Susan's Place Logo

News:

Visit our Discord server  and Wiki

Main Menu

Presentation as an Androgyne

Started by Kinkly, September 25, 2013, 10:53:12 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Kinkly

Being as I live and present full time as a non binary person.  I wonder if others have similar struggles.  I try to present full time as a bearded lady I am seen as a man in a dress at times.  I have major body dysphoria and social dysphoria with regard to being normal Male.  Presenting as bearded lady kind of fixes the social aspect of the dysphoria.  The body component I think will only disappear with Srs.  I have had a number of people try to tell me that getting srs while I have a full beard is not going to happen.
I've also had nagging ideas that won't go away of trying other ways to present as both male and female at the same time but I don't see it as a practical possibility in the long term.
Do other peeps present in a non binary way and find they sometimes feel the need to do more/less / different to be seen as themselves.
I don't want to be a man there from Mars
I'd Like to be a woman Venus looks beautiful
I'm enjoying living on Pluto, but it is a bit lonely
  •  

Lo

Unfortunately, there's no way to really present as "nothing", unless I could maybe call on images from dystopian stories where people are numbers and everyone wears beige jumpsuits or something. But like hell am I wearing a beige jumpsuit every day, lol. There's no way to really turn off the "gender noise"; youcan only turn it up, add more, and hope one wavelength cancels out the other.

I have a slightly different presentation sense when I'm alone versus when I'm with my husband (we're LDR so we're not together most of the time). When I'm alone, the best I usually end up striving to "look like" is a soft butch lesbian. Another thing I take into consideration is whether what I'm wearing will get me attention from strangers. I live in a rougher neighborhood, so honking and catcalling are the norm. But I've found that the size of my chest is pretty directly proportional to the amount of attention I get from men, so I dress as boi as possible when I'm going to be going out alone. But when I'm with my husband, I want to confuse people more than disappear. If I can make people think that we're a gay couple, or something else, for even just a split second, I'd call that a success.

As for what I do... well, I've got a quiff, the typical "queer girl" cut these days, I don't wear makeup (unless it's to masculinize my face), I wear men's shirts/tops and sports bras a lot, men's shoes, and men's pants when I can find a pair that are flattering, otherwise I go for baggier women's pants. My face is structurally pretty masculine (I've got a very strong jawline) but the features are very soft, so if I were shorter I could probably pass as a teenage boy. Unfortunately, I'm not just tall, but very long--I look like a cartoon character that's been stretched out--so I'm very firmly in the adult territory. So I just generally shoot for the boi/twink look, and though I miss most of the time, I wind up in "ambiguous" territory somewhat regularly.
  •  

Kaelin

If women and girls can deviate from presentation norms a good amount, I'd say an androgyne should have an awful lot of leeway.  It's not a bad thing to have a look that straddles the gender norms, but norms aren't really who people are deep down, and an essential part of declaring androgyny is that you're trying to be who you are rather than a norm-fitter -- so having a look that leans one direction is fine.  I think you should go with whatever you feel like wearing and presenting each day, and if a lot of people misread you (especially people who don't know you), well, you won't be alone in that respect.  It's okay if they misunderstand, and if you can have a sense of humor about it, I think you'll have an easier time just allowing them to be wrong (and then politely correct them when you feel it is appropriate) in exchange for getting to present the true you -- not to say it'll be easy, but if you can handle the reactions from the beard + dress combo, I think you probably handle the well-intentioned people who may get your gender wrong (and the doofuses will be doofuses anyway, so why worry about what they think?)
  •  

Kendall

I can see the huge challenge you face.
  •  

insane_protagonist

I live/present as non-binary full time, but I'm an AFAB-type person, so I am seen as a butch girl or maybe a trans guy (occasionally). I don't know how to present as anything other than "just myself", since growing up I was never forced to learn how to "properly" present as female.

I think to a lot of people my presentation would come across as "masculine", but I honestly think of the way I dress as androgynous just because it's ME. On somebody else my clothes would be men's clothes, on another person they would be women's clothes... I happen to wear clothes designed for "men" because they often suit my tastes better, and yeah, I admit there's a bit of drive to at least appear to be "not a girl".

But yeah, it is really hard to present androgynously if you don't have a "stereotypical" androgynous appearance.