The nonbinary process- tell us of your journey down that path to the forest

[Shantel]

Lets make a wish... And who ever gets there first, will wait for the other, ok?

And dammit, but You just made me cry...

Hehehe pretty cool, you're on Emily!

[Satinjoy]

I won't do justice to this topic today.

What I will say is that I kept telling the shrink that I did not feel like a woman trapped in a male body.

I started off in the mtf section after almost a year of therapy and 7 months of hormones, on a slow rev up.

I got into something on the forum there, was being invalidated by an mtf, and Aisla, who evidently had been watching the posts, defended me.  I came here, asked questions, and disqualified myself earlier on.  But this time, I was ready to hear the answers, and I got them.

It has been tough, I have had breakdowns, I have had dark days, I have had joy.

I am authentic. I am me.  It is enough for me.

So, I remain, SJ/Satinjoy.

Fiercely loyal to this forum and everyone on it.

--Nails out head up.

[Mark3]

Todays update. 

I realized the past few days that I'm now in the Hot-seat so to speak, with telling others what I'm feeling, and why the change in attitude, thought process and need to alter my gender assignment publicly is important to me..

I did make a reference on Facebook about myself in a post with a link to a wikipedia explanation of non binary, but that seemed to be ignored mostly, at least no one came to me privately or publicly asking me about it.?

I did e-mail a good friend and shared a lot with her a day ago, but she hasn't written back yet.? I may have sounded unsure of myself, even a little defensive, but I realized I really need to write a better explanation that I can memorize, or share with others who ask.?

So what I'm concentrating on now is getting my thoughts together, as honest and understandable as I can, and writing down a confident, coherent, well thought out statement about myself, to make my friends on the outside and in real life understand me, without me sounding like I'm unsure of myself...?

I know what I feel... I just get flustered when I get put on the spot, and they don't come out well...? But I need, and want to be able to share with my friends this journey, even if some have no interest, I still need to start the conversation the right way, then if they think it's stupid, I'll know i did everything I could to explain it well...

So thats where I am..

PS. If anyone sees flaws in my plans, please tell me, I trust and want the input of people here, if theres something I need to know.?

[Shantel]

I won't do justice to this topic today.

What I will say is that I kept telling the shrink that I did not feel like a woman trapped in a male body.

I started off in the mtf section after almost a year of therapy and 7 months of hormones, on a slow rev up.

I got into something on the forum there, was being invalidated by an mtf, and Aisla, who evidently had been watching the posts, defended me.  I came here, asked questions, and disqualified myself earlier on.  But this time, I was ready to hear the answers, and I got them.

It has been tough, I have had breakdowns, I have had dark days, I have had joy.

I am authentic. I am me.  It is enough for me.

So, I remain, SJ/Satinjoy.

Fiercely loyal to this forum and everyone on it.

--Nails out head up.

There is always someone lurking in the wings that will make efforts to invalidate each of us as a group or individually, treading all over the face of each vulnerable soul. I suspect it has a lot more to do with the human condition and more their condition than ours. One can best supplant anger with pity for them and each of us pray for a thicker skin and stronger self esteem that we may be able to deflect the slings and arrows of those unfortunate miscreants. I am steadfastly loyal to you all as well.

[Satinjoy]

There is always someone lurking in the wings that will make efforts to invalidate each of us as a group or individually, treading all over the face of each vulnerable soul. I suspect it has a lot more to do with the human condition and more their condition than ours. One can best supplant anger with pity for them and each of us pray for a thicker skin and stronger self esteem that we may be able to deflect the slings and arrows of those unfortunate miscreants. I am steadfastly loyal to you all as well.

I am hopeful this will suddenly improve, based on the last couple of days, I see healing in our threads, in this part of the forum.  It is time for this now.  The admins and mods are on guard, and the peoples of the forum's awareness has increased, intolerance and invalidation are beginning to be seen as ugly, and unacceptable, as it should be.   We will rise above, we are so much bigger than this.

Blessings my dear.

