5) Dysphoria and how you manage it
Dissociation mostly. I actually feel better about it now that I've admitted to myself that I am transgendered. Which is weird, but true.

Doing these all at once, because I know otherwise it'll bug me.

1) Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender?

Just "androgyne", usually. I also like the phrase "she is a boy". That sums it up pretty well and is pleasantly confusing.

2) How did you grow up with your gender?

I grew up wishing I was my brother's brother. He wanted a brother and I wanted to be a boy but I also wanted to wear high heels and makeup and get my ears pierced. I hated playing with baby dolls (but I had dozens of them) but loved ponies, barbies, and dress up. I hated sports but loved lincoln logs, lego, matchbox cars, and dinosaurs. I said I wanted to be a firefighter ballerina when I grew up. I played video games of all the same types my brother played. I read fantasy books and hard science fiction books and hated Jane Austen and loved Shakespeare. Gender just... was never a strict box for me. I never felt driven to participate in particular activities (or avoid them) due to my gender. I hated that Girl Scouts was all girls. 

3) What's your favorite ways of upsetting gender roles / genderbending / gender->-bleeped-<-ing?

My appearance, mostly, though I'm also heavily involved in gaming, particularly first-person shooters, horror, and science fiction games, which are societally seen as highly masculine. Appearance-wise I have a masculine-to-androgynous punk haircut (see avatar) and I tend to wear a combination of masculine-cut black leather, plain shirts, big stompy boots, twirly skirts, eye makeup/nail polish, androgynous jewelry, and skinny jeans or leggings. I like to make people vaguely uncomfortable that they're attracted to me.

4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes

My close friend Theo is my hero (and mutual crush, though unfortunately they are asexual and I am greyromantic so we're highly incompatible and aware of it). They are amazing. Creative and brazen and beautiful and smashes gender assumptions with the tip of their hat.

5) Dysphoria and how you manage it:

I have massive bottom dysphoria, constantly. Constantly. It only gets bad when I'm doing sexual things (and with my sex drive that's, um, often) but as long as it's not me doing the touching I'm okay. I just get my partner to do it for me.

The rest of my body I'm pretty ok with. I'd like to have a smaller chest but I don't get dysphoric about it, really, and I don't mind being seen as female.

6) When did you realize you were Genderqueer?

I've wanted male genitals since I was... maybe six or seven, and known that I'm "not like other girls" since around the same time, but I didn't put a NAME to it until about eight months ago, when my father said "you've always liked to look really feminine" and I took immediate strong offense and had to sit down and think about my reaction for a week or two.

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

My lips and my hair.

8.) An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community:

Uh, at the risk of offending people, I'll admit that I sometimes feel like people use WAY too much makeup to try to appear female and end up going out the other side and looking silly, but that's totally just my occasional opinion and I keep it to myself.

9) What have you done or plan to do to socially transition? Pronouns, name, coming out, etc.

Name. I've told a lot of my friends, my husband, my brother, and my father that I want to be called Jack, but my mother, sister, extended family members, and some less-close friends I haven't told yet. I'm not sure when I will. Eventually I'll have to, because eventually I want to legally change it.

10) Are you taking any steps to physically transition?

No, not planning to, not yet anyway. I've thought about discussing topical testosterone cream for my bottom dysphoria with my doctor, but I haven't yet.

11) Your first experience with a GSM organization or event:

I haven't really had one, yet. I'm not in college anymore and I'm a contractor at work so I can't join the groups there either. I guess Tumblr kind of counts? That's the "place" that helped me figure myself out.

12) Discuss your relationship with the term transgender

I'm still really unsure how I fit in the term, to be honest. Until VERY recently I thought that "transgender" meant either FtM or MtF and didn't think of it as an umbrella term. I worry that if I use the term in reference to myself, people will assume rather than asking, and won't think of me as androgyne unless I use that word specifically.

13) How has your family taken it or how might they take it?

My dad and brother are ...confused, but supportive. My sister will probably be more confused, but eventually accept it. My mother... I don't know. I imagine there will be a lot of crying and praying. :/

14) Are you part of the Gender and Sexuality Minority community?

