One term I've heard from a few people on other sites is "gender pendulum" - an internal sense of gender that swings back and forth between male and female over time (or male/neutral, female/neutral, male/neutral/third-gender, etc).  Does anyone else feel like their desire to be read/acknowledged as a particular gender cycles over time?  What things in your life have an influence on it?

Before I ever went out in public as a guy, and had spaces where I use male pronouns and so on, I felt like my desire to be read as male or female would swing back and forth based on my menstrual cycle.  There was some variation, but certain times of the month, it was so predictable that I used it to check whether I needed to carry 'supplies' that week. 

Now that I'm actually going out as a man sometimes, my gender pendulum seems to hinge on the timing of that, and the menstrual cycle connection is a lot weaker.  I don't know why that would be, but it happened right away and was kind of an adjustment.  When I have a guy outing that feels really successful and fulfilling, it gets guy-mode out of my system, and I'm more likely to have a strong girl phase the next day.  Then the desire to go out as a man will build up, and it all starts again. 

I'm still not sure whether I'd describe the "girl phase" as something innate to me, or more of a return to something that's familiar and comfortable.  But whatever it is, going out as a guy one day will make me feel more comfortable in a female presentation the next day.

Anyway, does anyone else swing back and forth, and how does it work for you?

I do move around a lot within the non-binary gender.
There is at times, a build up, but more often I just notice that I am more over here than over there.
There is on occasion, that feeling of if I don't present one way or the other, my anxiety will kick in.
It doesn't, but it has that kind of urgency to it. Doesn't happen often, maybe every couple months or so.
But it also lasts for a few days, sometimes. That just seems normal to me.
I honestly don't see how cis people can exist as only male or female.
There does seem to be more of us than are open about it, even if just here.
'Survey says...'
Ativan

i used to have somewhat abrupt swings at times, and when i studied it more closely it did seem to have something or other to do with my cycle. but this last year i managed to settle into an online community where my guy side has a place of its own, only rarely does the girl side feel like intervening. not that i'd let it go too far, or people would start wondering who i really am. now it seems to have calmed down enough that i don't really notice it much, other than some times when i realize i'm wearing the wrong clothing for how i really felt that day, or can't find the side that started some conversation or project. but i don't panic over it any more since i know it's there somewhere, just taking a break

Hi Dana,

Sorry to disappoint you, but ... no. I've always been who I've been. A woman, sometimes acting as a man. Shows over. It didn't work.

Be careful you don't get hung up on theories or labels. They can often lead you astray, with false and misleading information.

If anything you may be experiencing a simple state of mental preoccupation on a specific task. Seems like you've changed sides, but in fact you haven't.

In certain cases, there can be substantial changes in blood chemistry that will effect the hormonal balance, but that's about as far as it goes.

Be safe, well and happy.
Lotsa huggs
Catherine

Quote from: Catherine Sarah on April 16, 2013, 08:58:01 AM
Hi Dana,

Sorry to disappoint you, but ... no. I've always been who I've been. A woman, sometimes acting as a man. Shows over. It didn't work.

Be careful you don't get hung up on theories or labels. They can often lead you astray, with false and misleading information.

If anything you may be experiencing a simple state of mental preoccupation on a specific task. Seems like you've changed sides, but in fact you haven't.

In certain cases, there can be substantial changes in blood chemistry that will effect the hormonal balance, but that's about as far as it goes.

Be safe, well and happy.
Lotsa huggs
Catherine

I'm glad you've found what's right for you, but I hope you understand some people actually do have a male and female side.  I've met a number of people who move between a male and female presentation, and both are equally sincere and necessary.  If they had to lose either one, they'd be missing something important about themselves.  I'm still not sure if I'm going to fall that way in the longterm, but I think it would be a mistake for me to rule out being bigender or gender-fluid.

If anything, labels and theories are what kept me away from the idea of being gender-fluid for too long.  All the messages about being transgendered made it sound like you had to be all one way or all the other, and that's just not the reality for a lot of people.

For me, my gender identity seems to be very much situational.  I have my male moments and I have my female moments.  I still am not sure how much of my "maleness" is the result of being raised in that manner, or how much of my "femaleness" is innate.

For those reasons, and others, I feel very much gender-fluid.