Mark, you'll need a really good gender therapist if you do not have one already.   You are so innocent, take it slow dear one, the journey is a long one.  And exciting.

Love to all here....

[Asche]

Here's my story.  It's a bit long, even though I tried to stick to what was relevant to my trans-ness.

I've always had bad feelings about being male.

For one thing, the usual masculinity training that boys get, especially in the South (USA), didn't make me identify with being rough and tough, it just alienated me from anything to do with masculinity.  I was no good at being masculine and didn't really want to be.  It also made me never feel safe around men.

For another, I grew up with the idea that girls/women were intrinsicly better than boys/men.  (FWIW, I'm certain that my parents preferred girls to boys.)  Boys had to work hard to be worth anything, girls were to be valued just for being girls.  I was convinced that girls had it easier and that if I'd been born a girl I would not have constantly felt like I would never measure up no matter how hard I tried.

I don't remember actually wanting to be a girl, but the way boys got abused for being in any way like a girl, there was no way I would have admitted it to myself even if I did.  I did feel a secret, guilty attraction to girly things, though -- pretty clothes, soft textures, and gentleness.  And I felt an anxious fascination for stories of boys being turned into girls, especially the Oz story where the boy Tip finds out he's really Princess Ozma.

Anyway, I eventually left the hell of childhood behind me and went on to college, grad school, marriage and children.  I tried to be a good student, husband, and father, with mixed success.  I often felt the urge to cross-dress, but absolutely did not want to get caught, so I rarely indulged.

Things changed when my marriage fell apart.

First of all, I swore off being a "good" anything.  In my marriage, I'd tried to be what I thought I was supposed to be -- a good, non-patriarchal husband and father, all things to all people, etc. -- and it was on the way to killing me (literally) before I realized I needed to get out.  I needed to get in the habit of just being me, whoever that is.

Second, in order to get myself out of the house, I started going to Contra dances again, where I started seeing men in skirts.  I tried it myself (once we were separated) and liked it.  Once I realized nobody was going to kill me for wearing a skirt to a dance, I started to enjoy it.  The Contra dance is still the place I feel safest dressing as I like and being a less censored version of myself.

I started wearing skirts more and more, including around town, and noticed that nobody seemed to mind.  I noticed that I feel more "me" when I wear them, like I've taken off layers of heavy, uncomfortable armor.  I also noticed that I felt attracted to more feminine-looking clothes.  On the other hand, I'd never liked looking at my body, and wearing more feminine clothes made it more obvious that one big reason was that it was male.

I tried online men-in-skirts groups for a while.  However, most of the men there felt a need to make sure they looked masculine.  I stayed for a while, but since I don't have much use for masculinity and they didn't have much use for the styles I liked, we didn't have all that much in common.  I eventually got bored and stopped participating.

I tried a cross-dressing website, but it was dominated by M2F crossdressers who, for all their talk about their "feminine side,"  acted in a lot of ways like the kind of men who turned me off to masculinity in the first place.  Also, when I described how I present, I got a fair amount of abuse, which I've never gotten in off-line life.  So I decided it wasn't the place for me.

I still assumed I was just a cross-dresser or maybe "gender non-conforming" because I'd never felt like a "woman trapped in a man's body."  Nor had I felt this overwhelming urge to become a woman.  Then, about a year ago, I ran across Zinnia Jones' blog post That Was Dysphoria? It all sounded so familiar that I started wondering whether there was more to what was going on with me than just wearing feminine clothing.  I posted a comment describing how I felt and someone said the word for me was "non-binary."  They also suggested I check out susans.org .

So, here I am.  For the moment.

I'm non-binary in the sense that I don't identify at all as my assigned gender, but don't identify with any other one.  I also think I'm feeling body dysphoria, in that I feel like my body is ugly because it's male and think that I might like it better if it looked female.

But that's just how I feel today.  How I see myself has changed a lot in the past few years, and I expect it to change further.  I just have no clue exactly how it will change.

[Mark3]

Update & dilemma..