I'm not sure how you mean. I'm on this forum, and I discuss it a lot on tumblr. Does that count? I definitely AM GSM, for sure, I mean I'm a greyromantic pansexual androgyne, so YES?

15) How do you deal with gendered things? Clothes shopping, bathrooms, forms, etc.

Clothes shopping: I shop wherever and buy what I like. No big deal. I use women's restrooms and fitting rooms because I'm obviously female (large breasts & hips) but I roll my eyes a lot and vastly prefer nongendered bathrooms. Forms... I check female, because my body is unfortunately just female, and I figure that's what they mean. If it's not an official form, though-- like on a website-- I choose "prefer not to say".

16) Name some media you connect with queerly

This... doesn't even make sense, but I guess I connect the band Pentatonix with queerNESS because two of the members are out as gay. And there's a number of great queer comic anthologies. And fanfiction, man, fanfiction is queer as HELL. It's GREAT.

17) How do you, or would you, deal with being misgendered?

Heh, I misgender myself sometimes, out of habit. Things like "I'm your girl" or whatever. Okay, brain, not a girl! Hush!
Anyway I usually just roll my eyes internally and ignore it. I'm Minnesotan and VERY laid back, so I just roll with it. Again, I look very female, so w/e.

18) How does your gender factor in to your future plans?

Well eventually I have to tell my family, because of my name, so there's that. And I'd like to get a new job so I can go in as Jack rather than trying to change it here.

19) What terms in the cisgender, GSM, or trans* community are problematic?

"->-bleeped-<-" is horrible. also "->-bleeped-<-" and "ladyboy" and "wannabe". I hear a lot about "trans*" being an issue so I mostly use "trans" without the *.

20) Have you faced any problems or gone through any changes regarding religion?

Nah, been Atheist-Buddhist since I was like 14, man.

21) How has your relationship with yourself been affected since you realized you were Genderqueer?

I am So. Much. Happier. Holy CRAP, so much happier. It's so much easier to deal with the dysphoria and to accept myself and the name thing, seriously, I finally have people that call me by MY NAME, not the name my mother gave me.

22) What is your sexual and romantic orientations? Are they affected by your gender?

Greyromantic (only ever been in love once, with my husband) pansexual (gender has no affect on my sexual attraction to people). And no, not really. I like sex with all adult humans, I don't fall in love (except once). It'd be the same regardless of my own gender. (admittedly there are sexual acts I'd LOVE to do, but can't do because of my body being female. too bad about that.)

23) Do you feel comfortable answering questions about your gender to friends? Acquaintances? Strangers?

Yes, all of the above, but not family or coworkers. Not yet. Though, if they asked, I'd answer honestly.

24) How has your relationship with the cisgender people in your life changed?

No real change, not yet anyway. Admittedly I've only told people I correctly assumed would be ok with it.

25) Your first queer crush or relationship:

I very briefly dated (and made out with) my friend Angie when I was 13. We decided we were both not straight but also not into each other.

26) Discuss how your clothes do or don't reflect your gender:

I dress punk, which is very androgynous. Leather, boots, skinny jeans, lots of black and metal. My love of short skirts and leggings is a bit more femme, but hey, I'd do that if I was male bodied, too. I just couldn't get away with it at work, then.

27) Write a poem about being Genderqueer. (if you struggle, try a haiku, acrostic poem with your name, or just a stream of conciousness paragraph)

What a coincidence, I'm a poet. I wrote this in November, after coming out to my father:

Epitaph

I want to be remembered as vivid,
        garish.
Too loud, too bright, too much, too
        alive.
"She called herself Jack," they'll whisper,
"And she was
          terrifyingly
                 unafraid."

28) Who are some people in your life, on or offline, who make your life better? Your relationship doesn't have to be related to queerness.

My husband, my friend Theo, my friend Janelle, my father, my hockey bros, and my podfic community people.

29) Some positive Genderqueer experiences:

Having my friends get my name right.
Having people ask me "what pronouns do you prefer?"
Finding fiction with genderqueer characters.
Having my mother (who doesn't know I'm Androgyne) tell me "I love that haircut, it's so much more YOU than what you had before."

30) What does Genderqueer mean to you?

