I'm bi-gendered

[Thebothofus]

hey there. i've never posted here before and there's no bi-gendered section, so i'll give it a shot.
i'm a bi-gendered girl (i'm young) and i'm not sure how to handle it. i know i'm bi-gendered as opposed to, say, just bisexual (i am, although i prefer girls just a little more) or someone who wishes to be more androgynous. it's a little hard to explain, but i'll try.
i have two 'personalities', so to speak. i can switch from my masculine to my feminine at will, but he will generally present himself when he feels like it. my boy self has his own name (it's evan), his own likes and dislikes, and his own way to which he reacts to certain situations. it's like my personality was cut in half and split into two genders. i'm biologically female, but i can feel very much male when i want to. i don't tell people because i'm afraid they'll think i'm crazy. evan has existed for as long as i can remember, but he didn't become a prominent part of my life, or even have a real name, until about a year ago. i love this part of myself but i don't know how i should live my life. my feminine self likes my medium-length growing hair, but "evan" would like my hair to be more androgynous. when we switch back and forth, it seems like i'm being moody, but i'm just doing what feels natural to me.
even if you're not bi-gendered, can you give me some advice? no one but my girlfriend knows i'm bi-gendered so i can't exactly talk to my friends, and i really don't want to talk to my family. thank you in advanced.

[Janet_Girl]

Hi Thebothofus,

Welcome to our little family. Over 3600 strong. That would be one heck of a family reunion.

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Blessed Be.
Janet

[Thebothofus]

thank you so much it's comforting to find other people like me!

[Nicky]

It's tough, in a way from evans perspective he probably feels a bit like a ftm. But you are also a girl at the same time so there has to be compromises. I think the best thing you can do is have conversations with yourself and nut out your needs. Allow Evan his boy time, allow you your girl time. Approach it as a partnership. You probably have your own skills you can add to the mix depending on the situation. Use this to your benefit. Be allies against the world.

As a 'girl' you do have the benefit of having a greater freedom of dress. So you can have your 'tom boy' days and other days where you get femed up. Other days you guys might decide to do a mix. Just make sure you talk it out, make deals with eachother.

There are some really cool androgynous styles that you can fem up or make more masculine. That could be something to consider. This might be one of those compromises to keep eachother happy.

In the future you may want to decide whether you 'come out' and what you want to achieve by this. I've known other bigenders where each persona had their own circle of friends.

We used to have a fairly promenant bigender member called Marq and Mia (male bodied). You could do a search for their profile and have a look at their posts. They had some interesting things to say that might give you some insight. Some bigender members in the past used different colors to represent whether it was one or the other talking or the collective. If that catches your fancy you could try that.

Nice to meet you!
and nice to meet you!

xx

Oh I got it wrong, it was Mia and Marq
You can view all their posts here:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=2054

[Thebothofus]

thank you so much. :] i really appreciate all the help.

[Kendall]

I was interested to read your post. I do not know how much help I can be, but I appreciate seeing someone else considering similar confusions. I also feel both female and male. My situaiton is different, however. For one, I am old. (Although my self awareness feels young). I am proud to be old; I survived cancer. I was given a gender neutral name: Kendall. I was born physically male, but I have met more female "Kendall"s of all ages than male. I am trying to find a balance of male and female in a world that looks at me and sees male. I do not know who that stranger in the mirror is. From my years of will-full ignorance and the pain that causes, I congratulate you on getting a jump on finding your dynamic and creative living balance.

I have heard that the journey is the destiny, so we might as well enjoy it.

[Calistine]

 Im ftm and I identify as bigender sometimes. Gender isnt as black and white as society makes it. But welcome. This site should help you.
As Nicky said you can be gender fluid. But since you and Evan seem like two different people you seem to be describing dissociative identity disorder.

[Nicky]

You don't have two personalities.

Do you mean Kendall? I agree they are not describing the same thing as Thebothofus. If you mean Thebothofus I think you need to respect their self identification. This is just as valid as everything else.

It does bear some similarities to dissociative identity disorder - but it does not have to be. Some people call it a constructive collective in which case it is not exactly a disorder at all. That sort of thing is a disgnoses I don't think anyone of us are qualified to apply.

Some bigenders are people that simply switch from one poll to the other, others do have distinct personalities. I guess if you just had two identities that matched your body you would not have any gender issues at all. I guess what makes it relevant here is where one or more personalities don't match the body they are in.

[Calistine]

Thats why I edited what I wrote. I realized that maybe its just easier to describe their fluidity that way. After dealing with two close friends with DID im just skeptical -_-

[Thebothofus]

I see what you're saying, but it's not DID. if it was DID, my 'identities' wouldn't be aware of each other. i would switch back and forth and these periods would be periods of blankness (ie. it would seem i was 'waking up' in different places without knowing why). i can feel myself transitioning into my male phases and back into my female ones. it's a very conscious thing. also, DIDs typically have several, if not many, very distinctive personalities. i only have evan, who is just my male counterpart.

[Shana A]

Hi Thebothofus, welcome to Susan's! There has previously been lots of discussion in the androgyne forum of bi-gender, so check the archives.

