Does it fit?

[insideontheoutside]

I've always been a male "trapped" in a mostly female body. But over the years I've come to realize from word go I've been a mish-mash of both genders. Even though I still identify mentally as male, I've been "under the influence" of estrogen as well during my life and that's probably had an effect.

The other thing is, I'm not "transitioning". I've been on various hormones throughout my life (usually due to some doctor wanting to try to make me "normal" - in a binary gender type of way) and found messing with the levels really doesn't agree with me. My "normal" is everyone else's abnormal I guess. I'm not interested in any surgeries either. So while I can identify with FTMs I can't really say I am one.

While I identify with transsexuals (and I do fit the loose, text-book definition) I don't call myself one either.

I am definitely androgynous. Over the years I've found I've gotten more comfortable with just looking androgynous.

I feel I don't need a label, I but I feel like I need people in my life that I can relate to and that can relate to my situation as well. I only have a few friends in "real life" that really know me and who I am on the inside.

Anyone else feel like this?

[AbraCadabra]

Heck, I wish I could tune into it and make you feel just a little better about it all. Really do.

I'm afraid most binary folks, if they honest, find just that at least a little tricky. I do have a friend that seems in a similar bind, though not due to an inter-birth.

Even over miles and miles I seem to sense your fem side, yet your male side is pushing hard to get attention. In some way we (trans) might be all like that?
It so may well be that over miles and miles AND MILES, you may sense predominantly my male side...
Then in the end all is just a dream... as some would have it... :-)

I'm VERY sure there be quite some folks out there that know and FEEL exactly were you stand, and you, I'm very sure, be not alone in this.

Hug,
Axélle

[ativan]

The other thing is, I'm not "transitioning". I've been on various hormones throughout my life (usually due to some doctor wanting to try to make me "normal" - in a binary gender type of way) and found messing with the levels really doesn't agree with me. My "normal" is everyone else's abnormal I guess. I'm not interested in any surgeries either. So while I can identify with FTMs I can't really say I am one.

While I identify with transsexuals (and I do fit the loose, text-book definition) I don't call myself one either.

I am definitely androgynous. Over the years I've found I've gotten more comfortable with just looking androgynous.

I feel I don't need a label, I but I feel like I need people in my life that I can relate to and that can relate to my situation as well. I only have a few friends in "real life" that really know me and who I am on the inside.

Anyone else feel like this?

100%

Trying to relate to anyone who isn't non-binary just leaves one lacking even more in loneliness of a sort.
You know that on almost all levels that they really haven't a clue as to who you are.
And in some cases you haven't a clue as to why they are so inept mentally when it comes to even attempting to understand.

To try and stuff those 'ends' of the binary into your thought patterns and reacting to situations or trains of thought as they do, is impossible.
The constant barage of it being a world of binary driven expressions, the insistence of binaries that it is the only way to think, is tiring.

I have a dream of finding even one soul who can truly understand, in real life.
Even though I may have met a few, we don't have the opportunities to express ourselves in most situations to be able to put ourselves out there for all the complications that the binary world will put in front of us.

It's not a matter of us 'coming out of the closet', the door is usually bolted from the outside by binaries.
My loneliness comes from the lack of an answer even when I shout and beat on the door.

Sadly, we are the 'transdenders' that binary 'transgenders' are afraid will diminish their accomplishments in fighting the cisworld.
We are the people who are told to sit quietly and not rock 'their' boat. 'Just sit there and row. would you?'.
Which is strange, considering how many like to visit the forest.
Why they then like us, I suppose is that they don't have to answer to the binary world for a moment themselves.

They are the false hopes of thinking that someone understands. It is usually short lived.
There are so many of us in the real world, maybe someday our efforts to legitimize the transgender and transsexual world will allow us our freedom to at least be heard, although most likely still refused to be understood.
At least we will be able to find each other, and ease some of that pain of loneliness.

Until then, I guess, most of us will have to settle with knowing that we are here, in the silence that the world would rather we exist in.

Ativan

[insideontheoutside]

Thanks Axélle and Ativan. I get what you're both saying. I'm lucky enough to have the 3 people I do who at least can grasp who the real me is. And of course I have those I can connect with via this site and the internet.

