Queer/Andro Experiences

[Keira]

I'm genuinely curious about how androgyne and genderqueer trans people came to figure out their gender. My own experiences are definitely atypical in many ways...so I want to see how my experiences compare to androgyne and genderqueer experiences.

I'm trying to figure myself out...so if you wish to share your story I would greatly appreciate it...

-Sky

[Padma]

It's been an ongoing process for me, of taking a step back from binary-tunnel-vision to see what areas of the gender probability field I most commonly inhabit.

The thing I've found most helpful is (a) spending enough time around very-gender-binary trans women for it to be obvious I'm really not like them, and (b) spending enough time around more non-binary trans folk for it to be obvious we resonate so much with each other.

I'm inclined to think of myself these days as a sort of heady blend of very genderqueer woman, with a lot of androgyne, and also some trans man. None of those things are easily defined anyway, it's just a convenient shorthand for me to label my collection of general traits. And it's an iterative process - I get gradually closer to a real sense of my gender identity, the more I let myself be myself out loud.

It's not been easy. But paradoxically, it's been the efforts of some of my local transmatriarchs to pigeonhole me in gender identity terms that's helped keep me out of falling into one pigeonhole myself, even though I'm loosely associating with several pigeonholes for the sake of convenience.

I'm transitioning anatomically because it's very clear to me that all above should be inhabiting a female body. But my gender identity remains healthily impressionistic and soft-focus .

[ativan]

I'm genuinely curious about how androgyne and genderqueer trans people came to figure out their gender. My own experiences are definitely atypical in many ways...so I want to see how my experiences compare to androgyne and genderqueer experiences.

I would rather hear about some of your experiences first, as long as you brought it up.
I'd like to know what 'definitely atypical in many ways' means to you.
Are you asking from a MTF Transsexual point of view?
I'm just curious as to how my 'definitely atypical in many ways' experiences compare to yours.
I would like to see how some of your experiences compare to mine.

Then I might be happy to exchange information and compare notes.
I might like that very much, indeed, if I knew more about you.
Then I might be a little more comfortable sharing my experiences.
Ativan

[Kaelin]

Woah, a Naoto avatar sighting.  That's... maybe not all that surprising in the Androgyne board.

My feeling is that I'm either an androgynous male or possibly an androgyne, and who is a gynephiliac (attracted to women) and may possibly have other attractions.  The androgyny in clothes probably started at a somewhat later age (~11) [or it may be that when I was 11 that the issue was beating me over the head, and that I already was pulled in that direction beforehand], but an ambivalence towards male-stereotyped activities (and for that matter female-stereotyped activities) was something I was going through for as long as I can remember.  I loved math and hated dodge ball.  I saw no reason to keep my nails cut but wasn't into fairy tales.  Gender expectations were a burden (and felt "dumb"), but it wasn't a case where I felt like everything about me was going against the grain.  Sometimes people were not observant enough to care if I did go against the grain.  But those expectations were still a distraction, and despite my best efforts to free myself of them, I'm not there.  Even when I try to be a part of accepting communities, many people there struggle with people who don't fit into the cookie-cutter alphabet soup identities of "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual," "transsexual," or "crossdresser" -- yet others are so exceptionally warm, friendly, understanding, and accepting that you feel silly for questioning why you should come back.

[Keira]

@Ativan

I'm not sure if I am in fact mtf transsexual, or something in between. When I transition I won't be transitioning to female but more of fem-andro. So I'm not entirely sure if my gender identity is also more androgynous than just exclusively female. Hence the topic...

As a child I liked both masculine and feminine activities, such as reading she-ra books with warrior princesses and flying Pegasus, and also playing with both action figures and dolls. I also had a massive stuffed toy collection. In my earlier years I had no understanding of gender or which gender I was (age 5-12).

In elementary I didn't fit in and I created a false masculine persona so that I could hang out with the guys. This persona would be further strengthened in high school, resulting in me saying and doing things completely contradictory to what I wanted to. I wasn't just different than other kids, I felt like I couldn't relate to their likes/dislikes and experiences of life. In fact while everyone was looking forward to growing up to be a man/woman I just accepted it as inevitable, not enjoyable.

Right now I feel like I can relate to girls more than guys but only to a certain degree.

Also, I'm Pansexual but I prefer to be perceived as female if I'm in a relationship with a guy. In general I like parts of male and female bodies, neither one is extremely attractive to me. I also am very attracted to trans and non-binary people.

