Not sure how to express my gender identity

[Alexmakenoise]

Here's my situation.  I have a male brain and a female body.  I think like a guy, relate to guys, and don't quite understand the way women think.  However, I don't hate my body and would rather not do anything to alter it.  I also have a hard time relating to the idea of gender on a personal level.  I don't like the idea of having to be a certain way or follow certain rules because of what your body looks like.  I just want to be myself and express myself however I want to. 

So I guess I'm genderqueer.  But I don't know how to explain it to people so I just let people think of me as female but with tomboy tendencies.  It's really weird at work, though.  I need to vent so I'm just going to list all the things that are stressing me out.

- I don't understand women's clothing.  It's all equally unattractive and uncomfortable.  Outside of work, I only wear t-shirts and jeans.  I never know what to wear to work and people always give me weird looks for what I'm wearing, probably because I really don't know how to put a girly outfit together.

- I work in a technical field where there's a lot of sexism in general.  I don't know how to handle this considering that I don't even relate to my assigned gender in the first place.

- It's hard for me to form close friendships with women.  It's really obvious that I'm like a different species.  I relate to men, but they put me in a separate category because of my gender.  I'm not a friend, I'm a potential partner.  If I were more attracted to women, this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I'm generally more attracted to men.

- It's really weird going through life having interests that are the opposite of the ones I'm supposed to have and being treated as if I'm someone I'm not.

I guess it would help if I looked even more androgynous.  I just have a hard time getting the right look because I'm not good at stuff like that.

[DriftingCrow]

Hey Alex, I understand what you mean. I haven't decided on medically transitioning so I am often viewed as female and kind of have to dress like a female at work too.

Though if your work place is accepting and you're comfortable, would you be able to wear male clothes and just portray yourself as butch or  gender-queer?

If you're having trouble getting the right andro look, you can post some photos in the photo thread on the androgynous board or look at photos of other andro people who look a bit like you do to see what works for them. 

[Lo]

Well, just keep in mind that clothes, social roles, stereotypes, and interests aren't gender. You can be a woman who dresses in drag and happens to not relate to other women. You could be a man that wears dresses and has nothing but female friends. And so on.

What do you want to be seen as? You've figured out what you don't want to be read as, what assumptions you don't want being made about you, now is the time to start thinking about what image you do want to project, how to get there, and what drawbacks are acceptable because the benefits are so appealing.

If you are a trans man, then things are more straightforward. But being nonbinary is much different in that it is more of a process than an end goal. You have to come to grips with never passing, and having to disclose your identity to everyone you want to be aware of it. The sad fact of the matter is that no one will assume that you are genderqueer and treat you accordingly. You are going to be labelled either M or F to everyone who you haven't come out to.

I am agender and neutrois and I currently go through life being read as a soft butch lesbian for most people.  It's something I'm ok with for several reasons: one, I'm already spoken for so assumptions about my orientation are even more meaningless to me than they were before, two, I want to be perceived to be outside of the cishetero norm in SOME way because it does impact how people interact with me, and three, I have no pronoun preference but it just makes thing easier for me to be lumped in with the group I have more experience with and to use the pronouns I'm most used to. It's like doing a job you don't like but have been at for 20 years and pursuing your dream career is a pipe dream.

So, those are my pros/cons for not making a more drastic effort to look and present more masculine (among others). What are yours? Would you feel more comfortable being read as male by strangers and acquaintances or is staying within the conception of female going to be easier for you?

[Alexmakenoise]

Thanks for your responses.  I got distracted and haven't been here for a while. 

One thing I've learned is that gender identity issues don't go away.  I tend to go through times when I'm ok with my assigned gender, but the dysphoria always crops back up again.

I'm going to work with a therapist to try to sort all of this out.  I think I have some internalized phobia at play too.  Sometimes it's hard to accept things about yourself even when you embrace those things in other people.  Even though I've largely cut ties with my family, I still feel a lot of shame for not being the feminine woman they wanted me to be.  I'll probably have to work through all of that before I can figure my identity out.

[insideontheoutside]

Do you have a specific dress code at work? There's certainly a pile of androgynous looking clothing in the men's section these days (floral button down shirts, skinny pants and jeans, accessories, etc.). I once had a hard time with "fashion" anything but I've learned to embrace it and have gotten fairly adept at androgynous simply because I think that's what's most comfortable to me.

Best advice I can give, is keep being yourself. Don't "pretend" to be female in the way you act/interact/talk. For me, whenever I tried doing that it just felt wrong and awkward. 

On this, "I work in a technical field where there's a lot of sexism in general.  I don't know how to handle this considering that I don't even relate to my assigned gender in the first place." I've found that the guys who are going to act sexist in a professional setting are either going to do it: (1) around females they perceive as weak (skill set, personality, etc.) or (2) other sexist guys. I've skirted the edges of a number of industries that are rampant with this type of sexism so I've seen it a lot. These particular type of guys usually will not mess with a female who is confidant and a strong personality (at least not in a personal way ... although they're the type who will probably still call her a "cast iron b*tch" or something similar in their circle of weak dudes who like to be sexist). Kinda sad really but I've seen it so often that it really does seem to be a "thing". However, being more confident/finding confidence is not a bad thing and is a good way to counterbalance any of that crap you might come in contact with.

[Alexmakenoise]

That's good advice.  I'm scared that I'll lose my job if people at work find out how masculine I really am, so I act feminine in a fake way and I'm sure it comes across as weak.  Just one of many things to work on.