Susan's Place Transgender Resources

How did you find out you're non-binary (e.g. agender, genderfluid, demi etc.)? I've heard that some non-binaries do experience gender dysphoria either socially or physical, but other doesn't. How do it work and how do you think your body are supposed to look alike? I'm new when it comes to the new-binary and wants to learn more about the topic. I knows that many trans women dreams about a female body and that trans guys dreams about a male body. But I hasn't heard anything about which bodies no-binaries dreams about.

For me it's been difficult. I hadn't dreamed I'd wake up male as a child; I was quite happy before puberty hit then I had extreme discomfort about my body and being seen as female. I didn't know what trans was until I was 19 snd then my discomfort made sense. I thought I was genderqueer very briefly then realised I absolutely hated being referred to as female. I saw the 'signs' growing up. Hated wearing dresses and liked playing with boys. Although I knew deep down I didn't feel completely male. On T I became more honest with myself and realised I felt agender. Without the pounding dyphoria it made me able to think clearer. Then discovered the term demiguy which fits me perfectly. I feel roughly 10%agender and the rest male. So I'd much prefer and feel more comfortable in a 'typical' male body. Plus the T has almost made my body and social dysphoria completely gone.

I think like binary trans people nb experience social dysphoria when they're not referred to as the correct gender and with the right pronouns. And/or body dysphoria when they feel mostly like a binary gender but their body doesn't reflect that or bcos their body doesn't look androgynous.

That's a tricky question...

The older expression is genderqueer, an umbrella term created for when we are clocked by both genders as not fitting, I have for a very long time felt 'alien'. I struggle to align with my gender assigned at birth, and fit much better with the opposite gender, but not completely. For me, I need a way to express both of these aspects without one being sacrificed to the detriment of another. I am non binary - somewhere in between.

Naturally, I get social dysphoria - felt as isolation, or loneliness, regardless of being in company or not. I choose to use the drab camouflage, as changing my appearance, won't help 'fit'. I am chronically aware of the rules around appearance, and that inhibits my expression (aka its bad, and I don't want to make it any worse). I also get physical dysphoria, but situation and circumstance mean that I do not feel that I need to transition.

In terms of appearance, and role, in the non-binary space it's a game of mitigation, try something and see if the dysphoria increases or decreases. It's a game of making our world more bearable, and that can be through a pursuit of visible androgyny.

In eclectic lableland, I would identify as neutrois  demigirl, as I feel roughly 20-80% of each, respectively.

Sno

For me.... Reality?  Hard core problem solving engineer speak

Every fact tells a story. Some stories overlap. In time you put together a picture. Over time, the picture can change.

Gender is but one aspect of myself. I am far more then a set of dangly bits (above or below the waist ) How I was raised, socialized, culturalized, in varying amounts, all went into what makes me, Me. My life... how it was lived, how is lived, how it needs to be lived are also in the mix.

Decades ago I saw no way can a 6ft tall balding fast guy in a world filled with 5'5" women can "Make it". Least not to my standards as in having some sort of a "Normal" life. Some degree being accepted as a woman, being able to land and keep a job doing what I love doing. Perhaps..... totally fantasy land, finding love! Wasn't in the cards. I was just "Some guy in a dress"

A few years ago I learned that I could. I found joy being the real me in the real world. The "Real" me as in being able to express... No Present in some small, safe way in controlled circumstances, my true self. Not a full, complete total RLE, but fairly close in many ways. What a difference a few decades and your life turning to crap can make.

But!  Great, I can realize a life long dream, at what cost? I worked hard to heal myself from the effects of a lifetime of fighting being trans. I managed to survive, to live. I still had a life. A life I mostly enjoyed, except for some 20% or so that reared it's ugly head at the worse of times. I learned I can in a some small way be complete, grab a hold of that missing 20%. But at what cost? How long until the other 80% of Me, largely put at risk of being lost, is, if ever? Is the gamble worth it?

