Hello there,
I'm not really sure where to even start with this post, but I'll just dive right in. I was assigned female at birth, came out as an FTM in high school after being told I "had to be a man or a woman in society" by the adults I confided in (much longer story lol), went on testosterone, went off of testosterone, then came out again as Agender/Third Gender/Gender Neutral, and recently started back on T to resolve some gender dysphoria I've been having.
Growing up I always felt very torn between masculinity and femininity, and typically found myself floating towards wanting to be male and masculine all of the time because I hated how girls were told to be a certain way, and how a lot of the awesome women/girl characters in the media I see now didn't exist when I was developing. While I always felt more comfortable in gender neutral and masculine gender expressions, I felt really left out and envious of many cis-female peers - I was angry at being categorized with all the ->-bleeped-<-ty sexist crap associated with being socialized as a girl, but I was also upset and envious of girls who were able to express femininity (or a conventional concept of femininity) with ease. Whenever I met other "tomboy" type girls growing up, I felt like I was part of a secret club, and like there was finally people like me (although this only happened twice). I have had very hyper-feminine periods of gender expression, but usually cannot last long presenting that way because I feel more comfortable being gendered as male or neutral.
So now I'm at this point where I know I feel upset when I'm gendered as "she" in public, I feel validated when people call me "he" or "they", I feel like being on testosterone is the right choice for me at this time, but I don't think I will ever feel like a man. I definitely do not feel like a woman, yet I identify with a lot of struggles that women face in society despite constantly feeling like I also don't belong in female-only spaces. Does anyone else feel like they want to be apart of male or female spaces, but feel they never can do so? How do you deal with those feelings?
This really came up for me the other day when I read the first volume of the Lumberjanes (kick-ass comic series), and identified with a lot of the characters (who are all girls). I almost feel like if I had grown up with characters and worlds like that of the Lumberjanes, maybe I wouldn't feel as inclined to gravitate towards being gendered as male now.