androgyn Introductions, am following up on some posts by Rinzler who responded to one of my posts.

Reeding you and Rinzler are most amazing in articulating recognizing who you are in the gender mosaic. This is really unique that you can experience life in both genders and in between. We are so Special. I wouldn't change anything in where I am in my life right now.

@Rinzler, All the best in your Psychology education. I have always felt if I had to seek mental help between a Psychiatrist or a Psychologist, I don't want a situation to be controlled by medication. Psychology is the only way for me. One time when I was unemployed, part of a program assigned me a wonderful woman Psychologist. There are times when her perceptions which probably was the truth were difficult to hear, I got angry, denial, then I finally got past the emotions & thought to myself I am here to resolve some issues & attitudes so lets listen & work on them to make corrections, get past them, move on and be a better person. I never had the brights to go to University otherwise I would be an astronomer (never got the handle on the math for that). When my Sis marriage was unravelling, we had long phone conversations & talked about this when we got together some nights to catch up on things. I would listen and make some suggestions. Sis says I should have been a Psychologist! I loved that! Psychology works with my mind to resolve issues.

Shan you get a plus for this:

After all we can all be different and still be just us and enjoy our lives without being poked and prodded by some curious MD type. I think you are absolutely right not to get all weird in the head and insist on having someone decode you genetically, that's totally unnecessary and intrusive both physically and emotionally. Glad you found Hilda and the other women. I'm going to bookmark that one for future reference because you and I are not alone on this planet, there are plenty of others with similar differences with their physiology. We can consider ourselves unique and special and be pleased that someone up there isn't just punching out little people using the same boring cookie cutter. (hugs) ~Shan~

Hugs
Jamie

[Jamie D]

Hi, am new. I have been reading so hard in this Androgyne section that I am afraid my computer chair has permanently fused to my rear. I'm glad to be here.

Still struggling with language. As best I understand, please correct me and I am so sorry if I offend anyone with how I get things wrong: androgyne fits me because I have strongly marked gender characteristics of both "men" and "women." FAAB. My mother didn't take DES, she once told me a little too triumphantly apropos of not much, but I suspect she said it because she did take another one of the medications in play in the late 60s/early 70s. I'm trying to find out while I still can, but she is twitchy as hell about the subject. Maybe high-T female is the best medical description I will ever find.

I have a lifelong stable gender identity, as much as you can have when you don't know what to call it-- I don't swing from feeling male to female to male over time so as I understand it, I am not bigender. Female-only social and work environments don't work, I trainwreck if I don't take a vow of silence. I'm better off functioning even in an otherwise all-male setting, because I can grasp the social logics and participate meaningfully in the group.

The first thing I've done to stop being, well, not-me was to withdraw from women-only social and work commitments. It was painful but I am feeling 10x better just from this one change.

I have struggled to hide a lot of my male physical characteristics, to be more accepted, and it is getting harder as I age and I am getting old and cranky and don't want to do it any more. I'm tall and v shaped. Carrying a high bodyweight bulked my middle and lower body and made me read more cisfemale, but for health reasons I have had to let that go. And as I have, losing passing privilege with every pound, all these issues have gotten more acute... helping to bring me here.

I really enjoy weightlifting but have had gender freakouts over the years over how quickly I bulk and how much I can lift on a minimal training schedule. Putting on muscle makes it harder to pass as cisgendered, and everyone at the gym gets upset for different reasons.

I get read from time to time as a cross-dressing man, and this is not safe where I'm living. So I try harder to dress to make sure I read as a woman, except that I can push myself into some kind of horrible panic when the illusion collapses. Putting on only very feminine clothes does not help, it seems to make my andro or male bone structure and muscle pop forward all the more and I look in the mirror and see only a man. I seem happiest with a balance of male and female clothing items.

The second thing I did to transition into wherever I am going, androgyne, was to dye my hair an unnatural color. It's not that I think androgynes properly have funny-colored hair. But it's been a helpful misdirection, it gives people something to look at that is admittedly obviously strange, and it kind of derails their thought process about not being able to place my gender or that I might oh horror be a cross-dressed man. And then I found a color I fell in love with, and it really looks like me somehow.

I don't hate my female bits, and I don't even hate my big breasts. I don't think I could bind successfully, but have not really wanted to except when hoping to avoid sexual harassment. I refuse to fault my boobs for how sick our society is around, well, boobs, and gender policing.

My female parts feel a bit random to me at times, especially the big breasts because people get so excited about them. I've gotten attached (ha!) and would be sad to see them go. I would fit socially better as a FTM and have considered it purely as an answer to the social misery of fitting in so badly with ciswomen... but I've never had the body dysphoria about my pink bits that FTMs describe, or a longing for male social roles.

The upshot is, I'm strange, not-female in a way that gives some people fits, and I think I'm just fine. The world has some serious problems around gender though, and I have to navigate those.

I think you are "just fine" too.  We are all unique ... in our own way.    

This is a place to discuss how we cope thrive being non-binary.

Reedling, don't worry too much about labels.  The way I see it, labels are for other people so they can begin to comprehend our being.

Glad to have you here.

[blue]

Thank you Shantel, Jamiep, and Jamie D. Such lovely people here, helping me think through all this stuff. Thank you.