Outside the gender binary. Not male, not female, but neither or both or something altogether different. For me, it's both. For some, it's something else. It's a label with freedom, boundaries without a box.

alright... I'mma do this thing

1) Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender?

I'm still working on it... a little while back I found a post detailing the common definitions of every single term facebook allows you to use now and that inspired me to try to narrow the list down to things that sounded like me, and that left me with this:

• Genderfluid
• Genderqueer
• Neither
• Neutrois
• Non-binary
• Other

I can't really narrow it down any more than that at the moment... they all work about the same and don't seem to quite cover it at the same time.
Although, one term that facebook has not adopted that I like to use a lot is genderf***ed. I realize people use the term "genderf***" to just mean messing around with concepts of gender (anything from full drag to ladies with butch hair cuts to men in full suits and feminine makeup) but to me it just sounds right because it captures my frustration pretty dang well. As in, "Genderqueer? More like GenderF***ED"

(if this post is still against the rules let me know and I will gladly and immediately remove all mention of my favorite identifying term)

2) How did you grow up with your gender?

I was never really comfortable with myself, but for the longest time I thought that my lack of confidence had to do with my lack of friends, or some hole I'd dug for myself with my actions in kindergarten. (I went to the same christian private school from kindergarten through 12th grade, and a good chunk of my graduating class had been with me that entire time.) But I realize now that my lack of confidence, not my previous actions, were a big part of what left me friendless, and the same was not entirely true the other way around. There was another source I couldn't really place, and didn't really know how to begin to TRY to place. My school had pseudo-uniforms, in that our dress code was bordering on a uniform but we still had "options", and thank god one of those options for girls was khaki/navy pants, because if I'd had to wear a skirt every day for all those years I probably would have had reason to place the source of my anxiety MUCH sooner. But going to such a conservative school there was always pressure to conform to how a Proper Christian Lady should be, and even if I had the choice to dress the way I did, I always felt kind of unaccepted and out of place, and it occurred to me many, many times that I might make friends if I could only be more feminine (which obviously wasn't true, I'd make more friends if I could be more confident in myself, but that's what I thought at the time). But I didn't even know how to be feminine, even though there was pressure on me TO be feminine given that, not only did I come from a decently traditional family, but I was the "only granddaughter" on my mother's side and they liked to emphasize that a whooooole lot. Besides insisting that I do (and want) feminine things my mother never actually taught me HOW to be feminine, and I guess she just expected it would come naturally to me as a girl (ha, hahaha ha h a haha).

Anyway, once I finally did get some friends my junior year of high school (outside of school of course) I figured I could make up for all those years I wasn't invited to sleepovers and learn from my new female friends how to truly be feminine, and then feel good about myself. And to an extent, I accomplished the first goal; I learned how to dress to impress, and walk like a girl, and chat like girls do, and how to raise my pitch when I wanted something. But it was about when I started dabbling in Lolita the summer of my Senior year of high school (in an effort to bond with my adorable Lolita friend who began wearing Lolita around the same time) that I realized it just wasn't working. Maybe it was the fact that Lolita is so exaggerated that helped me really see past the surface to look at myself, but it wasn't until then that I even seriously considered the fact that the reason I felt so self conscious could be because I just wasn't comfortable presenting as a girl all the time. And this was even after knowing several transgender individuals and learning a lot about transgender rights. I'd had fantasies before for sure, but until that point, it just hadn't occurred to me that I could be anything other than a girl, because that's what was expected of me I guess? I don't even know. Believe it or not, that's the shortened (and softened) version.

3) What's your favorite ways of upsetting gender roles / genderbending / genderf***ing?

Well I rag against gender roles whenever I get the chance, but I think the most fun way to genderbend for me so far has been cosplay. I cosplay as several female characters, several male characters, and within the next month, one genderqueer character (Hanji from SNK), so at cons I can basically decide which character to be for the day based on how I feel and how I want to be perceived. Think of it this way: if you were a cosplayer who went to conventions often, and it is common for people who do not yet know you to grab your attention by using the name of the character you're portraying and using that character's pronouns when you're not around (unless they just flat-out assume your gender under the costume which, in my opinion, is kind of rude), would you want to cosplay a male character, a female character, or a character that nobody's really sure about? I can choose between all three, and if I wanted, sometimes even more than one in a day. It can be fun.