Today, overall it is not worth the risk. HRT has saved my life. I enjoy living in my body. I still live and present primarily as male. I still have a career I cannot believe I can have since I get paid to have fun! There is my wife, BFF, and Reality Therapist who is largely responsible for me being able to take the lessons she tried to teach me and finally apply them to me. OK, she isn't too thrilled about how it totally turned out, but... I am waking up on the sunny side of the grass.

Some days are bad days. The Trans-Beast still rears it's ugly head. Dark, sad, depressing times lasting seconds to days in varying intensities. Far from most days. Less then then 20% of the days, less then 10% even.

When the Dark Days win out, Non-Binary will be No More

Like Elis, I was mostly content before puberty (10). After that, I knew I was uncomfortable with *maturing* but didn't have an understanding of exactly how I felt until about 14. By 17 I knew what non-binary was thanks to AVEN (an asexual forum/site) and shortly after Neutrois Nonsense (a blog). I didn't accept that I was Neutrois until I was 19 though.
As for what I would ideally want for my body, it would basically be neutral. I'm not a fan of body hair and don't want mature body parts of any sex. For outward presentation, I am more comfortable presenting as an androgynous male.
Socially, I prefer they/them. Both "she" and "he" bother me, but "he" makes me a bit happier. I experience more physical dysphoria compared to social dysphoria, but my social dysphoria would mostly be from my name and stereotypical assumptions of cis-gender roles (girls talk more, guys are stronger, that kind of crap).
I also don't see myself being in a percentage of male or female. I just feel how I feel, which is sort of like both and neither at the same time all the time.
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A side note of an interesting thought I had as a kid (in reference to you mentioning what one would dream of becoming).
Around 7/8, I remember playing barbie dolls with my sister and thinking to myself that I would never look like Barbie did. Not in the "Barbie is an impossible" or "Barbie is my dream" type of way, but the "Barbie is Barbie, and I am me" type of way. I knew what puberty was by 8/9, but it didn't register that I would have to go through it and become "womanly". I thought I would grow up and be a larger version of my kid-self.
Looking back, I find it kind of amusing how my thoughts haven't really changed. :laugh:

In my view, at least, "non-binary" says what you aren't, not what you are.

I've known all my life that I didn't fit in to my assigned gender (male) -- and got brutally reminded of it often enough that I couldn't forget it.  But I mostly simply assumed I was just a really defective guy and built up an identity as a guy who wasn't ever going to measure up to being what a guy was supposed to be and was making a virtue of it.  (Cf.: the fox and the grapes.)

But neither did I ever have a sense of "being a girl."  I mostly feel like some sort of alien (cf.: Brother from Another Planet.)  I'm transitioning, but it feels less like becoming "the woman I've always been" than moving into a role that allows me to be more who I am.  It's still a role, but, like shoes, some fit better than others.  (You know, the way soft, furry moccasins "fit better" than 10-penny nails driven through the soles of your feet?)  I have trouble understanding GenderFluid because I have no idea what it means to feel "more like a boy today" or "more like a girl."

This is one reason I feel more comfortable here in the Non-Binary forum than in the Transgender Forum.  I read all these people who talk about finding out they are really male/female.  And in real life, I run across so many trans women who are so certain that their True Selves are women, and I don't feel any of that.  My True Self (whoever he/she is) is Just Me.  Gender is, for me, just a sense that so many people around me have and are inexplicably attached to and expect me to be attached to, too, but when I get away from other people, I also get away from Gender, and I get to be Just Me.

tl;dr:  I say I'm non-binary because, although I'm living in a gender role, I don't have any inner sense of a gender.

BTW, if asked what I identify as, my first answer is "techie" (someone who likes to make things work), and my second: radical feminist.

What is non binary?


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Quote from: jujubes1986 on October 21, 2016, 09:06:26 AM
What is non binary?

A person who is non-binary is someone whose gender identity/expression/sense of who they are doesn't fit into either the male category or the female category.

