Finding balance

[Heita]

Hello you lovely people!

Maybe I'm just lost in a glass of water but I wonder if you can help me out with a little struggle that I have been dealing with for a while.

A couple of certainties that I have in life are that I have a biologically female body and that I am a man. I don't see my body as female, so I'm ok with that and I focus on giving it a more virile shape with training and diet (I'm a keen sportsman anyway), and I have socially transitioned in a very easy way, so I should probably not complain much.

However, I have uneasy feelings about the fact that I am a somewhat androgynous man, and I am afraid that allowing myself to be me will invalidate my gender identity. I feel so good when I am fully myself, and yet when I take a step back and analyse my way of life I start to think of the lack of "macho dude consistency" and that no one will understand that so that I'll be "stripped" of my identity if I allow myself to relax and just live. Please note that I only see myself as a male, not genderqueer or fluid. The feminine things that I like in myself are special exactly because they come from a man, it's a manly touch at feminine things.

So I want to tell you what bothers me and see what you think of it.

Body-wise I love long hair, don't want to have a beard, and like my full range soprano voice (I am trained in singing and usually have a lower voice for speaking). I also have some feminine pose when resting and strive for elegance, and sexually I like having an additional option, being a very passive gay man. I also don't want to be totally flat, but to have developed pecs. All of that in a muscular body with broad shoulders and a flat bottom with hopefully more prominent genitals.

Behaviourally speaking is where I have the most conflict, because I love refined things, elaborated textiles, I dearly love dancing (male ballet and male k-pop choreographies), and go to thermal baths for mud treatment. I'm also a lacrosse player and a martial artists, but I also like the gothic-metal concept of having black eyeliner and chrome black nail polish like the cello metal players in the band Apocalyptica.

I only wear male clothes and like masculine fragrances, but I find very sexy the whole citrus family of smells. I always identify with male characters and my friends are almost all boys since always, and yet I watch female artistic and sometimes rhythmic gymnastics and I like some j-pop, k-pop and metal female songs. The last stroke is that I have a "kawaii" reaction to many cute things, like a brown labrador puppy named Sacher after the chocolate cake (I'm still kawaii-ing about that a week after meeting him).

So? What do I make of it? 

[Dena]

You paint a complex picture but it appears you are non binary close to the masculine binary. The one problem with being in the non binary is there aren't enough labels to describe every  possible combination that can exist. I also think you should be very careful when consideration testosterone but instead should alter your life in whatever way makes you feel comfortable and forget about looking for a label.

If you haven't already done so, you should explore the non binary section of the site and you may find others who feel much like you.

[Elis]

I don't see why liking feminine things would make you nb. Men throughout history wore what we'd today consider feminine stuff but they only thought of themselves as men. IMO nb is an innate feeling that you're not binary coupled with a need to not be seen as binary. You just seem like a regular feminine guy; which is no longer unusual nowadays. Lots of cis men wear feminine clothes and have manicures or facials or whatever and it doesn't invalidate their gender identity. And some guys have feminine mannerisms (most being straight) which again doesn't invalidate their gender identity. Just do what makes you happy

[arice]

I don't see why liking feminine things would make you nb. Men throughout history wore what we'd today consider feminine stuff but they only thought of themselves as men. IMO nb is an innate feeling that you're not binary coupled with a need to not be seen as binary. You just seem like a regular feminine guy; which is no longer unusual nowadays. Lots of cis men wear feminine clothes and have manicures or facials or whatever and it doesn't invalidate their gender identity. And some guys have feminine mannerisms (most being straight) which again doesn't invalidate their gender identity. Just do what makes you happy

I agree with every word of this.

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[Reyes]

lol, what I make of it is you're human.

Like Elis said up above, what you like doesn't mean anything, you like all of that, so you just like all of that. I doesn't effect your gender. If you only see yourself as male and nothing else, then that's what you are. Especially if these worries are as strong as you say, you're just worried you're not exactly who you've discovered you love being, and your brain is leeching off that to try and drive you crazy.

