I'm not totally sure what I'm writing this for, but hey, it's almost 7am, and I havent been to bed yet. So bare with me lol :)
Recently I 've had a friend who is really interested in a lot of transgender stuff. He keeps watching all these documentries and reading stuff up. My post isnt really about him, rather, though his searching, I became aware that people mentally associate themselves as a gender, not just transgenders. I've never mentally felt like a girl or a boy. As a kid, I've always worn clothes that were boyish, and even had short hair. People always mistook me for a boy. It bothered me, but it also bothered me when they mistook me for a girl. I'm 18 now, I've finally got long hair, but I still dress in a way that I, to be honest, hope makes my sex hard to tell. Apparently, this isn't that normal... I've mostly brushed my behaviour off with being a tomboy, maybe because that's what my mom did. But looking back, I remember before I hit puberty that I was born fawlty, as in had a girl body, where I genetically should have been a guy, so basically I hoped I was intersex, at about 11. I know I'm not transexual. I don't want to be a guy. Mentally I feel like neither really. I guess I'm confused right now.
I think I'm rambling on. So anyway, this thought of my behaviour led me to discovering the concept of 'androgyny', and although it kinda does sound like me, I guess I'm trying to learn more, maybe see if I'm just jumping to conclusions etc. This site looked pretty friendly, so I joined. Yeah, all that for a 'hi, Im new post' lol.
hi jet, im new too on here, and my hi post was a lot more rambling than your is :) the people on here seem really firendly and offer good advice. ive recently started to try and do what comes natually to me and not think about conforming to groups even transgendered ones. im finding the feeling of just being nether a strange one even though i sort of have been like that all my life, actually knowing it is a different thing. anyway welcome il let some one that know more about this do a proper hello :)
Thanks for the welcome.
I also want to mention I'm not trying to 'conform' to anything... it's just always been weird growing up with these issues... I guess I'm trying to find out I'm not that weird like some people I know seem to think I am, so finding a group of similar people exist sounds like a nice path, if you get me?
Welcome Jet
Many here do feel uncomfortable when associated as a boy or girl as you say you have felt.
I too wished my whole life I was intersexed, and I have and will continue to take steps to make my sex (appearance and for me even some anatomy) match that gender that I am. (I guess one could call me a Transintersexual, though that is a word I think I just made up).
Yes by definition, if you are either both male and female, or neither male nore female, or something else, you are Androgyne.
And being androgyne opens up many things, benefits, challenges, opportunities, and problems in itself.
Yes there are several main kinds of androgynes, but all are none polar gender.
If you havent, might want to browse the https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,9148.0.html or specifically https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,5863.0.html. If you havent.
Welcome again Jet.
Ken/Kendra
As Ken/Kendra was saying, if you don't feel like you belong as a male or female then you're probably falling into the the Androgyne category.
I bid you welcome to our little corner here at Susans. If you start reading some of the other posts in this section, you'll start to draw a lot more conclusions from what others have said about themselves. I wish you the best of luck on your journey and I look foward to reading more of your posts.
Just for context I fall into the "both male and female" at the same time category of Androgynes called being bigendered. Check out some of my posts or ask if you don't understand.
Marq and Mia
Hi Jet, welcome to Susan's.
I understand you're feeling confused, but if it helps any I know what you're saying. Mentally I don't feel like a man or a woman either. I can tell you you're not alone in how you're thinking and feeling.
This is a great place to figure things out. Take your time, read what others have written, and ask whatever questions you want. And know that we're all in this together. :)
You know, I've never said this "out loud" before but I wish I was IS too. I've just always worried that saying so is disrespectful somehow. Then again, maybe what I'm wishing for isn't really intersexed but a misconception of what IS is. That's part of why I haven't said anything before.
The reason i fèel people wish this is they want medical reasons 4 the wax they feel. I hope u find the awnsers u look 4. As already said, were all one big happy family here, so pull up a chair, relax and join the fun. OW and welcome to 'Susans Place'
Quote from: Lucy on March 21, 2007, 01:07:02 PM
The reason i fèel people wish this is they want medical reasons 4 the wax they feel.
While that might be true of some people, for others (myself included) it's simply about correcting a body that's too male or too female. Our outside doesn't match our inside. Going from male to female or female to male is going too far the other way. The only "happy medium" we know of is IS. But again, I'm not sure if that's a misconception on our part or not. Or maybe it's the form of IS that XYs and XXs can transition to.
