Who am I as an androgyne?

[Adreni]

I am me, the sum that is Das Es. Who I am is not necessarily who you think I am, and if you look at me now, you'll know nothing.

So over the course of the past few years, I began to HATE the idea of gender and the self-righteous presumptuousness that people bring to the table every single time they say they won't.

So I didn't begin wishing I was something else, I just stopped identifying as "male" or "female." I started feeling like not only did it NOT matter, but it did not apply to me, because who I am feels and looks absolutely nothing like people expect.

Eventually the dust settled and my new sense of self developed as something that seemed almost ambiguous, but was more than anything just alien. Not male, not female, but something unique between the two, comprised of traits from both genders. Thanks to my body I do feel almost residual, very pale and bland, and maybe almost atrophic masculinity, but there are no English pronouns that feel befitting, no English pronouns that do not make me absolutely cringe. To be called "son," "uncle," or "nephew" feels unsettling and out of place, broken and twisted.

And it feels as perfectly natural to me as computers and software; as if this is who I was born to become.

---

Honestly, it feels like I'm missing something or communicating something incorrectly, but this is as close as I can get right now.

[Jamie D]

Don't worry about the language.  I understand what you are getting at.

Let me ask, if you are non-binary, do you feel more like you have multiple genders (bigendered, pangendered), or none at all (neutrois)?

[Kia]

I don't want to say that I totally get what your saying but I think I do. When I first started to examine my gender I came to the conclusion that I was bepenised and bearded but was not a man, and that left me in some weird limbo space. I thought I couldn't be trans* because I wasn't a woman or  a man trapped in the wrong body, I just was what/who I was. When I first found out about androgyny as a gender expression I had only heard about Neutrois people who are "agender" and that wasn't right; i eventually decided that gender was a mystery and that it was best for me to start making it up. I flip flopped between trans*woman and androgyne when I realized that if I was just "perfect" lil' ol' me gender would just fit into place. I always think of the language as for others, just how are you going to describe yourself to convey your gender or what-not; you know how you feel and no human language will perfectly capture that so don't fret it, just be the you that you love, and worry about explaining it later.

[Lo]

I think I understand what you're saying.

I would write an essay on what feelings and narratives and anatomies make up my "gender", but all I really need is an approximation: not having one! I identify "self" and "other" by another axis.

[Eva Marie]

In the early days of my gender journey at the suggestion of a transgender friend i started a journal. I wrote anything and everything in the journal since i knew that i would be the only one to see it and no one would judge it. It really helped me explore my feelings and try things on paper before committing. Today it is a fascinating journey back to where i was at the time, and some entries are surprising (ie: I thought THAT?). By reading my journal I can see how i came to the place that i am now. You might think about starting your own journal to help you along the path.

This is a journey that most people don't get to take. While there are certainly bad things on the journey there are also good things to be found, and having your feelings range all over the map during the trip is pretty normal. Now that you have found Susan's place you are among friends, and you are now a member of the androgyne forest.

~Eva

[blue]

I think it's pretty awesome, to grow beyond compulsory gender roles and reclaim the denied or alienated traits I wasn't supposed to have. I'm so glad to have gotten this far.

[foosnark]

I'm with you there.  Every day I have occasion to think "gender is such bull>-bleeped-<."  I almost think it's an elaborate hoax, except when I'm feeling a more or less feminine identity. 

Naturally, I am bald, bearded and look like a fat geeky biker dude, and people assume I am a manly man unless I'm intentionally wearing something to counter that.  (And then they just think I'm gay.)  But I still count myself lucky to not have dysphoria or an unsupportive family.

[Pica Pica]

Have to admit, a barely think about it anymore.

Today was sunny and there were pretty girls everywhere and I didn't want to be one. I barely think of it and only have this forum in my bookmarks for old time's sake. I guess the aim is not to be an androgyne but to be more than androgyne.

[Emerald]

I guess the aim is not to be an androgyne but to be more than androgyne.

* Emerald smiles at Pica Pica

[androgynoid]

I started feeling like not only did it NOT matter, but it did not apply to me...

I feel this, a lot. I'm not male, female, any combination of the two, nor somewhere in between. Gender just isn't even on my radar.

Every day I have occasion to think "gender is such bull>-bleeped-<."  I almost think it's an elaborate hoax, except when I'm feeling a more or less feminine identity. 

It is, it really is. I'm actually starting to sympathize more and more with the radical feminist assertion that gender is entirely constructed and learned, not innate. I do, however, realize that not everyone views and experiences gender the way that I (or radical feminists) do. It's easier for me to look at gender this way because I independently came to view myself as detached from the gender binary/spectrum/system.

[Shantel]

All I can figure is what we say about our experience of gender is pretty true-- for some people there is a very deep identification, for some people there's a preference but not worth pursuing to the ends of the earth... some of us are confused about being tasked to climb the mountain of life wearing one ice skate and one soccer cleat.

I'm really interested in the kinds of dysphoria we might experience. Here's mine--

I am fine with my (androgynous) body that nature gave me, and my androgynous personality also thanks to nature. Which is different from what most trans folks experience, by definition? Those are things they are looking to change.

My dysphoria is social (inability to adapt to same-sex social roles and same-sex environments, whatever the politics, and facing harassment and violence when I'm clocked as a CD or nonpassing transwoman) and also on the level of presentation-- if I wear too many M or F signifiers and my look no longer balances according to some strange calculus in my head, I look in the mirror and freak.

I have a taboo-phobic response about looking too M, because this is the thing that everyone my whole life has been trying to get me not to do, and I took on all that fear. And I panic when I look too F, because what social happiness I have found has come from signaling successfully to others that I am not going to fit their F-gender expectations.