Trust me, I go through something similar with my sexuality. I know I'm a lesbian, 100 percent. Thinking about having sex with guys does literally nothing for me except make me feel unsettled, plus to me the male body is just nausea inducing, all the hair and mannishness and //shivers in distaste

Anyway, my point is, even being sure of this, ever since I read that for some people their sexuality can change when on hrt, which only happens if somethings there already, buried maybe, I've been worried it would happen to me. Worried because I do not at all want to be with a guy, I mean I can not stress enough how much I personally do not want to. And my mind knows this, and keeps going, but what if you will, but what if you will.

But that's all it is, your mind screwing with you because it knows your worried about that. You enjoy all these things, and you know without a doubt that you are only male. So that's all there is to it. Enjoy what you want, it doesn't matter if you think it invalidates your gender identity, because it doesn't. You know who you are, that's all that matters.

Sorry for rambling, I kinda do that sometimes. :3

[Thea]

If you were asking for my advice, I would say, just be yourself. Labels are society's handles used to control us and force us to conform. They are of no use to free thinkers who don't fit the cookie cutter mold.

[Juliefin]

Hi Heita,

Ulimately, you define yourself as you see fit. Being comfortable in being masculine makes you a guy. It's ok to have certain interests whether they are considered masculine or feminine. What you need to be aware of is that the way you define yourself internally may be inconsistent with the way you will be defined externally by society due to certain expectations of gender. But feel free to be yourself and to push those boundaries. In the end, do/feel/behave in the way that makes you happy. And hopefully those that know and respect you will also gender you as male the way you want to be.

[Amanda_Combs]

I think that sounds a whole lot like me if you just reverse the male and female.  I am a girl who is mostly accepting of her male body.  I keep a fit slim body and it feels mostly like my own (The one big exception is those nice boobs I don't have.)  So even though I have some nerdy hobbies that can seem male, and I do like girls, I'm generally pretty good at accepting myself as female.   I wear exclusively female clothing outside of work, I have nicer hair that my mother, love cute stuff, and even apply make up freqquently.  So it's a big irritation when the people closest to me (many of whom have discussed my gender at length) will just dudebro me.  My point is I really feel that I relate to your confusion and/or irritation.  The best coping mechanism I've found is to tell myself that classifying my gender doesn't even matter as long as I'm doing the things I want to.

[Heita]

Thank you all for sharing your opinions! Amanda_Combs, I hear what you say. Ok, I'll try to be me and let be it.

Probably the weak point in my confidence is that in case of doubt people will cast a judgment based on my biology. A lot of my role models are very androgynous guys, but they can girl around the way they want and if contested as in "you're no man at all!" they have a, uhm, well, convincing proof to shut everyone up with. I don't. And I'm just afraid that it invalid the whole of me. I even wanted my chromosomes tested in search of hope. Like Amanda I am mostly accepting of my anatomy, it's just that I don't want it to be used as evidence t against me...

[Elis]

Thank you all for sharing your opinions! Amanda_Combs, I hear what you say. Ok, I'll try to be me and let be it.

Probably the weak point in my confidence is that in case of doubt people will cast a judgment based on my biology. A lot of my role models are very androgynous guys, but they can girl around the way they want and if contested as in "you're no man at all!" they have a, uhm, well, convincing proof to shut everyone up with. I don't. And I'm just afraid that it invalid the whole of me. I even wanted my chromosomes tested in search of hope. Like Amanda I am mostly accepting of my anatomy, it's just that I don't want it to be used as evidence t against me...

I think this is just something we trans people have to get used too. Slowly people are realising that we're simply born this way; even if they don't understand the science behind it. People slowly learned that being gay was something you're born as; so there's some hope for us; even it seems like it's taking an excruciatingly long time.

And yeah; I'd love to get my chromosomes tested; but it's extremely unlikely I'm intersex because I've looked up all the different intersex conditions and I don't fit into any of them

[Maria77]

Heita,

I think we all are a little like you.  As tranz people we are (mainly)  socialized as one thing, but know we aanther.  So i think that it's pretty normal that we are very complex humans-maybe more so than cis people.