[brainiac]

When I first started addressing my gender role and body dysphoria, I thought that I must be an FTM transsexual. That was mostly because I'd never really heard of non-binary identities, the only trans people I'd heard about were all transsexual, and I felt more like a guy than a girl. As a kid, I was pretty gender-neutral, but once I hit puberty I began to feel concerned about my body feeling "wrong". I also always liked it when my friends treated me more like a guy than a girl, and felt uncomfortable when people referred to me as female. Somehow I didn't realize (or was in really deep denial) about being trans until I got to college. (Haha, I remember throwing a preteen tantrum at my mom when she wouldn't let my male friend sleep over while my female friends were staying over and called her sexist--even though it was more about the other parents' opinions than hers... I think I subconsciously thought, "But I'M a boy, why should he be excluded?!")

I thought that the body dysphoria especially meant that I'd have to take T and get SRS. My parents weren't restrictive at all about my interests when I was a kid, so I had plenty of male friends and my stereotypically masculine interests were fine with them. But I also had a lot of pressure from my family to look feminine (and discouraged from looking masculine when I tried to dress like that) as I was growing up, so I associated feminine gender expression with feeling trapped and like I would never be understood/accepted as I wanted to be.

After I realized that I was trans and came out to people, I experimented with my gender presentation for a while and weighed my options. I've come to the point where I feel pretty happy with my body most of the time and I've found things that help with the dysphoria. Finding out that you could still "really" be trans and not want to go on HRT or have SRS led me to the point where I no longer feel like I want those options. I've also realized  that I really do like feminine gender expression, in addition to masculine. I need both in my life to feel complete and happy. Now that I'm the one choosing to dress that way, and knowing that looking feminine doesn't make me any less of a guy, I can really embrace and enjoy the "drag". I identify as somewhere between "male" and "androgyne", and my clothing varies a fair amount depending on how I'm feeling that day.

I also identify as pansexual or bisexual (I don't fuss about the politics of those terms much). I've been in a relationship for 5 years--almost 6 now!--with a wonderful mostly-hetero (but wonderfully flexible when it comes to imagination) cis guy, who stuck with me through those really, really hard times. The only changes I'm thinking about now are name/pronouns, but for now I'm alright with pretending to be a girl in those aspects since everything else is pretty great.

[ativan]

@ Sky-Blue,... Got it.

Sounds like you're pretty comfortable here in the forest.
Some people are just traveling by, stopping in for awhile.
While others take up residence and then find themselves later moving to the 'cities'.
But there is a distinct difference between stopping by and taking up residence.
We actually are not on the road between Male and Female, we are on a different road altogether.
I was curious to know how you viewed that.
I've been here long enough to have my own tree house with a rope swing that goes over the pond nearby.
Feel free to use either or both anytime you wish.
Ativan

[Keira]

From what I can tell so far by other people's experiences...I do seem to be more so non-binary. If I were to transition fully (to androgynous) I would still wish to be called by female pronouns and a unisex name (sky). I don't know where that leaves me...I guess all I know is that it leaves me without a label...Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

-Sky

[Padma]

Eh, labels are overrated. I think they're like lego - if you wanted to make an accurate lego model of someone, you'd need a lot of pieces, and then to stand well back, for it to resemble them closely. It's the same with labels - just using one or two makes us too pixellated for accurate representation.

So I'm female, womandrogyne, trandrogyne, polysensual, asexual... and so on .

[eli77]

I came out as a trans girl and started transitioning because I had some pretty awful body dysphoria. But just being in the trans community it didn't take long to realize that my general hostility towards gender is pretty different from the attitudes of most of the folks around here, even amongst non-binaries. I've met a few others who have a similar lack of internal sense of gender. Usually we are referred to as "agender." Though I always feel a bit weird about labeling an absence.

I've been through 2 years of hormone therapy, electrolysis, facial surgery, and vaginoplasty. So I'm a fairly heavily modified female. And I am definitely female, in the sense of my physical form. But whether I'm a woman is pretty debatable. I am in so far as that's how society classifies me. But I have no intrinsic connection to it, and I have a general dislike of being gendered period. My presentation is on the androgynous/masculine-of-center female side of things.

I seem pretty atypical in the combination of gender-agnosticism and transsexualism. I've only ever met one other like me... and she's my SO. Heh.

[Padma]

Though I always feel a bit weird about labeling an absence.

Right there with you (I refuse to be labelled an "atheist" just because I don't believe in other people's deities - just as it'd feel silly to call me an "ascoobist" for not believing in Scooby Doo...)

Where you've gone in your transition is close to where I'm going, pretty much - I identify as female (anatomically, hence my transition), but I'm not personally identifying as a woman, because that outfit is the wrong style and way too tight. But for purposes of binary social convention, I'd rather be thought of as a woman if the only other option is man.