I feel like my gender identity is pretty fixed, but my presentation changes depending on what aspect of it I feel like projecting to the world that day. I am a guy (but not a "man" for some reason--somewhere between male and neutral) with a female body, and I like looking masculine some days, looking feminine on others. It seems to have to do with role dysphoria.

I wonder what those of you whose identities shift experience in terms of body dysphoria. My mental body map is male and I occasionally experience dysphoria due to that, especially when the difference between my mental representation and reality is highlighted, often regardless of how I'm presenting.

How you experience body dysphoria during/before/after shifts?

Quote from: The Old Gray Mare on April 16, 2013, 02:32:32 PM
I still am not sure how much of my "maleness" is the result of being raised in that manner, or how much of my "femaleness" is innate.

This is kind of where I am, but in the opposite direction (I'm female by birth).  I've started to be a lot more chill about it than I used to be.  If wearing a dress and lipstick makes me happy and comfortable sometimes, I'm going to enjoy it and not worry too much about what it means.  And if wearing a binder and man-clothing makes me happy other times, same thing. 

I like to track the timing of my gender identity since I like having some idea of what's coming up, and it makes it easier to schedule social outings, etc.  It's not totally predictable, but there are definitely patterns.  I think the trick is to self-analyze up to the point that it's useful, but also accept that you'll never understand everything, and that's okay.

Quote from: brainiac on April 16, 2013, 02:54:55 PM
How you experience body dysphoria during/before/after shifts?

I have body dysphoria that is pretty strong sometimes, and 100% absent other times.  There are also times when I experience a sort of intense emotional fulfillment based on my female body.  I guess it's like reverse dysphoria.  I wonder if the basic physical feeling of this is how a cisgendered person feels all the time, but I notice and enjoy it because of the experience of losing it and getting it back.

Social and physical feelings of gender are definitely connected for me.  If I'm in a phase where I want to be perceived as male, I might feel okay/neutral about my body, or I might have some gross/bad feelings in my female areas.  The "reverse dysphoria" usually comes with a desire to be perceived as female; they're kind of a package deal.  That usually happens either around the time of my period, or right after a really successful time out in guy-mode.

I'm curious, what do you mean by role dysphoria?  I haven't heard of that before.

Quote from: brainiac on April 16, 2013, 02:54:55 PM
I wonder what those of you whose identities shift experience in terms of body dysphoria. My mental body map is male and I occasionally experience dysphoria due to that, especially when the difference between my mental representation and reality is highlighted, often regardless of how I'm presenting.

my body map is somewhere between neither and both. i'm not sure whether my breasts are supposed to be there or not, my vagina has never bothered me, but i do lack a penis. it's a somewhat impossible combination, and i think i'll have to wait until i can get a comfortable and constant hormone balance before i figure out what is real and what is just my imagination.

Quote from: DanaRSS on April 16, 2013, 03:14:58 PMI have body dysphoria that is pretty strong sometimes, and 100% absent other times.  There are also times when I experience a sort of intense emotional fulfillment based on my female body.  I guess it's like reverse dysphoria.  I wonder if the basic physical feeling of this is how a cisgendered person feels all the time, but I notice and enjoy it because of the experience of losing it and getting it back.

Social and physical feelings of gender are definitely connected for me.  If I'm in a phase where I want to be perceived as male, I might feel okay/neutral about my body, or I might have some gross/bad feelings in my female areas.  The "reverse dysphoria" usually comes with a desire to be perceived as female; they're kind of a package deal.  That usually happens either around the time of my period, or right after a really successful time out in guy-mode.

I'm curious, what do you mean by role dysphoria?  I haven't heard of that before.

Hmm, interesting! Maybe you could call it... gender euphoria?

And by gender role dysphoria, I mean discomfort with being "treated like x", in my case, treated like a girl. It's just the social side of dysphoria, as opposed to the physical side of parts not matching.

Quote from: Taka on April 17, 2013, 08:28:39 AM
my body map is somewhere between neither and both. i'm not sure whether my breasts are supposed to be there or not, my vagina has never bothered me, but i do lack a penis. it's a somewhat impossible combination, and i think i'll have to wait until i can get a comfortable and constant hormone balance before i figure out what is real and what is just my imagination.