For many years I just wanted to "fit" in society, but felt that I never could and "be myself" like I wanted to. I've found the confidence to at least be comfortable with myself, but I know I still make others uncomfortable. I know I'm pretty powerless to be able to make others feel, think or act a certain way though so I try not to think about it. Androgyny makes a lot of people in the world uncomfortable. But that's not MY problem. I can't make someone comfortable with it. I can't make someone comfortable with someone they perceive visually as "female" who acts and thinks and dresses like a male. That's just gonna rub some people the wrong way.

But yeah, it's nice to be able to connect with people on a personal level, in "real life" as well. My signification other I feel only partially understands the real me. We're working on that though. And I don't necessarily want the whole world to know the real me. That's another thing I've had to deal with.

[Jamie D]

In the last year I begun to stop suppressing my "girl inside."  Years and years of living in the expected gender role has taken its toll, physically and mentally.

I'm feeling better about myself these days.  Lowering the testosterone levels, and raising the estrogen levels are only part of it.  It's getting the mind to accept the duality that's the hard part.  It's hard to be me, when I've had to be someone else for so long.

[Shantel]

I am definitely androgynous. Over the years I've found I've gotten more comfortable with just looking androgynous.
I feel I don't need a label, I but I feel like I need people in my life that I can relate to and that can relate to my situation as well. 
Anyone else feel like this?

Yes! After years of going through all the MtF hoops, even having a pre-srs consultation and making a down payment on the procedure, something clicked in my head that told me that it is entirely unnecessary for me to have to fit into any of the gender designations for the sake of meeting other people's criteria or even that which I had been entertaining in my head and heart. I felt that it was more important for me to just be me and so I have opted for just being what any onlooker might say is an androgynous human being because it's too late and I can't turn back the clock and there's no need to. One person that helped me come to that place is a dear friend who was born ambiguously intersexed with AIS. She had told me that she was MtF but as it turned out she was not at all and later did go through srs just to correct an abnormality in her genitalia. All through our friendship I found myself trying to help her get past the phobia of her not quite fitting in anyone's specific gender ID box. Interestingly enough in coddling her through it I had my own epiphany and realized how unimportant it all is. I encouraged her to seek professional counseling which she did. Meanwhile she tells me to this day that I am the only one who truly understands her and accepts her just as she is. My spouse who sometimes refers to me in private as "Her Exotic" tells me that for a genetic male that I am unique being able to think with both sides of my brain and be a male and a female at the same time. Yes, I get you and it's OK!

[insideontheoutside]

Yes! After years of going through all the MtF hoops, even having a pre-srs consultation and making a down payment on the procedure, something clicked in my head that told me that it is entirely unnecessary for me to have to fit into any of the gender designations for the sake of meeting other people's criteria or even that which I had been entertaining in my head and heart. I felt that it was more important for me to just be me and so I have opted for just being what any onlooker might say is an androgynous human being because it's too late and I can't turn back the clock and there's no need to. One person that helped me come to that place is a dear friend who was born ambiguously intersexed with AIS. She had told me that she was MtF but as it turned out she was not at all and later did go through srs just to correct an abnormality in her genitalia. All through our friendship I found myself trying to help her get past the phobia of her not quite fitting in anyone's specific gender ID box. Interestingly enough in coddling her through it I had my own epiphany and realized how unimportant it all is. I encouraged her to seek professional counseling which she did. Meanwhile she tells me to this day that I am the only one who truly understands her and accepts her just as she is. My spouse who sometimes refers to me in private as "Her Exotic" tells me that for a genetic male that I am unique being able to think with both sides of my brain and be a male and a female at the same time. Yes, I get you and it's OK!

That's awesome. To me, personally, it's more freeing to just be comfortable with myself as-is than try to fit in someone else's box as well.

[Shantel]

That's awesome. To me, personally, it's more freeing to just be comfortable with myself as-is than try to fit in someone else's box as well.

So cool, we are free to be, welcome!

[Kinkly]

For many years I just wanted to "fit" in society, but felt that I never could and "be myself" like I wanted to. I've found the confidence to at least be comfortable with myself, but I know I still make others uncomfortable. I know I'm pretty powerless to be able to make others feel, think or act a certain way though so I try not to think about it. Androgyny makes a lot of people in the world uncomfortable. But that's not MY problem. I can't make someone comfortable with it. I can't make someone comfortable with someone they perceive visually as "female" who acts and thinks and dresses like a male. That's just gonna rub some people the wrong way.

I could have written this with the slight change of swapping female & male in the 2nd last sentence - although my thought pattern are a mix of both.
I have found a way to live comfortably as a non binary gendered person.  other people might not be comfortable with it but that is there problem