Hello everyone! I've been reading up a lot on the topic of gender identity lately, partly out of curiosity but mainly to figure out where I stand, and I have to say it's a rather confusing topic. I joined this site in the hopes that perhaps having the chance to talk with people in the trans community may shed some light on all this confusion and help me get a better idea of where exactly I stand.
I was born female, and grew up not questioning that. As a young child, I liked all the stereotypical girly stuff - you know, princesses, dresses, glitter, ponies, and so on. My parents didn't try to force girly stuff on me; I just ended up liking it anyway. I did grow out of my girly-girl phase, though, so perhaps I just learned from seeing other girls around me that "These are things that girls like, and I am a girl, so I should like these things." Regardless, I didn't feel like I was trying to force myself to like things I didn't or just pretending to like certain things to fit in. I had no issue with it. Also, despite being a girly-girl, most of my close friends as a kid were boys. I actually tended to get along better with the boys than with the girls.
When I was a bit older but still a child, I started drifting away somewhat from the stereotypical girly stuff - not to feel rebellious or anything, but just because I was realizing that girls can like "boy" things too and I allowed myself to follow my own interests more. However, it did feel a bit "scandalous", for lack of a better word, to admit I liked "boy" things such as racing games. Basically, at this point, I didn't care as much about whether something was a "girl" thing or a "boy" thing, but those stereotypes were definitely still ingrained in me.
So, I sound like a normal girl so far, right? Fast-forward to the age of... 15, I think? I'd assumed up to that point that I was straight, until I started realizing things that made me call that into question. Many girls looked attractive. Did that mean I was really bisexual? I'd never had a crush on a girl, though - only on guys - so did that mean I was just straight? Now, when I say "girls looked attractive", I mean girls with their clothes on. The thought of seeing a girl naked did not appeal to me, though it was less repulsive than the thought of seeing a guy naked. That added to my confusion and frustration. When I "came out" to my parents as questioning whether I was straight or bi, though, my mom told me it's normal for girls to question their sexuality at some point in their lives and that finding girls appealing doesn't necessarily mean I'm bi. Not too long after that, while reading up more on sexual orientations online to try to figure myself out, I came across the topic of asexuality and realized that I was actually asexual. That also helped me understand why I was so confused about my sexuality - I found people of both sexes aesthetically appealing but didn't experience the sexual attraction that normally helps differentiate between "good-looking" and "physically attractive".
Anyway, back to the topic of gender. I think it was when I was 17 that I learned there was more to gender than just the binary "male" and "female". I started wondering on and off throughout the next year or so whether I was something non-binary or just female, since I didn't feel that being a girl was a significant part of my identity by this point. I read up a lot on various non-binary identities and wondered if any of them fit me. Was I genderqueer? Agender? Androgyne? Neutrois? Demigirl? Female-GQ genderfluid? There were so many different identities, and none of them had definitions that were clear and understandable to me, but I didn't want to label myself incorrectly. I tried looking up why trans people say they "feel" they are the gender they identify as but couldn't find anything comprehensible to me. I also wondered if perhaps I was just a normal cisgender female since I did not experience gender dysphoria.
After I quit tumblr, I decided all that gender questioning was dumb and was the result of spending too much time on tumblr, since a lot of people there enforce the idea that, if you don't fit into the stereotypical roles for male or female, then you're *insert some other gender identity here*.
Over time since then, though, I've developed the view that, not only are most (if not all) gender roles arbitrary, the entire concept of gender is just a social construct that's unnecessary and sometimes even harmful. A great deal of critical thinking about this caused me to realize that it seemed contradictory to hold gender-abolitionist views yet refer to myself as a girl (despite not feeling that had any bearing on who I am as a person), so I decided I should drop that label.
Currently, I don't label myself as a girl... or as anything. I don't mind being seen as or referred to as a girl, though; I just don't refer to myself that way. In fact, I don't really care what gender people assume I am (even when I was younger and considered myself to be a girl, I never cared when people mistook me for a boy). I don't mind what pronouns people use to refer to me, though I do like the thought of people referring to me as "they", since it's gender-neutral. I like the thought of being seen and referred to in a non-gendered way. My gender presentation for quite awhile has varied mainly between gender-neutral and feminine, depending what I feel like wearing on a given day. I don't feel any need to avoid presenting myself in a feminine way, though I also believe that nothing should be considered 'masculine' or 'feminine' and prefer thinking of the way I dress as being a human wearing 'human' clothes, without regard for the gender they're typically associated with (I do sometimes feel like I'd prefer to appear more androgynous so people are less likely to make assumptions about my gender, though then I remember that would be reinforcing the idea that many clothes are considered either 'masculine' or 'feminine', which I don't like). I don't feel any desire to change my name (which is a traditionally female name), though my view on names is the same as on clothes - we should consider anything to be for anyone rather than assigning certain names (or clothes) to certain genders.
I had the realization today that it seems my identity (or lack thereof) seems to place me as being neither cisgender or transgender, which seems contradictory. If I don't identify as female, then I'm not cis. That much is simple. I don't feel I can properly identify as trans either, though. I don't identify as a gender other than female; I just consider gender to be irrelevant to my identity. I don't experience gender dysphoria - again, probably because I consider gender to be irrelevant to who I am. That led me to google "is it possible to be neither cisgender nor transgender", through which I discovered
this thread on this site. This definition of androgyne seemed to fit me; it appears to include people who just don't feel gender is relevant to who they are, and there was no mention of feeling gender dysphoria. The person who posted it also states in their signature that, because they are an androgyne, they are "neither cisgender nor transgender", which does give one person's perspective on whether or not it's logical to consider oneself to be neither. I still have this persistent feeling that labeling myself as an androgyne (or agender, genderless, or gender non-conforming) would still be slapping a gender label on myself, contradicting my belief that gender is irrelevant. I also don't know whether it'd be appropriate to consider myself nonbinary or not. Is it possible to consider myself nonbinary (since I don't identify with a binary gender) but not transgender (since I don't feel my gender doesn't match my physical sex, just that gender isn't relevant to me)?
I don't know. I'm confused. If anyone read all this long rambling about stuff, congrats. You deserve a medal.