Hi Jet! Welcome.
Being Intersexed would be nice, as my body would finally match my soul...guess that goes for most of us here in Androgyne land. I wonder how one could convince both a therapist AND a surgeon to fix us up? I'm guessing the first person to get this done would definitely raise some eyebrows (immaculately plucked, of course). OK, I'm being silly, but there is still a nugget of truth there that calls to me.
As has been stated earlier, we are the ones who don't live at the end of the gender spectrum, neither all male or all female (regardless of what body one was born with). The Transexuals "know" they are male or female and just want their body to match. Most of the folks in the Crossdresser group "know" they are male (I would add female, but society is pretty OK with girls wearing men's clothes). The rest of us, know we are not male and not female. We may be both, or we may be neither, but all we know for sure is that we don't fit in either extreme.
I will admit that I am jealous of your growing up a tomboy. Since I was born with the "other" model, being too much of a "tomgirl" tends to get you beat up more often than you want.
And, while we are handing out labels, here are mine. I tend to fall into the Both (Male and Female) category, "Intergendered" (as opposed to bigendered), and also tend to be fairly fluid (sometimes feeling more male and others feeling more female). Notice the word "tend". Very few people match a label exactly, but they can be useful as a frame of reference.
Anyway, welcome to Susan's and an extra big welcome to the androgyne group. Please ask questions, express your feelings, dig up those deep dark secrets that you've never told anyone (well, only if you really feel like it), and share them with us. We'd love to help you in any way we can.
....Laurie
QuoteI will admit that I am jealous of your growing up a tomboy. Since I was born with the "other" model, being too much of a "tomgirl" tends to get you beat up more often than you want.
I was picked on a lot for being as tomboyish as I was.
Anyway, thanks for all your welcomes :)
Howdy, jet!
Glad you're here. I don't talk much on here any more, (though I try updating the blog regularly with random thoughts), I do read everything I can.
For myself, I guess I could tall myself genderqueer, or androgyne, or 1/2 on the way to MTF (last night I was so sure I was crying in the car and shower again!).
I guess you can answer for yourself that you didn't like being taken for a boy or a girl . . . that leaves a pretty big spectrum in between. Not to mention those who just don't know yet.
Welcome, though!
beatrix
Quote from: LaurieO on March 22, 2007, 01:18:26 PM
I will admit that I am jealous of your growing up a tomboy. Since I was born with the "other" model, being too much of a "tomgirl" tends to get you beat up more often than you want.
In fact there really is no neutral masculine equivalent for "tomboy". Boys who exhibit feminine characteristics are labeled as "sissy" which is a pejorative expression. There is a good feminist explanation for this--the male gender role is taken as normative while the feminine role is subordinate. Girls who act like boys are simply emulating the "desirable" gender role, while boys who act like girls are subverting the gender hierarchy.
I think tomboys, even though you see more out in the open, are also mistreated in the open. Just because you see more in the public doesnt mean that socially they aren't picked on, verbally attacked, physically harassed, and even assualted.
If a horse is locked up in a stall, isolated from other horses. And another is out in the open, but pushed away from the other horses grouped up. Which is alone and different? (And were they humanlike with feelings, feel alone and feel different). They both do.
Ken/Kendra
Hi Jet
In reply to your thread-starter post, you sound just fine to me. Some of the most balanced, beautiful people I know are androgynous. I met this 'chick' once, who must have been well over 6 foot tall but thin as a lamp-post. Absolutely fascinating creature, and seemed such a solid human being as well. No makeup, no female or male precise clothes, some piercings that didn't give any signals of femininity or masculinity, perfectly androgynous. I stared so hard. :D
I couldn't tell what gender until someone told me, but I was struck with how beautiful that person was. Not male beauty or female beauty, just beauty. Kinda hard to explain. But if you're being 'mistaken' for a boy and 'mistaken' for a girl, then you've probably got this same elusive beauty. If you don't place huge significance or importance or limits on yourself according to gender or other people's perceptions, then you probably have so much more inner peace than so many others. Personally I've always thought a beautiful person is a beautiful person, physically or otherwise, regardless of gender. A man can be beautiful in a feminine way, or a woman beautiful in a masculine way, or a person can be beautiful in a mixture of stereotypically/culturally/aesthetically male or female beauties. If that makes sense.
Yeah, anyway, it implies good things, that line where you said you've been 'mistaken' for male and female.