"Binary" refers to the assumption that everyone is either Male(tm) or Female(tm), not both and not neither.  Usually also the assumption that one's gender is inborn.

(Is this a trick question?)

Thanks! I really didn't know what non-binary... there's just so many labels, it's hard to keep up!


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BTW, "non-binary", like "transgender", is an umbrella term.  There are many ways to be non-binary.  E.g.:

* Gender fluid -- the "somedays I feel more like a girl, some days I feel more like a boy, and sometimes I feel somewhere in between" identity.
* Agender/neutrois -- no sense of having any gender.
* Androgynous -- feeling like a mix of male and female gender characteristics, or feeling somewhere in between female and male.

There are lots of others that I haven't thought of.

Plus, you can have a non-binary identity but have a binary presentation.  (Like me!)

On the other hand, you can have a binary identity but gender-variant presentation -- e.g., I've seen AFAB posters who say they feel like they are definitely male, but still (sometimes? always?) like to wear feminine clothing.  ("Can I still be a guy if I like to weary flowery frilly sundresses?")



We've got quite a bestiary here under the transgender umbrella!

Quote from: Asche on October 21, 2016, 09:22:17 AM
BTW, "non-binary", like "transgender", is an umbrella term.  There are many ways to be non-binary.  E.g.:

* Gender fluid -- the "somedays I feel more like a girl, some days I feel more like a boy, and sometimes I feel somewhere in between" identity.
* Agender/neutrois -- no sense of having any gender.
* Androgynous -- feeling like a mix of male and female gender characteristics, or feeling somewhere in between female and male.

There are lots of others that I haven't thought of.

Plus, you can have a non-binary identity but have a binary presentation.  (Like me!)

On the other hand, you can have a binary identity but gender-variant presentation -- e.g., I've seen AFAB posters who say they feel like they are definitely male, but still (sometimes? always?) like to wear feminine clothing.  ("Can I still be a guy if I like to weary flowery frilly sundresses?")



We've got quite a bestiary here under the transgender umbrella!

Wow that's complicated!


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Quote from: jujubes1986 on October 21, 2016, 11:48:34 AM
Wow that's complicated!


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I do also thinks the diversity in the non-binary and trans umbrella spectrum is very complicated.

Quote from: Sebby Michelango on October 21, 2016, 02:47:30 PM
I do also thinks the diversity in the non-binary and trans umbrella spectrum is very complicated.

Was for me at first. You should check out 'the non binary network' blog on tumblt and youtube if you want to learn more. I find Tumblr the best resourse to find out about nb identities.

How did I figure out I am non-binary. To make a long story short, it's that I'm not either or. I'm not binary trans. I identify as a man, and I'm fine being a woman. I don't identify as solely a woman , so I'm not completely cis, and I'm not completely trans either.

Quote from: jamie-lee on October 27, 2016, 05:47:05 AM
How did I figure out I am non-binary. To make a long story short, it's that I'm not either or. I'm not binary trans. I identify as a man, and I'm fine being a woman. I don't identify as solely a woman , so I'm not completely cis, and I'm not completely trans either.

Actually trans is an umbrella term meaning anyone who doesn't identify with their assigned gender; so you'd still be trans :). You sound genderqueer but yeah; it's easy to feel bogged down by labels.

Quote from: Elis on October 27, 2016, 06:02:01 AM
Actually trans is an umbrella term meaning anyone who doesn't identify with their assigned gender; so you'd still be trans :). You sound genderqueer but yeah; it's easy to feel bogged down by labels.

Okey then. So I'm trans, but not binary trans. :) I like the freedom "genderqueer" gives, really, and feel at home in the genderqueer approach to gender, in general, but I realise I'm not the classic enby either, because I'm more like kinda trans and not transitioning, but I identify as a woman in some way too, and it's all confusing. So. Not either or.

I'm just human being! So much
Labels I can't keep up


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Quote from: jujubes1986 on October 27, 2016, 08:15:48 AM
I'm just human being! So much
Labels I can't keep up

To say a person's gender is "non-binary" is like saying a color is "not red or green."  There are lots of colors, and people keep coming up with new names for different shades of color.