I also find the idea of doing drag king activities very appealing.

I missed the past couple of days because of exams... I'm so exhausted OTL

4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes

Andrea Gibson and, most recently, Ollie Renee Schminkey. I don't even really listen to poetry much (although I would probably love it if I got more into it) but some of those just cut me deep. And then, of course, I would consider all of the close people in my life (most of which just happen to be queer) to be heroes who have influenced me in one way or another.

5) Dysphoria and how you manage it

For personal reasons, I don't like to use that term. But whenever I don't feel right I mostly just try to ignore it. I try very, very, very hard to ignore it by any means necessary. Kind of unhealthy, really, and obviously not that effective, but I don't really see any other alternative since I don't have a lot of options.

6) When did you realize you were Genderqueer?

I have absolutely no idea. It's kind of a trick question with me, because with a lot of things I realize them before I actually "realize" them, since I have a nasty habit of lying to myself (and convincingly, too). I know things kind of started getting bad to the point where I couldn't ignore it anymore a little over a year ago now, but I remember a couple years ago talking to a genderqueer friend about the "yada" community, and telling them something along the lines of kind of feeling like that. So I don't actually know.

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

Depends on the day, although the most common thing I've found to like about myself no matter what is my eyes. Eyes just work no matter what. It's hard to go wrong with eyes, you know?

Then some that kind of go in and out are my hair and face and body in general like there's some days where I'm like HECK YEA I'M GR8 and there's other days where I want to break every mirror in existence so

An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community

This is not unpopular and definitely not unsure, but boy, do I have some opinions.

As with absolutely everything else it seems, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Apparently it is literally impossible to have a group of people with things in common that support each other, because everyone thinks they're right and everyone else has to go with their way or the highway. The GSM community is a hierarchy that doesn't want to admit that it's a hierarchy and I hate it. You'd think that people who take crap from others daily would learn to be nice to other people who take crap for similar reasons, but no, apparently that's just too hard.

9) What have you done or plan to do to socially transition? Pronouns, name, coming out, etc.

I've decided that I eventually want to change my middle name to Caleb so that I can switch them up when I like. I hate my current middle name and have always hated it, but it's in honor of a dead great aunt I never knew so I feel like my parents would take offense if I changed it...

And I've already come out publicly on my friend facebook and changed my gender there (so basically to everyone who I actually choose to associate with) but none of my family knows anything (they don't even know I'm pan) and I don't know if I'll ever tell them. I also don't really force anything like pronouns on anyone and gave them the option to use "whatever they think fits at the time" (almost always "she"...) and don't know if I have the guts to change that. whoops

Missed a day.

10) Are you taking any steps to physically transition?

Not actively at the moment, right now I'm mostly just information gathering... the biggest barrier to physically transitioning in any way, it seems, is whether or not I actually want to carry a kid, which I can't really say for sure at this point in my life. I know that once I already have or once I've decided that I don't want to or don't want any more, I know for a fact that the first thing to go will be my chest. That is definitely a thing that is going to happen eventually. I've been looking into post-surgery breastfeeding lately and the general consensus is "It's possible but if you're planning on having kids you should wait" so that's what I'll do, I guess. After that I want my tubes tied or my uterus gone or something along those lines (haven't gotten to do much research in that area yet), just so that I know I'll definitely never get pregnant or bleed again... and then I've been considering HRT, but I'm not sure about it yet. I suppose it'll depend on how I feel after I have a flat chest and definite freedom from menstrual cycles. Of course, I am currently trying (slowly but surely) to get as (healthily) thin as possible and stay there, both in hopes that it takes my chest and hips down a couple sizes and because I've heard that top surgery is more effective if you lose as much body fat as possible beforehand.

11) Your first experience with a GSM organization or event

Oh gee... that'd be Nashville Pride 2012, I think. That was a while ago. At that point I was still under the impression that I was asexual, so I dressed and painted a heart on my face in the flag colors and voluntarily held a sign for my church for several hours. People wanted a lot of pictures with me and the sign and my face was sunburned around the paint so I had a heart mark on my face for a couple of days, but it was fun. I still haven't gotten to march in a parade, which I would like to.