I'm doing pretty well I believe...
I've been posting a lot of NB & trans articles and info on my Facebook, that's where the majority of people I know are, even my real life friends are there.. (I have no family alive).. I just want everyone there to understand me, know about the changes I'm making on how I think of myself as NB...

At first I was ignored noticeably, then slowly thing's felt normal again with friends..? But I realize no one is daring to ask me questions about my changes, in fact a couple of my friends who I chat with often and feel are close friends, have ignored that subject all together when we chat and I say anything about it..?

I feel like my CIS friends still are friends, but only to a certain point, then they shut down and change the subject..? It may seem like a small thing, but I am a little hurt by there unwillingness to talk more deeply with me, as we always have...?

Its these types of experiences that I remember when a CIS person says trans is a choice, and I think, Who would choose something that would turn all your friends away, and make yourself an outcast..? You either have to laugh at them or cry, thankfully I can usually laugh at it all...

[Taka]

trans isn't a choice, though transition kind of is. it just isn't the same type of choice as you do when choosing the color of your dress, it's more like choosing between two evils... losing family or losing sanity...

your friends might be thinking that you're still the same guy (probably), and ignore the odd problem that they don't know how to deal with. i'm thinking it might be something of the same as telling you're bisexual, but will stay married to your spouse of the opposite sex. it might be a big deal to you, but is it to them?

i've personally concluded that being non-binary isn't something i want to discuss with my friends unless they actually ask. it's better for me to just be me, tell them the tiny little fact which i really don't want to be defining for our friendship, and let them experience me rather than having to explain me.

it was a big deal at first, i desperately wanted to talk to my friends about it. i really wanted that validation, knowing that i was me, and had a place in this society. but over time, this changed. being non-binary isn't some big news that i think the world needs to know and that i need to discuss. it's just me. and i don't really want it to be a big deal, my gender doesn't matter to anything else that i do. i'd rather be judged by my words and actions than who i am deep down. only a partner really needs to know what being non-binary really means for how i relate to my own body and a partner.

the philosophical discussion is something i'd like to do with an open minded friend though. it can be interesting to discuss if these things really are me, and if my thoughts about myself and the world make any sense. i've already discussed that a lot with ativan and others here though.

[Mark3]

Thanks Taka...

Yes, I guess I'm in that stage or place where I thought I wanted everyone to know, somehow that feels like a validation or something,
to verbally gain they're acceptance in this one thing..?
But you're right, it's really no ones business, like shouting to everyone about your sexuality, it's probably kind of silly.?

I do still want to educate people though, and keep posting things they will think about.. There was a topic here about "getting the word out"
that I really related to and wanted to help with, I guess that's my way of doing that...

It probably would be better to leave my own experiences out of it, and just make general info posts for everyone....

[Taka]

that would be the easier way at least.
educating people is a noble cause, but it can still be a little hard for people to get what you're trying to do if you stress your own identity too much...(?)
have you told people what it will mean for them that you are non-binary?
did you want different pronouns, to be called by a different name?
if not, they're probably very confused and hoping that you'll give them a little more information about how they should deal with the news.

my finest example of a great outing, was when i came out as a girl at some gay forum.
very open and nice community that had gathered around the quirkiest interests.
what i did right though, was to tell them not only that i'm a girl, but also that i'd still want them to just treat me like some random dude.
they did, and it was awesome.
(and that's where my serious gender confusion started, but that's a different story. kind of.)

[Dread_Faery]

I am still exploring things, I've come out to a friend as being non binary, but it don't know whether to make an announcement via Facebook... But I'm not sure I identify with the non binary genders Facebook allows you to choose in the uk.

[Kaelin]

As a single-digit age kid, I did some gender-nonconforming things (letting nails grow out a bit, borrowing my mom's house shoes along with my sister), but I usually didn't think much of it.

Around 11, I realized I liked some of my sister's dresses and skirts... not because they were hers, but because they looked nice.  I wish I had ones like them but was absolutely terrified to ask because of the strong gender associations.  I wore them without permission and got into trouble a lot, and my parents and myself took years before we were able to properly deal with it (and it wasn't until I explored the Internet and higher education to realize what I was feeling wasn't the most remarkable thing ever).  It was a scary time, especially since I was dealing with bullying in daycare during elementary age and also in middle/high school.