So there are lots of ways to be that aren't just plain "male" or "female."

Not to mention that there are lots of ways to be "male", like macho male, metrosexual male, etc., and similarly for "female."

I'm not sure how much you actually need to know about people you just run into in the supermarket; name and pronouns are probably good enough (and if they change from day to day, IMHO, it's kind of on them to track it anyway.)

For people you know well and are good friends with, you'd probably want more details than a label can supply, just the way with a good friend you know if they like peanut brittle ice cream or not (and if you don't know, you just ask!)

I think for me, transition helped.
It clarified I was not binary by my aversion to complete binary transition. People told me it was common to identify as genderqueer when you didn't want to commit to "coming out" as trans, testing the waters like, but once you accepted it and started transition, you "graduated" to accepting you were a woman/man and were just unsure before.
For me, when the highly gendering bits of HRT developed, I counteracted them with elements from transitioning the other way, to keep me androgynous. Many binary transfolk are thrilled when they start looking more male/female, not interested in countering gendering elements.
Socially, it also showed up when I had the opportunity, having met the criteria, to change my paperwork legally to the opposite gender if I wished. Instead, I went through complicated and little known legal passages to have myself declared unspecified. My legal name is neutrally gendered. I don't insist on pronouns, content with however people want to reference me - male, female, queer, he, she, they, whatever. I am not offended when people call me sir, or ma'am.
I dream of my body being totally genderqueer, with no cis anatomy at all. Which seems to be going well so far.
All this indicates to me that I am truly in-between, I'm not confused or scared or in denial about what I am. If I was really binary, there's been plenty of opportunity to understand and express it, and in many ways, it would have been simpler for me to identify so. That I consistently don't tells me I'm genderqueer.

Great thread.  My understanding of my self seems to have evolved in lock step with that of the medical and therapy professions.  I have had gender dysphoria for many years.  I didn't have a name for this stress until 2009.  I first sought help in 1992.

In 1992 it was a very binary world - no color and no space other than a transitioning space as folk moved from their birth assigned gender to the opposite or target gender.

Between 1992 and 2009 I tried cross dressing, attended many trans conventions etc and eventually took transition level hormones and had numerous FFS procedures.  However I found that I was increasingly uncomfortable rather than comfortable when faced with the likelihood and reality of a full transition.  Presenting female felt that I was just switching roles, that it was just as much an act as the binary alpha male role which I had clung to, through much of my life.

If I hadn't met a therapist who talked of a variety of non binary options and their validity, I believe that I was heading towards disaster.  A supportive endo worked with me on low dose therapy and over many years this has developed into a very careful and ongoing flexing in my dosage to achieve and to maintain a point of equilibrium.  At 50 plus years I was never interested in tipping my life upside down but I was desperate to deal with my dysphoria.  The hrt did this.  Many times I have tried to reduce or to stop hrt but the dysphoria has always returned, twice as strong. Interestingly I had a bilateral breast reduction when I found that my body was changing more quickly than I could deal with emotionally .. they have since returned but this time I am ok with this. 

On my journey I played with labels, I even tried some on for a while, but in the end I am best described by name and by action.  I have relaxed my rigid alpha male presentation - my hair is longer, all body and facial hair have been removed and most everyone in my life knows that I am trans, non binary.  I now also understand from friends that many nb friends have found that a full physical transition has afforded them greater flexibility and acceptance when presenting as andro etc but I seem to have inched towards the same end point and now inhabit a similar space.  I am andro, I am gender fluid and I am happy.  Will I fully transition? I don't think so.  One thing however I am clear on is that I am non binary, I need hrt and I feel a whole lot more comfortable without dysphoria and being able to express the full range of human emotion and attributes.

safe travels

aisla

When I came out and started transitioning I honestly thought I was a run-of-the-mill trans lady person. It was the ice-water shock of meeting other trans people that actually made me realize that I didn't quite fit. Not that being a trans lady person isn't awesome, just the more I noticed how my narrative and that narrative didn't mesh, the more I got a better sense of myself.