That makes sense. I do wonder how hormones affect mental body maps--I feel like mine would feel more connected and stable if I went on T, but I've chosen not to do that. I'd love to know how it goes with you!

Quote from: Taka on April 17, 2013, 08:28:39 AM
my body map is somewhere between neither and both. i'm not sure whether my breasts are supposed to be there or not, my vagina has never bothered me, but i do lack a penis. it's a somewhat impossible combination, and i think i'll have to wait until i can get a comfortable and constant hormone balance before i figure out what is real and what is just my imagination.

Mine is kind of mixed-up, too.  Sometimes I get really bad lower body dysphoria, like intensely unpleasant, which didn't start until my early twenties.  At first I assumed it was some kind of sexual dysfunction.  I didn't feel any physical need for a penis, but I decided to try packing one day just to see if it made a difference, and it did!  Now I keep a rolled-up sock in my pants about half the time, and it feels basically like a part of my body.  (Haha, TMI...)  There was no bell ringing in my head going, "what you need is a penis!"  It's just an icky feeling in my vagina that for some reason is greatly reduced by packing.

On the flip side of that, in my teens I was dysphoric about my uterus, and that went away.  I didn't think of that as a gender thing either; I was just disturbed that it was in there, I thought of it as a foreign object or a creepy parasite, and I was going to get it out as soon as I was a legal adult and found a doctor willing to perform a complete hysto on a healthy 18-year-old.  I knew back then that I partially identified as male, but I didn't connect it with wanting my uterus out.  Anyway, sometime between then and now it became a part of me that I like, and I'm super happy that I didn't do anything to it.  So sometimes things change over the years...I'm curious what I'll feel like ten years from now, or twenty.

Quote from: brainiac on April 17, 2013, 10:22:02 AM
Hmm, interesting! Maybe you could call it... gender euphoria?

Mmm... I like that term. I'm going to have to steal it.

I try most of the time, to just think of them as different body parts.
Not a big deal. That is unless the dysphoria kicks in hard.
But it has to be pretty strong before parts seem important.
When the dysphoria kicks in hard, mine become important to me in different ways.
It's the part of dysphoria that I try to ignore the most.
It becomes dependent on whether I'm feeling more male or female.
It's the extremes of how I feel that is the worst part of dysphoria.
Low dose HRT has helped with it a lot.

Other peoples don't much matter to me,... they do, as people.
Peoples bodies can be so different besides what they have as far as breasts, vaginas or penis's.
On an intimate level, parts are parts. Body hair makes more of a difference to me. I don't care for it.
But unless it's extreme, it's still not a deal breaker.

I like this topic, it's been brought up before in various forms and times.
It's really interesting to hear from others about it.
Ativan

Quote from: brainiac on April 17, 2013, 10:22:02 AM
That makes sense. I do wonder how hormones affect mental body maps--I feel like mine would feel more connected and stable if I went on T, but I've chosen not to do that. I'd love to know how it goes with you!

i'd love to know that as well, but unfortunately things take a ridiculous amount of time to get started. just because i'm not willing to travel over half the length of my country every month just to visit a doctor who has more experience with these things. i'm simply gonna wait until the slightly more local sexologist and urologist (of all things...) learn what they need to know.

Quote from: DanaRSS on April 17, 2013, 02:52:57 PM
On the flip side of that, in my teens I was dysphoric about my uterus, and that went away.  I didn't think of that as a gender thing either; I was just disturbed that it was in there, I thought of it as a foreign object or a creepy parasite, and I was going to get it out as soon as I was a legal adult and found a doctor willing to perform a complete hysto on a healthy 18-year-old.  I knew back then that I partially identified as male, but I didn't connect it with wanting my uterus out.  Anyway, sometime between then and now it became a part of me that I like, and I'm super happy that I didn't do anything to it.  So sometimes things change over the years...I'm curious what I'll feel like ten years from now, or twenty.

i had more unpleasant feelings about my secondary sex characteristics when i was younger, the realization that i'd never be able to pass as a guy if my hips and breasts kept growing like they did in puberty was devastating. i even managed to connect it to some gender thing after watching a documentary about transsexuality, but pushed the thought away because i didn't have any problems with my uterus. that thing is only in my way now, after having given birth to a healthy child, and finding out that the gender feelings are just as real now as they were then.

