One name I like to go by is Jesse. I'm Female-Assigned-At-Birth. Due to genetics and whatnot I do have some more androgynous facial features, and through mid to late grade school my typical (& unconscious) choice in clothing and presentation would often have others flip-flopping on what to gender me as. I figured out I wasn't straight around the age of 12 or 13, identified with bisexual until I learned the term pansexual. I quite enjoyed when others obviously couldn't place my gender, and as long as I can remember I hated being automatically grouped with "the girls" because I never felt like one. Or not entirely one.
The past five/six years, if not more, I have been gradually presenting more and more femme. I have discovered great personal joy in the whole artistic presentation of getting the make-up, clothing, everything just right. But then again I love performance art, period. In some ways of course I have found it much easier to be read as female and feminine, but the longer and deeper it goes on the more it grates on me. I don't really remember why I started, or why I kept up with it, except perhaps the differences in how people both close and further out treated me. And the grating has been there, although variable in strength, for the entire time. Could never really place my finger on why.
Despite being rather familiar and well-versed in trans topics for a few years now, only a few months ago would I finally hit upon the thought of being androgyne. I think I did not connect trans concepts with myself for so long because I was stuck on the binary concept, and I am not a man. I am not a woman either.
There is some dysphoria with my body. My internal "female" organs I have never liked, since they made themselves known during puberty. I tend to flip-flop about my chest, I quite enjoy breasts and all that just never too sure if I enjoy having them or not. My hips, oh goodness my hips. I wish they were far more "boyish" and have often looked on in envy with those who have such a structure. Compliments on my "womanly curves" always leave me awkwardly searching for the words to describe what and why I was feeling... whatever. Some long-standing feelings that I should be more muscular, more powerfully built -- this might be attainable even with my body, I develop muscle more easily than some others of my assigned sex.
Between mind-set, how I tend to be treated by those close to me, and my general roles & interests in life... I'm pretty androgynous. My physical body and mode of dress are femme, woman, femme all the way though. And I'm finally admitting I'm tired of it and wish to change it to something more comfortable. For myself. Always for myself. This takes time and money, of course, and I am rather poor at this particular moment, but things will change. I try to view it as "fooling" everybody into thinking I'm a woman, trying to take pride in my art of deception. It really did take me many years to figure a lot of it out, and I still don't get a lot of stuff "right" whatever that means.
A lot of this is subject to change I guess. I do lots and lots of reading, the Angrogyne Talk portion of this place that is visible to the public has been an amazing resource. I currently enjoy any pronouns, but attempts to use gender-neutral ones or to avoid pronouns altogether are greatly preferred and much appreciated. Guess that's a lot easier on the Internet rather than in the physical world, where one could see and hear me.
Just trying to reach out to a few more communities or places where I can explore my self more fully.