For me, transition was about my body, my flesh--reshaping it to match the way it should feel. For a long time I thought when trans women described "feeling like a woman" that was what they meant. But after hearing trans folks talk about the way the inside of their head feels like to them, I understood that something was different for me.

Gender is like ghost flickers and dancing shadows for me. It doesn't feel like anything, doesn't mean anything. I only know it's there because other people tell me it exists for them. And that was very different. So it turns out I'm a female genderless non-binary person who was assigned male at birth. Which seems like a lot of syllables to say "Hi, I'm Sarah." But at least I have words to explain myself to myself now. So I guess that's good.

Like Sarah I have a physical transition, but don't fit the typical trans narratives.

I walk the diamond tightrope between full (nonbinary) transexual woman and androgyne.  I live as both in real life, I have a carry letter that identifies me as a nonbinary transgender woman, which is helpful in a NY bathroom.    My ID's have my nongendered birth name but male gender markers.   My carry letter also lists my transition and writers name, which is Trinity Satin Joy.  I go by Trinity in the trans community.   I go by another name when I am on stage or working in construction.

But I just don't fit any of the traditional narratives.  And those narratives appear to be changing, I hear TS girls acknowledging that they have male components, yet they consider themselves binary trans women.

I just knew I did not fit the normal.   I reject the normal, it isn't me.   But I also need the body I need, like Sarah I think, and I am on the full transition course of action to get it.  It may not be feasible to do GCS.   I am greatful that I should be able to get the right letters though.

My body dysphoria is horrible.   I happen to think the guy in the mirror, when I go in that direction, is pretty hot, so that mitigates it, but it does not change who I am.

I don't do labels, but I am certainly under the umbrella term of nonbinary transgender.   Or even nonbinary transsexual.  Or nonbinary transexual androgyne (which is the closest I can get to a discriptor).

So yes.   I just am different from the girls, but then again, when I go out sh'e, I am exactly the same as every TS woman I am with at the time.

Its complicated.   Most folks cannot understand it, and very few TS girls can even begin to understand who I am.   Which doesn't matter as long as neither of us tries to "fix" the other one, and we can then go out and have a great girls night out.

Satin Joy.

And I figured out I was nonbinary, by posting and reading a lot here....

I was actually at the local LGBT center, and someone referred to me with they/them pronouns and it made me really happy and I wasn't sure why.

So, over the next few days I thought about it more and more and realized that I didn't like being seen as female. I don't like having boobs/hips. I remember when I was 16 googling about top surgery. I always got really annoyed when anyone referred to me as a girl. I really hate being called "little girl" or "young woman". I've always referred to myself as a man, sorta of in a joking way but also not really.

All these little things started adding up. I think the reason why it took me so long to realize is because for one, I'm a very feminine, girly person. I love your stereotypical girl stuff. Two, once puberty struck me, everything went wrong. I was a chubby awkward kid with an ugly face and bad haircut. I remember being mistaken for a boy and being really ashamed because boy=ugly. So, for the next 8ish years, I firmly tried my best to become more feminine.
I had all these internal rules about how to be a girl. "Girls don't talk back, they're pretty and they're sweet.etc." And three, I have an eating disorder, so I assumed wanting no boobs or hips was a part of that.

@ starryeyed - it can be the other way around. I've talked to many transfolk both FtM and MtF who developed eating disorders at puberty because they started to develop secondary sex characteristics that were "wrong," and a very low body fat / sometimes straight out malnutrition helped delay these from developing, in both sexes. Transition can help that, as you're no longer having to fight those traits developing by restricting your body weight.
As for the typical trans narrative - I refused to do this, too. I refuse to follow the book in most of transition. I made it clear to the psychiatrist who cleared me that I am genderqueer and was not going to pretend to be binary. I was quite soapbox-y about it. Others told me to just tell them what they want to hear, it's the only way you'll be cleared for transition, but thankfully I got an open minded psych. Definitely not the norm among his profession from the horror stories others have told me about their psych clearances.
But I think the psychiatric profession is starting to come around in this regard, and realise there is more complexity to human gender identity than "I'm a woman/man and nothing else."
I'm not dissing binary folks - their gender identity as binary is as valid as anyone's - but in the past genderqueers have had a hard time with this, when we don't fit the model.