Granted, I was pretty certain I wasn't a woman or whatnot... the interest was purely from design.  Over a long period of time, I grew more comfortable with the idea and got to the point where I could buy stuff and wear stuff in certain non-private settings (including a dogma-free church).  I had even spent years here at Susan's, off and on.  I've had other gender nonconforming expressions and interests, but the clothes are really the only thing in myself that people ever get worked up about.

Around 20 years later, though, I realized that "bloke who happens to wear certain dresses sometimes" wasn't quite who I was, and I've transitioned in a non-binary area that still hugs closer to male than female.  After some hunting, a low-mid dose of injectable E has me where I am.

[Rowan]

My whole childhood, I was really "bad" at being a girl. I hacked my hair off numerous times, begged my parents for "boy clothes," and in general really preferred mud and swords to Barbie and Easy-Bake. My Mom recently posted a picture to FB that was a really great example- I was about 4 years old, Easter Sunday, and wearing the most AWFUL pink dress imaginable. I looked like I was being tortured.

As an adolescent, I always had the distinct feeling of being very uncomfortable in my body. My breasts were always in the way, and I did my best to hide them (and my widening hips) in baggy jeans and men's t-shirts. I found things considered "typical" for adolescent girls to be strange and foreign- makeup, giggling (what is up with that anyway?), heels, etc.... it all just felt WEIRD. I quit caring about most of it.

Then, strangely, I spent most of my twenties presenting very femme- high-fashion makeup, dresses, long curly hair, the works. I got married, had a kid, and then BAM- I got smacked in the face with some of the worst dysphoria I have ever experienced. So now I am trying to figure it all out. I'm sticking with Genderqueer, because I genuinely feel like I float around somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and present however I am feeling that day.

[Mark3]

I've felt very envious of some here this past week, actually for a lot longer..
Your intellectial abilities to understand almost every aspect of things going on here, and the behaviors of many of the different journeys being traveled is amazing, and I'm always so blessed and in awe by those gifts you have..
I know I will never understand many things here, not because I don't care, but bevause the too long list of meds i have to take each day keep my mind in what feels like a mild fog most of the time.. My concentration suffers greatly, and I'm reduced to simple posts and replies much of the time..
I know that some have noticed this, and perhaps many of my posts seem frustratingly simple minded and incomplete of substance, but in all honestly I'm lucky to be doing as well as I am, thanks to spell check and grammar check.. Its just felt like a very bad week so far...
I don't want any sympathy, or anyone feeling bad about me, I just say these things because they have felt like a huge setback to me, and affected how I interact in some of the more thought provoking topics..

This is current thoughts in my journey as the title states..

[Rowan]

Mark3, I think I know how you feel- sometimes trying to understand our own gender is extremely complicated, difficult, and painful. It takes a lot of mental power and emotional fortitude, and can leave us exhausted. Then we have no energy left to explain in understandable language to anyone else. If you add on to that life's other stressors and difficulties.... yeah. It's HARD.

Don't feel bad if you are having a hard time with this (never-ending) process. I think all of us struggle to define ourselves at some point.

[Taka]

mark, i find your simple posts very pleasant to read. apart from the excessive use of eclipses and question marks, they make you seem very insecure which in turn makes me worry about how you really are doing. not saying you shouldn't use them if that is how you feel, it just makes me worry a little and worry is never the most pleasant feeling.

some times, the best answers are found in the simplest thought. intellectual ability doesn't automatically make a person understand gender better, and can often serve to confuse more than help.

as for the last week, it should be over pretty much around right now. the week before you can see the new moon rise, is a very dark one. the darkness of the night is so profound, you'd be lucky to see anything at all. i've found that my mental state reflects the physical facts, and this is probably true for many others even i they aren't consciously aware of it. the time before full moon should get increasingly easy to bear.