Z

[Nicky]

Definitly Mia and Marq were very similar to how you have described it.

[Sevan]

Hey Thebothofus! I'm Sevan (Sara+Evan=Sevan). We're also bigendered (and curiously my male is Evan as well!!!) We're female bodied and have been doing some play with sharing space and how to keep everyone as happy as possible. In an effort to compromise we cut the hair short Aline so that I can tuck the longer parts up into a hat when fully dressed as Evan, or leave it down for a girly look. Works for us pretty well. Make sure to allow plenty of time for communication...I found the more room I gave Evan to breath, and "be" the more he became part of me. We're still not fully intergrated...still feel bigendered and seperate enough...but we've found a pretty decent balance. It always feels like Evan is looking over my shoulder. Kinda nice. Never alone. Anyway...welcome!

[kyle_lawrence]

I've never thought to describe myself using the term bi-gendered, but after reading this it totally makes sense that I could be.  I've always thought of myself as a masculine genderqueer in a female body, sometimes venturing into FTM territory.  At the same though, I've really had 2 seperate identities.  Each has separate friends, and a slightly different personality. Other times though, like when I'm at home by myself, I'm both and neither at the same time.

Kyle is my male identity, and is more social and fun.  He is popular in the Chicago queer club scene, and is in an open relationship with his girlfriend.   Most of Kyles friends know he has a second identity, but only a select few were friends with Miranda first.

Miranda is my female identity and is the more "official" of the two.  Miranda has a job and goes to school, and her friends don't really know about Kyle, even though she wears a binder sometimes. Miranda is into punk and hardcore shows, and goes to basement shows.  Miranda is single, but respects Kyle's open relationship with his girlfriend.

It's weird how easily I can switch back and forth between the two, and the whole conscious decision that goes on over which identity to be in a situation.  Like going into a cafe or something where they ask your name, I have to decide which to give. Or meeting people, who do I want to introduce myself as, which group of friends am I more likely to be with if I ever see them again, and how queer friendly does the space feel?

There was one time when I was going out with my roommate (Who mostly knew Miranda, but knew about Kyle and was cool with him) to meet up with Kyle's girfriend and some other friends.  On the way to the bar I was like, "BTW, I'm Kyle tonight".  Wasn't an issue at all, but its always weird with personalities overlap.

[disdwarf]

Hi and welcome, I'm male-bodied 28years old MTF (female at heart) pre-transition. I realized I'm female pretty recently, about 6 months ago. In the beginning of my realization I was feeling somewhat like you:

Just before my realization I felt something like "feminity" waking up within myself, so I was saying "hey I've got a female side as well". The feeling got more intense and I started seeing myself as bi-gender, and my gender-mood moved between male and female, but not exactly different personalities. Soon I had what I call a "female explosion", during which I understood I'm a female trapped in a male body, but I still thought of myself as having androgynous characteristics. My bigender feelings stopped and I became something like a genderfluid female, or a female with short spans of masculine moments. Gradually the masculine moments became less and less... and now I can see I'm just a female, a girlie girl, and everything I was feeling as androgyny or bigenderism was nothing more than interference from my testosterone poisoning and the fake male persona I had built all these years to survive in society.

So, for me, my bigender phase was just an early "war" between my female true self and my fake male persona. And the female inner self won because only the truth has the true power:)

[Laura Nin]

I know a person who is exploring their male self and seems to be pretty happily bi-gendered.  Where it will lead is a good questio but I will direct them  to this site.

[justmeinoz]

I was in "bloke" mode today, didn't feel very feminine at all.  Earlier in the week I definitely did, so it's not unique.  There seems to be no trigger for it that I have noticed so far.

[Jhenry]

Its interesting to hear from people what it is like to be bi-gendered. Most trans people I know say that you are either one or the other and the Bi-gender feeling is like disdwarf said, just a fake persona that fits better with your sex. I believe that we are all either one true gender or the other. But there are deffinately ways different people cope with being trans. Maby you just appretiate parts of your feminine personality that you would like to hold onto, there's no problem in that. But I have never been a fan of dealing with multi personalities. We are who we are and I think its healthier to come to an exeptance of that sooner rather than later.

All the best 

[clare aston]

J. Henry makes the perfectly valid point that we are who we are; i do not believe, however that that is a valid reason not to experiment, not to question, not to FEEL and breath the air of a different world.
All this means is that we feel the influences and constraints of environment and upbringing - and that there are times when we feel that we do not belong in their stranglehold - as humans we have the power to be something else, to shift our identity - and to revel in the 'otherness'.
Perhaps all this is about rites of passage and lifespan issues, and about a complex organism dealing with change in its own unique way - so lets have an adventure - and see what happens! I certainly am!

Clare xx

[ffern]

I think bi gender is what, if i had to lable it, (or were if you're calling it a spectrum) i most identify with. um sort of, some days or situations i feel  more comfotable in boy mode, and even want to show off my guyness (not literally , dont get to excited/worried ) and others i revel in my feminity and want to be even more um feminine or just feel more relaxed with it. and other times ill hover inbetween .  i guess i see it as choosing the aspects that make me feel most comfotable and happy to express at that time