I'm still feeling my way into this (right now I'm very preoccupied with this), but gender-neutral is closer to what I am than woman is. Or it's more that I have traits of woman, androgyne, and man in me, and I'm only associating those traits with those three "positions" because that's the model I got stuck with at an early age. Hmm, as I'm writing this, it has only just occurred to me that rather than gender-neutral (or agender) it feels more right to call myself "polygender".

[Pica Pica]

Eh, labels are overrated. I think they're like lego - if you wanted to make an accurate lego model of someone, you'd need a lot of pieces, and then to stand well back, for it to resemble them closely. It's the same with labels - just using one or two makes us too pixellated for accurate representation.

I like this analogy.

My own experiences have been pretty gender neutral. Even at primary school there were three main groups within the class; the boys, the girls and the others. I was alway a member of the others, while the boys played bulldog and the girls skipped, we made up plays for imaginary audiences. Oddly enough because I was kind of joint leader of this group (with a tomboy called Deb) I was never bullied or hassled but given a similar respect to Jordan (of the boys) and Claire (of the girls). Funny how tribal childhood is.

As I grew I maintained doing my own thing. It wasn't until I had a crisis of identity following university that I decided I was MtF, then decided that I was't F, but still wasn't M and so found androgyne and the idea of non-binary identity. What that has meant to me has changed a lot over the years and I now take a far softer position than the one I did when I discovered the term.

I've pretty much ditched the term androgyne now from my thinking, content with being what I was when I was a child, a calm and confident member of the others.

[Kaiyou]

I'm genuinely curious about how androgyne and genderqueer trans people came to figure out their gender. My own experiences are definitely atypical in many ways...so I want to see how my experiences compare to androgyne and genderqueer experiences.

I'm trying to figure myself out...so if you wish to share your story I would greatly appreciate it...

-Sky

I don't know if this qualifies as coming to figure out my gender, so much as how I figured out I didn't really have a concept of what that was...

I grew up as a tomboy, playing with legos and climbing trees and riding my bike all over. My best friend was a guy and I didn't think anything of it. Most of my good friends have been guys. In college I struggled with my sexual orientation, and was very frustrated until one of my friends said "you just love".

I went out into the workforce and worked with a lot of traditionally "male" things, computers, programing, visual-spacial calculations, management etc. One of my bosses said things like the fact that I was better at seeing what needed to be done than most women he knew - it wasn't meant as a sexist comment, more a statement of his experiences over the years. I never felt like he was mentally limiting me because of my expressed gender.... more like he gave open opportunities to everyone, and most women didn't choose to travel down my path.

After a few years I went back to college to finish a degree in religion because the work I was doing in business was not satisfying long-term. In a class for women's religious studies, one of the questions asked was about the sexual discrimination we'd faced. The whole course was built around studying a certain range of feminist theology. It was during the discussions there that I realized that while I may on the surface share a gender with the other (mainly female) students, deep down my life experiences were radically different.

I realized that I don't primarily view myself as "female". I also didn't really feel a major need to identify as "male" - really overall, I don't have a good grasp of what that means. I find it useful to wear the guise of a woman, but it isn't central to who I am. And, being human and being tempted to see others as myself, I am tempted to say that really no one is "male" or "female" but that gender as a whole is a cultural construct built up as society grew and adapted and survived that is now outdated because technology has advanced to the point that it is unnecessary. I don't know that that's true, how much is inherent to a person and how much is ingrained social conditioning. At best, I realize that I can't make that call for anyone else anymore than they can make that call for me and say that well "of course i'm a woman" because they only see things binary.

In terms of my own gender, I prefer the term gender fluid. It annoys me to have to check the female box, annoys me that the box is there. I don't conform to cultural expectations for women - don't shave, don't wear makeup, rarely wear dresses - but it isn't really a gender thing for me, its a convenience thing. I'm not sure how to explain it; my parents understand my sexual orientation as bi because they don't have the framework to grasp this concept. At times I've entertained the amusing notion that I was an alien sent to occupy a human body in order to study human society, because that's what it feels like - I'm a foreigner once you get past the surface, even though I've lived here all my life. I can pass perfectly even with the minor cultural non-conformities, but it still feels foreign.  Gender is useful for navigating this society, but it is still foreign.

I'm just me.

[ativan]

I'm a foreigner once you get past the surface, even though I've lived here all my life. I can pass perfectly even with the minor cultural non-conformities, but it still feels foreign.  Gender is useful for navigating this society, but it is still foreign.

Sums up my feelings for the most part.