For me, I saw the signs in various places all through my childhood but never connected them until I was much older.  I absolutely hated growing hair at puberty and I never fit with other boys.  I realised I was bi at twenty.  At thirty, I worked out I was non-binary genderwise by my attraction to female fashion and my frustration of being on 'the other side of the glass' - I created female online characters to explore it and found that the social and physical modes really satisfied me.  However, I still have quite masculine pursuits and technical career.  Overtime I had the growing realisation that my feminine hobbies ran a lot lot deeper and that I was non-binary, or bi-gender (I struggled to find a name for it).  Then, a year and a half ago, like a lightening bolt, I realised that I had a dysphoria about my male genitalia and sought SRS.  After trying HRT for a year I've found I love it and now I'm working towards a female body but a masculine persona.  I'm changed and drifted a lot over time, and who knows? maybe I'll end up with a social transition to.  Maybe non-binary is a phase, or maybe it'll stick.  Either way, it's been a hell of a ride!

I am only now starting to figure myself out but feel like the path I am headed down is the one that feels most right.  I've always desired to be a female for as long as I can remember.  Because of these feelings and my size, I am average female height/weight, I never fit in with other males and aways felt like I was pretending.  I have body dysphoria regarding my male parts and would like them gone.  I also have the desire to wear typically female clothes like dresses and skirts.  On the other hand, transitioning to female doesn't felt right either.  I don't want breasts, long hair, or to deal with makeup, worrying about passing, etc. 

So, that leaves me stuck somewhere.  My plan is to talk to my PCP regarding hormones that will make me more androgynous without growing breasts.  Then work on getting an orchi.  Then just being me.
 

Quote from: Sebby Michelango on October 19, 2016, 12:06:16 PM
How did you find out you're non-binary (e.g. agender, genderfluid, demi etc.)? I've heard that some non-binaries do experience gender dysphoria either socially or physical, but other doesn't. How do it work and how do you think your body are supposed to look alike? I'm new when it comes to the new-binary and wants to learn more about the topic. I knows that many trans women dreams about a female body and that trans guys dreams about a male body. But I hasn't heard anything about which bodies no-binaries dreams about.

I'm FTM but i have a Agender side and i'll actually sometimes dream of myself as either gender
Now i'm starting to dream of myself as who i actually am. But I think being non binary my dreams just normally play out with whatever i'm feeling that night it normally ends up very neutral and sometimes it's very male.
.-. This part isn't about the dreams but my ideal body for me is a flat chest and HRT
i don't really think i have any want or need for bottom surgery but that could change sometimes i differ on the feeling. For me i'll never feel like my body will completely match because i'm agender sometimes i personally get confused when i question what i'm wanting so i try avoiding it and just being comfortable with me on hrt and that for me seems to be enough so far.

For years (since my teens) I had identified myself as a crossdresser.  You see at that time, the web was still young as was social understanding of gender. The only explanations I could find for what I was feeling was that I was either Transsexual or a fetishist.  There was little middle ground that could be found.  I told myself there's no way I'm transsexual (likely a great deal of denial) so I must have a crossdressing fetish.

Fast forward to a couple years ago and our oldest child came out to us as non-binary/gender queer.  I spent a lot of time researching it and over the course of the next year came to find out that much of what other non-binary people described of their feelings were very similar to mine.  I finally had an explanation for the crossdressing that explained why it was more than just a sexual thing.  The final straw was seeing Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole on gender.  So much of what they described just seemed to fit.  At that point I knew I needed a gender therapist to help me work through this.

