androgynes: your birth gender/dysphoria?

[rite_of_inversion]

I was thinking about how my attempts to become more androgynous-because to do anything else made my brain itch horribly-have made me look rather like a boy without a beard... especially when not dressed for work.

Ironic, since I'll be approaching the big four-oh soon...

That and someone else's post on a different board have got me to thinking...what's gender dysphoria like for us?

I can tell you I've never been happy as a woman, but I'm almost certain I'd be unhappy as a man...they get a lot of gender-based nonsense as well.   What I want is to be a person, to be attractive without it being necessarily attributable to one or the other gender, to not be pigeonholed into a sex role either way.  I'd like to be at home with myself, and maybe with others as well.
I do know from my single days I don't like to be pursued in the dating sphere.  It bugs me.  I prefer to be the ->-bleeped-<-.

But that's social.  What about my body?  My body isn't too bad, really...by that I mean my body tends to androgyny. I'm heavily built and small in the chest puppies. I might get them made even smaller, but it's not a big(heh) priority.  I might think about hormones-at some nebulous point in the future.
I want muscles. I'm slowly getting them. I would like to tone some flab, lose a little more weight...but I think that's most people. Ambiguous genitalia is a wish, but they don't custom grow you new naughty bits in a jar, so I likely will keep the factory installed equipment.

What I'm having difficulty figuring out is how to become comfortable with my self-presentation ATM...and I wish I didn't have to make my own map through the maze, but I do.

Anyway, thoughts, feelings, questions, answers?

[Jaimey]

Hmm.  Well, for me, dysphoria for me comes more from being around super-cisgendered people.  I'm just not comfortable with people who fall into the more stereotypical social roles that are set by society/media/culture.  Hopefully, I will successfully lose weight this year and be able to pull off a more androgynous look, but it honestly doesn't matter that much to me right now (looking androgynous, that is...I have bigger fish to fry, I guess you could say).  Also, I'm really uncomfortable with people who expect me to fall into the stereotypical female role just because I happen to have tits.  Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with myself.  It's those rules and expectations that really get to me (and I'm a little contrary by nature, so yeah).

[Kinkly]

for the most part the gender dysphoria is based on the social aspects and being restricted to only one group of acceptable behaviours, likes and dislikes  many of which felt unnatural to me
I hate how itchy it gets down there and I never enjoyed masturbation and hated erections that came without reason if somebody was talking about something that sounded good and my boy bits stood up I'd feel really weird that never happened with anything related to sex or nudity. but I was told to believe that I was supposed to want sex more then anything as "that's all guys think about" my understanding of the plumbing (wast disposal) difference I'd prefer the female version and the options for changing to the other side would probably be worse then what I have now as far as control and funcion.
I also have body dysphoria related to parts of my body not working the way they should because of my medical problems.
I hate looking at my body knowing that what it looks like determins how people will treat me.
I'm in this body but this body isn't me.

[Alex201]

Well for me....being gender fliud..sometimes I think I'm fine with my body and on other days I wanna go crazy and chop my breasts off.  I get dysphoric alot in relationship settings. When I notice I am being forced into the " girlfriend role" I get really upset and angry as I am much happier being seen as a boyfriend, then feel like my body betrays me because I am lacking certain...err..." equitment". But the confusing thing is I still like makeup and stuff....but would rather be seen as a boy.So yeah...I'm a confused mess.

[Jaimey]

Alex201, I feel your pain.  Pretty much the same boat, although I have made peace with my body (there will be no chopping off of the breasts...though I thought about it quite a bit when I was younger). 

[shelly]

Well for me, while i was trying to sort out  who or what i was i tried to compare myself to others around me, it seemed like being male was all about beer, cars, fighting and cheating on partners, well thats a million miles away from being me, but then again ive been treated really bad by some girlfriends in the past, being constantly lied to or being cheated on, so therefore why do i feel as if i am 60% female. Of course there is always an exception to the rule and while i will admit to looking at women wishing i could be like them normally just for the clothes they are wearing of the size of their boobs, i look at my wife and think if i could be female, then its her i'd like to be, apart from the fact that would mean being married to me, well that just couldnt happen lol

[Lexine]

I've thought about this for a long time, as long as I've actually accepted that I was trans.