Quote from: brainiac on April 17, 2013, 10:22:02 AM
I do wonder how hormones affect mental body maps--I feel like mine would feel more connected and stable if I went on T, but I've chosen not to do that.

Two excellent books by Dr Louann Brizadine. The Male Brain and The Female Brain. Compiled from many years of research.

Enjoy
Huggs
Catherine

  Hi ! My pendulum rocks 180 degrees and has for over 40 years.Mostly on a 6-8
week cycle.Stress is a killer it makes me very unpredictable.I live as a man and always have
and am to old to change now.The problem is my whole being is shifting to my feminine side
and I love it.This creates problems when around some people others never notice anything.
Answer, I spend days doing guy stuff working and nights I swap to my pretty things my
blood pressure drops and heart rate goes back to the low 50 s. I live alone so I am able to do this
if not I surely would go --- somewhere!
How are my shifts, they go from a type a male to a female cat in HEAT!  FUN.

Quote from: Catherine Sarah on April 18, 2013, 10:11:56 AM
Two excellent books by Dr Louann Brizadine. The Male Brain and The Female Brain. Compiled from many years of research.

Enjoy
Huggs
Catherine

Too bad with credentials like that, she doesn't publish a book with current research about non-binary people.
She should look into the works and research that people with as good and better credentials have amassed.
I'm sure it would put a new perspective on the brain for her.
There has been an enormous change in research since she published those books.
In just the last two years alone, there is more new information than the previous decade of research.
Looking forward to her publishing one with current information.
Ativan

Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on April 18, 2013, 12:33:53 PM
Too bad with credentials like that, she doesn't publish a book with current research about non-binary people.
She should look into the works and research that people with as good and better credentials have amassed.
I'm sure it would put a new perspective on the brain for her.
There has been an enormous change in research since she published those books.
In just the last two years alone, there is more new information than the previous decade of research.
Looking forward to her publishing one with current information.
Ativan

In addition to that, she's been called out publicly by multiple scientists for misrepresenting their research in those books, and some of the statistics she uses are false.  Sometimes she states something as fact and cites a study in the footnotes/endnotes, but when you look up the actual study, it doesn't support her statement.  If you take any information at all from her books, I'd be sure to look online at the abstract of the study before believing it.  One of my favorites was when she supported her claim that women's hormones make them essentially more nurturing with a study done entirely on guinea pigs undergoing menopause.

There's a whole section in The Female Brain on differences in how many words men and women use when speaking, and the numbers she quotes aren't statistically valid.  Here's a post from a linguist on the issue: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003419.html

Anyway, I hope I'm not coming off as too antagonistic, but from a purely statistical standpoint, pop psych books tend to greatly exaggerate the differences between male and female brains, and male and female behavior as well.  IMO the best way to get the real picture is to stick to studies published in reputable scientific journals - the summaries are usually available for free online, and are jargon-free enough that you don't need a psych or stats degree to understand them.

Quote from: DanaRSS on April 18, 2013, 03:27:37 PM
In addition to that, she's been called out publicly by multiple scientists for misrepresenting their research in those books, and some of the statistics she uses are false.  Sometimes she states something as fact and cites a study in the footnotes/endnotes, but when you look up the actual study, it doesn't support her statement.  If you take any information at all from her books, I'd be sure to look online at the abstract of the study before believing it.  One of my favorites was when she supported her claim that women's hormones make them essentially more nurturing with a study done entirely on guinea pigs undergoing menopause.

There's a whole section in The Female Brain on differences in how many words men and women use when speaking, and the numbers she quotes aren't statistically valid.  Here's a post from a linguist on the issue: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003419.html

Anyway, I hope I'm not coming off as too antagonistic, but from a purely statistical standpoint, pop psych books tend to greatly exaggerate the differences between male and female brains, and male and female behavior as well.  IMO the best way to get the real picture is to stick to studies published in reputable scientific journals - the summaries are usually available for free online, and are jargon-free enough that you don't need a psych or stats degree to understand them.