Kinda wish other people were doing this at the same time that I am, because I feel like I've taken over the thread, haha...

12) Discuss your relationship with the term transgender

My relationship with that word is about the same as my relationship with the word "dysphoria". I don't feel like I deserve to use it (as a gender-??? individual) and I probably never will. And that's about the extent of it.

Since the next couple questions are ridiculously easy I'm just going to answer them now and give myself a few days of wiggle room.

13) How has your family taken it or how might they take it?

HAHAhAHAHAHAhhAAHahhahahahahahAHHahHAhaHAHHAHAaHAHAhaAHAno

never

14) Are you part of the Gender and Sexuality Minority community?

Yes? Gender aside I have both a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time so I am pretty sure there is no contesting my pansexuality

15) How do you deal with gendered things? Clothes shopping, bathrooms, forms, etc.

It actually bothers me a lot but I don't feel like there's anything I can do about it so I try not to think about it. I stay in my box to the point where I don't even opt out of putting my gender on forms when it isn't required because I don't want to get in trouble. But if there's a unisex or family bathroom I always take it on instinct. And clothes shopping and I don't get along because on my own I don't feel like I know what I'm doing but if I'm with my mother she always vocally disapproves of my affinity towards the men's section...

Let myself get WAY behind out of pure laziness.

16) Name some media you connect with queerly

Nothing in particular I guess, but I'm always thrilled to find canonly gender-ambiguous characters like crona from soul eater or Hanji from SNK. There's just not a lot of them...

17) How do you, or would you, deal with being misgendered?

I'm struggling to think of how it would technically be possible to misgender me. I guess that usually being "misgendered" with male pronouns makes me really happy, but I guess if you're happy then it's not misgendering?

18) How does your gender factor in to your future plans?

Trying to work top surgery around having a kid. Changing my middle name at least is also on my bucket list.

19) What terms in the cisgender, GSM, or trans* community are problematic?

Eh.... I don't usually run into many that I feel are that bad? (Not even thinking about outside the trans community though because otherwise id be listing problematic things all day). I know some friends have a problem with the term "transgender" and I've seen people who dislike the word "genderqueer" but both of those are fine to me. Language means different things to different people and all that

20) Have you faced any problems or gone through any changes regarding religion?

Oh man, that was going on long before I admitted anything gender-related to myself.

Some of these are a bit short, so I might do two a day. 

Quote1) Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender?

Gender fluid seems fitting to me, though I don't know if I'm more than passingly similar to other people using the term. I haven't seen much talk of people struggling as I am with their very body.

Quote2) How did you grow up with your gender?

When I was a child I loved to participate in pretend play as a man. Considering that children engage in a lot of fantasies that don't translate to real-life I don't know if it means much, but it was the most natural thing in the world to me to switch around and view both as an honest expression of myself until I became self-conscious of it around 8-9. I started "correcting" my video game characters, storytelling narratives, and the way I looked at myself in my imagination.

I was never into distinctly masculine or feminine play or dress, so there was nothing to hide there. I might have tried to correct myself, but I never tried to further blend in by taking a liking to what other girls were wearing or doing with their time.

21) How has your relationship with yourself been affected since you realized you were Genderqueer?

I feel like I've gotten a lot more self conscious, because I think I know what the problem is now but I've realized that it's not an easy one to fix. I've also gotten angry at myself before for not having an easier problem to deal with

22) What is your sexual and romantic orientations? Are they affected by your gender?

I am technically panromantic demisexual, though I just tell people I'm pansexual. Being demiromantic has nothing whatsoever to do with my gender, though I think that coming to terms with my gender helped me realize that pansexual was the best descriptor for my sexuality. Pansexuality implies a lot more gender neutrality than bisexuality and, unlike bisexuality, leaves out the binary completely in the case of both the person it describes and the people they are attracted to. Although this is not always the case, people sometimes describe bisexuality as being attracted to "both the same and opposite gender", whereas Pansexuality is almost always described as basically "so long as you're human and my type I don't care about your sex or gender". So that obviously feels more right to me.

23) Do you feel comfortable answering questions about your gender to friends? Acquaintances? Strangers?

