I'm feeling confused...

[Username]

Not in a "Which gender am I?" way but in a, I don't know how to process the information/deal with it sort of way...

I've always felt the same since I was little, and now that I know what that feeling is, I can describe it even more perfectly. I feel about 80% male, and the rest a mix of other/female (sometimes I think more other than female). This is a constant in me.

I always knew what transsexuals were when I was little (no idea from where though? weird?) and I contemplated it once, but got, not horrible, but disapproving reactions once when I was confronted about acting like a boy, and if I would have liked to have been born one. The memory is very fuzzy though and I sometimes ask myself if it was real.

But yeah, occasionally through my life i tried to be extremely girly, but these phases failed completely. I felt fake and even depressed after I admitted to myself a whole year of my life had been wasted. I denied it ever happening...Still do a bit, just to get by. Also tried to be cheerful about my period, like everybody else seemed to be for some reason..., and felt really awful about the whole thin in the end, but i thought, well all girls must feel this is unnatural, it's totally gross.

Eventually this year I discovered the whole trans community and it was amazing. I felt "This is what I am! Finally!" but then all the confusion set in...

While I felt great I also felt sad, I knew people would see me differently, I had been taught to look at trans people strangely (I'm glad I learned better early on), but still, it reminds me how society thinks of us. I'm learning to deal with it a little though. If someone can't be made to understand, they aren't worth it. But that brings in issues with my family. I told my mom and while she was accepting, she thought it was a phase. And my dad, I can never tell, so it's pretty hard that I can't experiment with pronouns/names. There's also the, will I ever get a guy? , but I try to tell myself that hiding what I feel to a guy, will just make me unhappy.

Then my other doubt was the whole, "does gender exist?" thing. I'm a highly scientific person, and it really bothered me, has this happened to anybody? How do you think about gender? I'm trying to wrap my head scientifically around something I know in my heart to be true, it's like my brain is battling things out. For now I'm with the it's both a mental and a social thing. Like if I had been born the same in a world where all gender stereotypes were switched I'd have liked pink instead of blue just because I wished to express how I feel to the world subconsciously. But I also cringe at that thought, since I currently live in this reality.

And then there's also the... why not just be a masculine female... which I ask myself, then cringe, then ask myself when I get confused, and cringe. But I can't stop considering it. And then I remember I'd love to get rid of my breasts...and I get really comfortable with the idea of being a feminine boy and then doubt sets in again and the cycle continues. And other people seem to trigger this by asking me the same question.

[spacial]

My own feeling is that gender is how we preceive ourselves, rather than anything sexual.

Mamalian societies are organised around different genders. The relative roles these play. I take the position that this is entirely innate. Further, that the relative flux that exists is also innate, possibly thriving because of the relaitive benefits to feral human societies in the 99% of our existance, prior to civilisation.

Though it has to be said, there are some who seem to disagree.

[justmeinoz]

Sounds like you would fit in with those here who identify as androgynous. Some seem fairly fixed in their identities, and others apparently are quite fluid and change often. Maybe 50/50 today, 30/70 tomorrow, and 70/30 all last week.  Masculine/feminine/other as they feel like it.

I have no doubt that one or two will be able to discuss this in more depth than I can. Main thing is you sound like you have worked out what is going on, and have moved to the stage of trying to work out how to handle it.  As a parent myself, I wouldn't be surprised if yours are inwardly giving thanks you haven't told them you are using drugs  or pregnant!

Welcome aboard, Karen.

[Username]

My own feeling is that gender is how we preceive ourselves, rather than anything sexual.

Mamalian societies are organised around different genders. The relative roles these play. I take the position that this is entirely innate. Further, that the relative flux that exists is also innate, possibly thriving because of the relaitive benefits to feral human societies in the 99% of our existance, prior to civilisation.

Though it has to be said, there are some who seem to disagree.

Yeah, that makes sense, I get what you're saying. Although, I wonder if there are transgendered animals... Hmm...

[Username]

Sounds like you would fit in with those here who identify as androgynous. Some seem fairly fixed in their identities, and others apparently are quite fluid and change often. Maybe 50/50 today, 30/70 tomorrow, and 70/30 all last week.  Masculine/feminine/other as they feel like it.

I have no doubt that one or two will be able to discuss this in more depth than I can. Main thing is you sound like you have worked out what is going on, and have moved to the stage of trying to work out how to handle it.  As a parent myself, I wouldn't be surprised if yours are inwardly giving thanks you haven't told them you are using drugs  or pregnant!

Welcome aboard, Karen.

I always felt being androgynous implied you were dressing in an androgynous way to be confused and make a statement or where exactly 50/50. Not all the time, but that's just what I have observed. I thought genderqueer described me better, but, I don't like the word. It sounds like I'm gender fluid, which I'm not. I just prefer not to label, say I'm transgender to those I come out to, and explain further if needed.

[spacial]

Yeah, that makes sense, I get what you're saying. Although, I wonder if there are transgendered animals... Hmm...

It really depends upon what we percieve as transgender.

Animals don't wear costumes. They don't tend to have much in the way of surgery.

But there is certainly evidence, in a number of species, of animals that live in large communities, where some individuals seem to fit into roles that are not typically Alpha male or female.

I conjectured, many years ago, that in our feral stage, we too would have done something like this. Some individuals within the group adopting different roles that support the community rather than adding to it. The so called binary distinctions would have been enforced as a function of organised, settled communites, where leaders wanted to organise people, so males needed to be warrior types, ready to fight on behalf of the leader, while females were expected to be mothers and nurses. Those that failed to fit into thay binary would have become outcasts, leading to the persecution that seemed to typify so much of western and African society, until recently.

[Tak]

The biggest thing with gender I've come across in my studies and pursuits, we as a species defined the topic(technically doesn't exist we(the species) made it up), at one point we probably recognized it as it really is two ends of the spectrum with a lot of middle ground.  It's as spacial said animals don't see it in the sense we do, we're fighting conventional thought, started from alpha's(men and women) intimidated by AlphaOmega's, us.  In fact the dualistic deities of earlier civilizations would indicate at one point we led societies, not to mention every shaman tradition.  In native american tribes male "two-spirits" stayed with the women, naturally disguised they even scared Cortez and his men, and female "two-spirits" I believe went into battle with men to provide a healing support role.  Though there was an "amazon" like culture around the time of Alexander the great(lol one of the best leaders in recorded history and he was so IS) whose women were warriors, in fact Virgins fought to the death to prove their chastity, the Palis Athenians, also called "Palestine" by the Roman Empire.  Interesting note their beliefs centered around women, virginity, immaculate conception,(if a whole species of lizard can exist by such means alone I think a more complex creature should be more capable, not less) and virgin birth(born out the side is seen as interchangeable, so c-section?).  But to answer the question on IS animals, yep they just don't define it, proof is an increasing number of species have been displaying an ability called sequential hermaphroditism, in which an existing male becomes a female due to lack of females or a female changes to male or asexually reproduces in cases of lack of males or some worst case scenarios of no other males or females.  I think we can do the same we just have "walls" like gender role programed in that have to be taken down to do so.