So now, here I am, still very much questioning my identity.  I know I'm not a man, I'm just not sure if I'm a woman or somewhere in between. 39 years of social conditioning makes it very hard to determine what is a genuine link to a male persona versus what is denial. I'm not there yet but I'm still looking.

I've barely had any interest in the feminine and I am not conventionally masculine. I've never felt I can fit 100% into either binary gender. But this goes beyond that. I want SRS. I want a flat chest as well as meta. However, I want to keep my original "woman's bit". This has been a desire of mine for many years.

For years my husband (MtF) suggested that I might be transgender, because I am more masculine in many ways than most CIS men. He "jokingly" suggested I needed testosterone whenever I tended to become really masculine in behavior. While we were going through the throes of his announcing that he planned to begin transitioning - 18 years after coming out to me - he made the suggestion again, because of things I said during our long hours of talking out the situation, suggested I might be FtM trans, repressed. I vehemently denied it; I am female in my female body and wouldn't give up my vagina for the world! But I've always felt an unspecificed unhappiness with femaleness that I could never pin down, except that it's too male in physical nature. I also had ongoing secret fantasies of being male in sexual situations, which I tried to repress, and often feel my clit is a dick. It sometimes surprises me it isn't. After some soul-searching, and not knowing anything about bi-gender as an option (I only knew about binary trans) I looked in all the wrong places. Finally one morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m., with my guy screaming at me to please, please recognize him after all these years of being ignored.

We went to a counselor, both for our marriage and for each of our gender issues, and here I am. My counselor and I are still feeling out exactly where I fall within the non-binary spectrum (officially), but in my gut I feel I am bi-gender - both genders exist within me at the same time, all the time. Each has areas of my life they dominate, but the other one is always there, screaming his or her opinion on the matter. I can, sometimes, rein one in for a time, and let the other do his or her thing. If we go to a fancy dress event, my girl totally takes over, and the guy gets the short shrift. When I walk into a hardware store and end up in a conversation with the guys behind the counter, I tend to forget I even have a female body. My guy is wholly in command.

The funny thing is that when we told our (adult) children about each of our gender issues, my younger son's response was, in a nutshell: "Dad is a surprise. Mom, yeah, I've known for years."  :D

I always knew something was funky about gender... i think i knew i fit into the term NB and Agender once i discovered the terms and read the definition .... thinking ... yep thats it

It was only in the last year or two that I acknowledged being non-binary to myself. From the time I was a young child I had a bit of dysphoria about the dangly bits... but not hugely. And I was incredibly modest until/through most of puberty. I had little body hair and was scrawny... but average to tall in height. Not exactly the most masculine figure. I liked playing dress-up from childhood (still do). Emotionally, I am more feminine. Mentally, more masculine (note: this is NOT intended to be a sexist remark - it's about brain lateralization, etc.). Physically, a mix of both.  I have WAY more female friends than male friends. (And I don't mind that one bit.)

I became a chameleon, blending into my surroundings as required (protective coloration the biologists call it). For a long time I wore a beard in order to masculinize my look... more protective coloration. 

As I learned more about Trans* a few years ago, I thought that I was a trans woman. That would explain a lot. But, as I journeyed that way, I realized that I wasn't female any more than I was male. I was in-between.

Now, I have come to realize that I am about 30% male/masculine, 30% female/feminine, and 40% fluid/flux. Most days, it is a balance... or a 60/40 mix (which is 60 and which is 40 varies). The role I have to play factors in, as well. (There are some things I am expected to do as a male. There are other things that I have to do from a female perspective.) I mostly present as male... but a very "soft" male. Sort of androgynous.

If I could pull off a completely androgynous look (50% male 50% female), I would. However, I have enough masculine physical characteristics to preclude that (but I am slowly working that way).

But, to echo several others in this thread, mostly I am just me. Neither one nor the other... just me. And I like being me.

Hugs,
Jackie