[Dread_Faery]

I am ones of those guilty of using complex language and concepts, I have a degree level background in cultural studies and am active extensively in feminist spaces. I also have a huge and vested self interest in changing the way the world works and thinks about things like race, gender and ability. Is my understanding of gender inherently better than someone else's? Not really, I have no medical background and really I talk about the cultural implications of gender from the viewpoint of my politics. I'm an anarchist, a feminist and a radical queer.

If asked nicely I can break down concepts into more understandable language because I am privileged to have the education I do because it allows me to digest and understand things in ways that many people lack.

[Dread_Faery]

As for the last week, points have been made, a few tempers frayed and now change is building.

*puffs her chest out self importantly*

My work here is done 

[Mark3]

mark, i find your simple posts very pleasant to read. apart from the excessive use of eclipses and question marks, they make you seem very insecure which in turn makes me worry about how you really are doing. not saying you shouldn't use them if that is how you feel, it just makes me worry a little and worry is never the most pleasant feeling.

some times, the best answers are found in the simplest thought. intellectual ability doesn't automatically make a person understand gender better, and can often serve to confuse more than help.

as for the last week, it should be over pretty much around right now. the week before you can see the new moon rise, is a very dark one. the darkness of the night is so profound, you'd be lucky to see anything at all. i've found that my mental state reflects the physical facts, and this is probably true for many others even i they aren't consciously aware of it. the time before full moon should get increasingly easy to bear.

Lol, I just had to Google "eclipses", I had no idea that was actually a part of Grammar. I picked that habit up about 10+ years ago, doing these forum sites (different theme) and similar pages, just as a visual way to be unique. They must have covered that topic in an English class that I remember crushing on my teacher, and paid little attention to the lessons.
Oh thats for sure, using "?" is because of insecurity. I think I do that to subconsciously leave me a way out of a thought, like an excuse of uncertainty in case I'm disagreed with. It's kind of childish in a lot of ways.

I can understand your full moon analogy. I feel light shining through again, it feels good. One thing I seem to notice about this msg board, and group in general, is the highs and lows here are more extreme than usual in a group, and it's for some of us difficult not to get caught up in a whirlwind, that might usually only be a simple light breeze in other places.

I am ones of those guilty of using complex language and concepts, I have a degree level background in cultural studies and am active extensively in feminist spaces. I also have a huge and vested self interest in changing the way the world works and thinks about things like race, gender and ability. Is my understanding of gender inherently better than someone else's? Not really, I have no medical background and really I talk about the cultural implications of gender from the viewpoint of my politics. I'm an anarchist, a feminist and a radical queer.

If asked nicely I can break down concepts into more understandable language because I am privileged to have the education I do because it allows me to digest and understand things in ways that many people lack.

Haha, guilty as charged.! Just kidding, your thoughts are very spot-on and accurate with things going on, nothing at all wrong with that.
I may like to ask you to elaborate on a thought or topic now and then, so I can wrap my brain around it better.

As for the last week, points have been made, a few tempers frayed and now change is building.

*puffs her chest out self importantly*

My work here is done 

You may have next week off.! Go to a tropical island, be served drinks with umbrella's in them, and work on your tan on a lounge chair by the sea.

[EchelonHunt]

You may have next week off.! Go to a tropical island, be served drinks with umbrella's in them, and work on your tan on a lounge chair by the sea.

Mark3, I understand your concerns. I have memory issues and my cognitive functioning is mildly impaired from my years of severe alcohol abuse. As a result, writing posts for Susan's, especially long ones, it will take me several hours to make sure I get every paragraph correct, I will go over every sentence because I want to be absolutely sure that my message comes through loud and clear and that I hopefully, do not send the wrong message... Some days are better than others, some are worse.

I vote we create a Beach resort thread where everyone can go and relax! Could be a change of scenery from the forest (not that the forest is a bad thing)

I agree, Dread_Faery, thank you for creating that thread, it got a little out of hand in the beginning but thankfully it has calmed down. If you do drink, have a mojitio? I can't think of any good beach-y cocktails haha