Friends yes, though I feel a bit self conscious. Acquaintances and strangers... Depends on my mood. I default to telling people I'm a woman unless I'm feeling particularly brave and know I probably won't see them again.

24) How has your relationship with the cisgender people in your life changed?

None? Why would it, they were my friends or enemies before and they are my friends or enemies now, gender has nothing to do with whether or not I get along with people

Quote3) What's your favorite ways of upsetting gender roles / genderbending / gender->-bleeped-<-ing?

I like peace and quiet, so rocking the boat without a goal in mind isn't my thing. However, my sex is female and my interests have always been outside of the expected. Dinosaurs, paleontology, geology, outdoors, and computers as a child, and computer networking and indie science fiction as an adult.

I have a very soft, feminine voice, so when people hear me cuss they're often surprised.

I think I could also apply this to my relationships, especially when I still viewed myself as a woman and was dating women. I hear people talking about dominant or submissive partners in relationships outside of BDSM contexts, even in LGBT, and I've never had that or needed it. To me it just seems like another way to say, "Who's the man and who's the woman?"

My high school girlfriend the fiery, outgoing one with a personality strong and competitive enough to tackle culinary school and a culinary career, and I was the timid homebody who tried to win her over and took her out for ice cream after seeing Shrek. We were both sweet and shy at times.

Quote4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes

With the exception of my old high school acquaintance who came out as gender fluid a year ago, none come to mind. I never thanked her for first making the idea become real to me.

25) Your first queer crush or relationship

Oh boy. Technically anything involving me would be queer in some way but I'll just go with my first girl crush.

I didn't crush on a lot of people when I was younger, I thought it was stupid. I only started crushing on people in late high school, and most of them were dumb little things on cis guys, but my first legitimate girl crush was on my former best friend. It didn't last our entire relationship, and it didn't even last that long, it was just one summer where I was like "waaaaaait a minute... Do I?? Nooo...." It made me question myself at a time when I thought I was completely straight.

She has a girlfriend now but at the time she was straight as an arrow and wasn't even comfortable supporting fictional same sex couples so it wasn't hard to convince myself that was going nowhere and move on.

26) Discuss how your clothes do or don't reflect your gender

I only bind on days when I can't stand to be perceived as feminine, and I only wear bras either on days where I'm actually okay with the idea or I don't care much but feel like I'll get in trouble if I don't wear one. And the rest of the time, I just don't bother. So in that way choosing between a bra, binder, or nothing kind of might indicate where I'm at? But my closet is overwhelmingly feminine since my parents don't like me buying masculine clothes, so I don't exactly have much of a choice.

1) Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender? - Genderfluid.
2) How did you grow up with your gender? - With the desire of have been assigned male at birth, which always makes me feel sad when I think about it.
3) What's your favorite ways of upsetting gender roles / genderbending / gender->-bleeped-<-ing? - I LOVE drag!
4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes - Hmmm, I don't have any heroes, crushes, etc.
5) Dysphoria and how you manage it - I don't deal well with dysphoria. I don't know, I try to forget it, listening to music, playing videogame, but it's always hard.
6) When did you realize you were Genderqueer? - Last year!
7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself? - My eyes and my mouth.
An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community - 
9) What have you done or plan to do to socially transition? Pronouns, name, coming out, etc. - I came out last year to my entire family. I'm still very anxious about it.
10) Are you taking any steps to physically transition? - Yes, I started HT this year.
11) Your first experience with a GSM organization or event - In real life? I never had one.
12) Discuss your relationship with the term transgender - I declare myself transgender when it comes to political issues, because I think it's important for the community to have the largest possible number of representativeness. But in my private life, I do not like to apply terms that are social constructs to define who I am as a human being.
13) How has your family taken it or how might they take it? - They don't get the whole idea and I wish I had more respect from them.
14) Are you part of the Gender and Sexuality Minority community? - Yes I am, as gq and bisexual.
15) How do you deal with gendered things? Clothes shopping, bathrooms, forms, etc. - I always use the masculine toilet, etc., because of my appearence. I try as much as I can to not have to use a toilet, however.
16) Name some media you connect with queerly - Facebook groups.
17) How do you, or would you, deal with being misgendered? - I never correct the person. I'm extremely shy and introvert. I hate it.