"Is an adrogyne yet another variant of the gender continuum or rather a compromise from living many years in a gender different than that of your mind?"
That's an excellent question, and I think the answer may be different for different people. It's a question I've definitely been asking myself as I've begun to explore my own discomfort and my not-fitting-anywhere with regard to gender.
I'm feeling a strong pull, as I allow myself more freedom to experiment, and to be, toward a much more male way of appearing. In fact, I just went through my entire wardrobe--underwear included--and bagged up for the thrift store everything remotely identifiable as unambiguously female, because I suddenly can't imagine wearing them again, ever. I've stopped wearing dangly earrings, have gone to only wearing an earring in one ear, and I'm longing to get an unequivocally male haircut and will very likely do so in the next few days. The appearance and movements of my (mercifully fairly small) breasts under my clothes has started to irritate me hugely, although I live in a really hellishly hot place (in summer) and can't imagine binding, but I'm obsessing over what to do about it that would be tolerable.
I've been dressing very differently at work, and I'm aware that people are wondering what's up, and yet, strangely, it doesn't even bother me. Although my birth name is already conveniently unisex, I had a moment the other day when I knew--knew, without a doubt--that if I were to ever get to the point of taking a new name, exactly what it would be. It just floated into my mind, and I felt a huge sense of recognition, like "Yeah, that's who I'd be." Maybe it's who I am, have always been. And through all of this, oddly (I find it odd, or maybe just interesting) I have this weird confidence and sureness of myself that has been missing--well, forever.
The more of these small freedoms I allow myself, I find the better I am starting to feel, as if some great weight or restriction that I've been living under has started to lift off. I'm starting to look in the mirror and not hate what I see. And I'm still reeling with the profundity and intensity of all these feelings, how even these small changes fill me with something unaccountably like joy, and wondering how much of my energy has been going into keeping my real self hidden all these years.
So, back to the question, I've started to wonder whether, for me, my many years of androgynous dressing and hairstyles and affectations have really been part of a massive unconscious effort to avoid confronting my real issue.
I've started to wonder whether, for me, androgyny has been like walking along the top of a fence, being careful not to fall off onto either side, all the while casting longing glances down to where the boys are. The trouble with walking along a fence is that you can never really relax.
But I think it's a complicated question, and not all one or the other, but possibly both, depending on the person. And I keep telling myself it's too soon for me to be sure about any of this, even for myself.
