My Gender Dial Is Out of Tune

[StormBrew]

Over the last few months, and really the last few years, I've been trying to cope with my gender. I was born male and ever since I was little have been obsessed with cross dressing. The problem is i'm not sure if i'm transgender or not. I do love feminine things like dresses, make up, ect., but I also have a nagging feeling towards my male self. Right now I'm in high school and want to be cheer leader. That said, I've been a martial artist for several years and have trained with a male mindset. The best way I can describe my scenario is that I have a dial. Some days that dial is cranked all the way pink, other days all the way blue. Sometimes it's in between, and so forth. I guess really what i'm looking for is closure. I need to know what I can do to make myself happier and healthier. Already I've told some friends i'm a cross dresser, but I would really like some guidance. Thank you so much for reading this, and thank the creator of this site even more for having a place for trans people to ask these questions.

[suzifrommd]

Sounds very much like me when I was first trying to figure things out. Some things to think about:

* You can be part male and part female. There are a lot of people here whose gender is non-binary.
* You can be female and yet do a lot of typically male things like study martial arts but also do typically female things like wear dresses and make-up. Tons of women are like that.
* You can be female "at the core" and still feel like a male because of living your whole life (up until now) as a male.

My gender therapist encourages me not to label my gender. That can be an exhausting and ultimately fruitless journey.

Instead, I was encouraged to figure out how I wanted to live. Did I want a male or a female name? Did I want a male or female body? Did I want people to see me as female or as male? Those questions were a lot easier to answer. I wanted to be a woman.

[Deborah]

There is gender identity and then beyond that most everything else overlaps.  There is no such thing as a solely male interest or a solely female interest.  People are all complex and nobody really knows how all the complexities of the mind work anyway.  So, throw away the stereotype ideas.  Do what you like to do and make your happiness.


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[Dena]

The word transgender is a catch all including almost everything related to discomfort  with ones gender. The fact that you are here and asking questions indicates you are transgender. The question you may be asking is were do I fit in. From your post, I can't say for sure where you fit in and a gender therapist would help you figure this out. For now, I am going to give you two places to look. The first is WiKi that will show you the many variations that are called transgender. If you don't find an exact match, don't worry because there may be other things that haven't been included in the list. Youtube has a series called "the transition channel" that will walk you through the diagnosis process and may help you explore yourself. If you still have questions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

[purplewuggybird]

It is totally 100% okay to not be a girl or a boy in a binary sense but to be gender neutral, gender fluid, agender, non-conforming, the list goes on. There are literally hundreds of identities that people have found for themselves, and most are not binary. It might be good to google some and maybe explore the world of bin-binary gender, or maybe you are trans, or a cross dresser, that is for you to decide. I would just recommend googling around.


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[SgtSalt]

I feel like being transgender/gender variant/etc is incredibly hard sometimes because we completely understand that not everyone fits nicely into labels and yet have the most pressure to do so to be taken seriously and because we're told we must. When I started identifying as trans, I took baby steps and if I felt like my identity changed, my identity changed. If one day you feel like you're 100% a girl and you call yourself as such and then the next day feel like you're only 20% girl and don't call yourself as such, it's completely alright. There are identities that fall along the nonbinary spectrum that you can take your pick from and you're never wrong for realizing one day that you're a different identity from what you thought you were. It's really a gradual process. Do whatever makes you comfortable.