Identity crisis -- help?

[:~)]

Hello everyone! Hope all is well.

I'm a teenager, about to graduate high school, and I really need help figuring out my gender identity. For privacy reasons, I'll keep my story and background short (and I suppose) trite. As a child, every once in a while would say something around the line of, "I want to be a girl." But these periods were often very short, and would not reoccur for months if not years; I also had a very strong interest in makeup (e.g.: painting my nails, the usual  ): Still true till this day.

I don't feel uncomfortable with my body, however. I am fine with my penis. I don't really want to transition in a physical, anatomical sense; I'd much rather just wear "feminine" clothes everywhere -- and grow out my hair, too. For a while, I was comfortable living as non-binary, but recently I have such a strong desire to identify as a certain (binary) gender.

(But, at the same time, I am not all that thrilled with my "masculine" identity. I don't really want it; I guess I'm just fine with it??? I'm such a paradox.)

It's consuming me. I'll go days cherishing that I am a woman (and I have no problem with that). But I'll also go days cherishing that I am a man (again, I have no problem with that). There's never any in-between; neither identity seems to coincide with each other, either.

ALSO: I have never been able to identify myself as a "gay man" -- that label just doesn't feel right. And, in general, I don't really feel apart of that community whenever I'm around a bunch of other self-identified gay men.

Does anyone here formerly or currently experience(d) the gender the same way? By the gist of this, do you think I am a woman? Would seeing a gender therapist actually be any help, or do all of them look at trans people solely in the rhetoric of, "I've never felt uncomfortable in my own body // when I transitioned the stars just suddenly aligned?" (Which not saying is a wrong way to experience gender, but that is definitely not my experience with it.)

Thanks in advance for any help!!! And, if no one's going to say it to you today, I LOVE YOU!!!

[stephaniec]

yes , most definitely I think a therapist will help organize your thoughts on the matter. It's helped me quite a lot.

[Dena]

Welcome to Susan's Place. You really haven't provide enough information for anybody to tell for sure what you are. A gender therapist could discuss this with you in more detail. At the moment it sounds like you are non binary but two or three identities come to mind. I am willing to talk with you more about this but for now I suggest you look at two links. The first is our Wiki where you will be able to review the binary and non binary options that you might fit into. The second is "the transition channel" where you will learn more about yourself from a therapist. Feel free to post your thoughts on this thread and I will respond when I can.

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[Ms DeeDee]

The second is "the transition channel" where you will learn more about yourself from a therapist.

I reviewed some of those videos before coming here.  I was kind of turned off by the definitions and attitude.  For example, they seemed to have a less inclusive definition of transgender and a predisposition towards a goal of transition.

Just my feeling.

Hugs,
DeeDee

[Dena]

I reviewed some of those videos before coming here.  I was kind of turned off by the definitions and attitude.  For example, they seemed to have a less inclusive definition of transgender and a predisposition towards a goal of transition.

Just my feeling.

Hugs,
DeeDee

I am not going to disagree with you on that point. I come from the transsexual side of things and when I transitioned transgender wasn't defined like it is today. It took me several months to puzzle out the transgender family and I would like to add more links to my collection about the non binary side of the transgender family.

I provide both links when I am not really sure where a person is. If they don't see themselves in the transition channel, they have eliminated the binary and can go deeper into the non binary.

[suzifrommd]

Welcome.

There is no one right or wrong way to be trans. Some of us are uncomfortable with our bodies. Some of us are uncomfortable with the social expectations of being male. Some of us are uncomfortable with both.

Many of us consider ourselves non-binary - that we're not cleanly one gender or the other, but a combination or some other gender entirely. There is a non-binary area here I encourage you to look at.

My gender therapist is fond of saying that it's not important to label ourselves, just to decide how we want to live.

[Ms DeeDee]

. . . it's not important to label ourselves, just to decide how we want to live.

I really like that, I don't see the point to labels, they're just a way to exclude someone in the end.

Hugs,
DeeDee