At first, I thought that I could only be either or: male or female. Because of this, I accepted the idea of having a male life and a female life, each independent of each other. It was rather difficult to have two separate lives that never overlapped, and it was taking a toll on me.

I then began to take a look at the importance of presenting as either in my life and tried to see if there was any sort of reason as to why I needed to continue presenting exclusively as either gender. The reasons were very fickle, so I started examining my personality and what separates me from other people of each gender.

I found out that, despite my family's best efforts, that I have blended the qualities of both men and women as I've grown up. I can be strong and assertive as a man, but I can also be emotional and understanding as a woman. I then went back to the drawing board and re-examined my rationale and what would be better for me, as presenting as one gender became increasingly trivial.

My sexuality was only mildly in question. I had experimented with people with the same birth gender as I and found my experiences with them to be dissatisfying. So in that sense, I am straight. However, I can kiss someone of the same birth gender as I and disassociate the action from its implied meaning, which not a lot of people can do.

In the end, I realized that I am a unique individual who's able to embrace being both genders at the same time at any given time. I can't conform to a social standard because there is no social standard for androgynes, and who's to say that I have to anyway? My work accepts my new fashion, as they see it, and I can use either my male or female voice to present appropriately depending on social situations.

As far as my birth gender goes, well, that's a mystery

[rite_of_inversion]

I can't conform to a social standard because there is no social standard for androgynes

Oddly enough, that's part of my problem. No blueprint. You'd think this would be a good thing, right?  But instead I feel oddly constrained and behaviorally adrift.

Almost anything that's explicitly girly bugs me right now-there goes most of my jewelry, half my wardrobe...but if I look too guylike, I feel like I'm ignoring the other more-than-half of me
Right now this translates as dressing like a guy, moving like a woman.

I'm wondering if other androgynes typically dress/act to emphasize their "other" gender-that being the one they feel between their ears-rather than the gender associated with the sex they see in their skirts/trousers?

[crazyandro]

Rite of Inversion:  Yes!  I was just thinking the same thing.  Being read as my birth sex really bugs me right now, perhaps because I'm so OD'd on it, or maybe I just need to emphasize the opposite qualities to draw attention away from the things my body is doing.

[kyle_lawrence]

I've been trying to answer this myself for years, and still havn't been able to.  I hate having a female body, and voice, and being treated as female, and everything else that goes along with having a female body really.  I get super anxious if im not binding in public, and get angry when people call me things like hun or sweetie. I always end up biting my tounge when my mom tells me I'm a beautiful woman, because I know if I say anything about it, Ill end up ranting.

I dont want to transition though, other than top surgery, although i really cant explain why.  I've always gone through life avoiding the difficult parts, in hopes that it would make them dissapear.  I don't want to have to deal with therapy and courts, and the whole ordeal of becoming recognized as a male. 

I've spent the last year making excuses for my self about why I shoudn't go on T, or ask people to call me Kyle, while cringing at being called Miranda and she, or her.  I just don't want to deal with all the hassle and correcting people again.  I already started down that road, and socially transitioned, and was someones boyfriend, and known as male, until everything went wrong, and i moved back home, and found a nice comfy spot in the back of the closet.

I guess genderqueer became what made the most sense somehow. I didn't have to change my appearance. Now im just that weird girl that looks like a boy and confuses everyone.

I also ramble a lot and make posts that arent really about what i started out meaning to say.

[no_id]

Although I can understand where everyone's coming from in this thread because I've been there, I'm now one of the 'I let it go' andro's.
I can definitely relate to the 'There's no map' statement. It made me quite confused and angry at the time when adjusting my physical representation was a number one priority. I experimented with clothing, binding and everything in between and beyond that till I got to a point where I wanted 'more' and then somehow slapped myself back to reality. At that point I focused on my personality rather than my appearance, found the balance and simply let it go.. I suppose it's hard to explain after only one cup of coffee, but hope you'll get there some day.