And I have some F-compliant behaviors that are not "me" that I am trying to release. The conditioning is pretty deep.

One of the most noticeable F-compliant behaviors usually more typical of those born F and finding themselves more andro-attuned as opposed to those born M, although I see it in MtF's quite frequently too, is the propensity to over-think and wind up in a mental and emotional quagmire of their own creation rather than learning how to just be. I have had to learn how to "just be" myself because formerly I could never be happy standing still. You see this a lot in the general population where people spend a fortune buying a home but can't stand to stay at home ever and have to be constantly doing something, anything as long as it doesn't entail staying home. This is a different wrinkle on the same manifestation of an unsettled soul that you are referring to here in your post Reedling. Formerly I could dress three times before I decided on how I wanted to look for the day and mentally agonize over how I would look. Will I look like some kind of butt kicker of a man, or will I present more F andro for the day and how will that be received by people where I will be going? I put all that to rest and learned to relax my mind and "Just Be" me. For example, the last few weeks it's been warm and sunny, I've been wearing sandals, skinny jeans and my female scoop neck tank tops. The material goes all the way up in the underarms and the boobs don't hang out the sides sans bra. Sometimes an open hawaii shirt over it, hair sticking up like I stuck my finger in a light socket. My S.O. says what will people think? I say who cares? I am just being me and I'm not going to give a rip or get bogged down over thinking about it!

[blue]

I'm not unsettled personally-- on a desert island I am just fine-- I am navigating a difficult world. I didn't create this quagmire and it punishes people for failing to negotiate it successfully.

I have to deal with the public professionally, I have to take mass transit and sometimes rely on taxis, I don't live in a blue state blue city genderqueer enclave, and when I choose wrong there are consequences. It isn't easy to be me and I am here to find other people willing to try to think through this >-bleeped-< with me, not tell me that the struggle is all in my head and caused by my self!

[Kia]

My dysphoria is social (inability to adapt to same-sex social roles and same-sex environments, whatever the politics, and facing harassment and violence when I'm clocked as a CD or nonpassing transwoman) and also on the level of presentation-- if I wear too many M or F signifiers and my look no longer balances according to some strange calculus in my head, I look in the mirror and freak.

This is my biggest dysphoric thing, social roles and other's expectations of me based on my body. However I do have some less than severe physical dysphoria about my secondary sexual characteristics; they are what betray me socially and make me feel like some kind of alien.

[Shantel]

I'm not unsettled personally-- on a desert island I am just fine-- I am navigating a difficult world. I didn't create this quagmire and it punishes people for failing to negotiate it successfully.

I have to deal with the public professionally, I have to take mass transit and sometimes rely on taxis, I don't live in a blue state blue city genderqueer enclave, and when I choose wrong there are consequences. It isn't easy to be me and I am here to find other people willing to try to think through this >-bleeped-< with me, not tell me that the struggle is all in my head and caused by my self!

Hmmmm you probably took my comments as some kind of personal affront, sorry if that's so. I was generalizing and then mentioned how I handle my own navigating. Sorry if you felt it was personal and are offended!

[blue]

This is my biggest dysphoric thing, social roles and other's expectations of me based on my body. However I do have some less than severe physical dysphoria about my secondary sexual characteristics; they are what betray me socially and make me feel like some kind of alien.

Reading this made me realize I've got social dysphoria with both female and male ss characteristics, for different reasons. It's all about what those characteristics are thought to mean from within the binary, and how people treat me when one set or another are emphasized. This dysphoria has lessened as I've found my way out of binary thinking.

I don't like feeling like an alien but understanding more about how and why this goes down socially has been some comfort, and I've been able to anticipate and avoid it sometimes.

[androgynoid]

I'm not unsettled personally-- on a desert island I am just fine-- I am navigating a difficult world.

I'm also feeling these words really hard. My body and social dysphoria are sometimes at odds with each other: that is, the steps that I want to take to make my body more comfortable will make my social experiences uncomfortable and weird. I'd love to transition to male (I'd probably even like a transsexual male body more than a cissexual one), but I have a lot of feels surrounding being a man in today's society. If I existed in a vacuum I would take T in a heartbeat. But I live in the real world, and I don't think I could continue to express myself in the same way if I were read consistently as a man.

[Adam (birkin)]

Cain, I worried a lot about that as well. I don't know all the ways in which you express yourself, but I was worried that there was "no way" I could be seen as a man and make it in this world. But it ended up being OK. Yeah, people sometimes think I am timid and effeminate, and I can tell a few people wonder about that. But all in all it's not been bad. I just do me.

[blue]

I don't know what Cain meant, but being seen as a man [edit-- or a woman, or not being easy to place as either] has a lot of interpersonal consequences unrelated to passing or acceptance problems. I started thinking about trust and communication and social inclusion/exclusion, because those are the gender issues I notice most.

[jesseofthenorth]

I'm not unsettled personally-- on a desert island I am just fine-- I am navigating a difficult world. I didn't create this quagmire and it punishes people for failing to negotiate it successfully.

There definitely days when I wish I did on an island because I am mostly fine with me. Other people? Not always. I tend to feel quite isolated at times as weel because there is no one like me anywhere near me.

So I come here to feel less like an alien, remind myself I am fine as I am.

[Shantel]

Blue and Jesse, I understand how isolating this can be, I am a loner by nature and not one to join organizations or clubs, Susan's is my only social networking site, I'm fortunate to have a long term life partner who is loving and accepting, so I never find myself feeling as lonely and isolated as you both seem to be. One of the best ways to make a few friends is to get involved in some volunteer thing on the side where others are forced to actually speak to you and discover that you are in fact an interesting and real human being. There is always someone out there for everyone whether just a friend or something more. If I have misread your situations be sure and tell me instead of smoldering over it, I'm in this with you.