Trying to figure out how your body relates to your gender identity is hard. I'm biologically female, but as I grew up I became, outwardly, as male as I could in my appearance. I adopted 'typical' masculine behaviour as well, dating girls, being strong, good with tools, loving cars and suits and all the rest of it. I'm not being stereotypical - I just equated typical ideas of manly behaviour with increasing my sense of having a male body.
Reaching the age of 16 or so, I realised I wasn't a typical butch lesbian. Firstly, I liked men as well, but I rarely found guys who were willing to accept a biologically female person who questioned their gender identity, and also looked very very male, and passed 100% of the time. So to me, my sexuality was clear - I was bisexual.
I'm 18 now, and have continued my path towards becoming as male bodied as possible. I changed my name when I moved to university to something more androgynous, and starting binding, and stopped correcting people who would perceive me as male. The tricky thing is - although I loved being male, I actually hated passing. It might have been because of the shame I felt when I was with my family and someone thought I was a brother or a son, or it might have been a more deep rooted rejection of the gender binary.
This is where my problem is - I know, absolutely and completely, that I want a male body. I experience severe gender dysphoria in as far as my body is concerned. I wake up every day and expect to see a male bodied person, and it's a horrible existence to see someone with breasts and underneath my boxers, female genitalia. However.. I've never felt comfortable identifying as a 'man'. I feel my gender and my body to be two very separate entities, and it irritates and confuses me when a female bodied person wants a male body, they must also accept a gender identity of a man.
So I guess I'm androgynous. I don't mind the idea of being a woman, but.. what does being a woman mean, if we are to exclude bodies and behaviours from acceptable criteria?
This also brings me back to my sexuality. Technically, I am pansexual. Although being physically attracted to someone is rooted in their body, I don't give a crap whether it's male, female, intersex, transitioning, whatever. There are many things I dislike and like about bodies, but specific genitalia would never make any difference to whether I'm romantically attracted to someone. I love butch girls, camp men, skinny femmes, bearded muscled men.. you name it, to me it's as much if not more romantic attraction in terms of connections, chemistry and charisma than it is physical.
Any thoughts? I get regular panic attacks about passing as male when I don't have a male body, shaming my family by transitioning, making a mistake if I should do when it comes to the 'man' part of it all..