I was going to type up a response, but you totally said everything I wanted to say. Especially the part about investigating the research that pop psych authors use yourself. As a research psychologist-in-training, I can't emphasize it enough. Just because something has been published doesn't mean that its experimental design or statistics are sound, and there are peer-reviewed journals that will accept nearly anything. And especially in the area of gender differences in cognition, pop psychology writers absolutely do overemphasize the differences because that's what gets people's attention. I'm not saying that there are no differences to be found (I think there are small but significant differences, likely in the areas of spatial processing and language processing, which are probably due to a combination of nature and nurture--but even these effects need to be investigated further).

Please tolerate this brief aside, thread!

Take a look at this graph. It shows the distribution of scores for males and females (not sure on what task, but it doesn't matter). The middle of each curve is the average for that group.

Now, there are 2 ways of looking at this. One is seeing that the means are slightly different, and focusing completely on that difference. The other is seeing that the vast majority of the population of males and females overlaps. I don't want to get into statistics too much, but there are also issues with looking at p-values (likelihood that this is a "real" difference) and effect size (how "important" the difference is).

Now compare that to this one showing height differences between (likely cis) men and women:

This is a much, much bigger difference, and correspondingly we all know that cis-men tend to be taller than cis-women. Even given that, we also all know (and can see) that there is still a significant overlap there, too.

The first graph comes from this article: Janet Hyde and Marcia Linn on the Psychological Similarity between Men and Women.

So, with all of that... Please don't take this as an attack or anything, just a caveat about books like those. I found that a more current, comprehensive book about gender differences in development is Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Dr. Lise Eliot. (And a side note... M.D.s do not necessarily have much understanding of current research or statistical methods, whereas Ph.D.s are essentially required to stay on top of both. Doesn't mean that no M.D.s know what they're talking about when it comes to stuff like this or that all Ph.D.s do, but it raises a skepticism flag for me when I'm reading something about research.) And... if anyone wants me to interpret any abstracts for them into readable language, I'd be totally psyched to do so.

Quote from: DanaRSS on April 15, 2013, 01:12:33 PM
Before I ever went out in public as a guy, and had spaces where I use male pronouns and so on, I felt like my desire to be read as male or female would swing back and forth based on my menstrual cycle.  There was some variation, but certain times of the month, it was so predictable that I used it to check whether I needed to carry 'supplies' that week. 

Hi Dana,
I'm wondering if this is a hormonal thing. Back when I had a cycle, I used to feel a peak in my sex drive and that's how I knew where I was in my cycle. The hormones fluctuate so much even in someone with normal levels. Have you talked to a doctor?

Not trying to invalidate your gender id at all. I'm just curious. It does sound like this could be causing these swings.

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on April 18, 2013, 04:25:48 PM
Hi Dana,
I'm wondering if this is a hormonal thing. Back when I had a cycle, I used to feel a peak in my sex drive and that's how I knew where I was in my cycle. The hormones fluctuate so much even in someone with normal levels. Have you talked to a doctor?

Not trying to invalidate your gender id at all. I'm just curious. It does sound like this could be causing these swings.

Yep!  I actually have talked with a doctor about my hormone levels, and I have elevated androgen levels consistent with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).  My guess is my gender dysphoria does respond to hormone changes, but I don't think I could eliminate it by changing my balance.  I was on birth control that lowers your natural T levels for about five years, and it didn't remove the gender dysphoria but did make me feel crappy, so I don't think lowering my T would be a good thing.  (That actually happens for a lot of cis women as well - low testosterone levels are associated with depression and anxiety in females overall, but each person's ideal level is slightly different.)

If I had to guess, I'd say my brain's happy zone for T-level is slightly higher than for most women but less than for a trans man, and my body produces the appropriate amount.  So everything kind of zips along nicely in terms of mood and cognition, but I do have the social and physical dysphoria as a side effect.  I could be totally wrong, but from my experiences with puberty, menstrual cycles, hormonal birth control and my recent blood tests, that seems about right.

As an aside, I don't think gender identity is more or less real if it's based on hormone levels vs neurological structure, or anything else, really.  (I know you didn't say it was, just rambling here.)  It might be useful for people to know, especially if it might affect how you respond to things like birth control or T therapy.  But hormone-influenced doesn't equal 'fixable' through hormones.  And even if it did, does that mean that if tomorrow's doctors could alter brains as easily as today's doctors can alter hormones, that gender identity in the brain should also be 'fixed'?  Anyway, I know you weren't suggesting anything like that, I'm just following an interesting line of thought.