Hey, everyone.

I've been questioning my gender identity on and off for the past six years now. A long time, and yet I STILL don't know how I identity. The uncertainty itself causes me a lot of pain.

But what's more is that I constantly flip-flop, and sometimes to extreme degrees.

One day, I could feel sure that I'm female; I could feel like I want to rush a sorority, take a traditionally female occupation (like an elementary school teacher), marry a man, get pregnant, have lots of kids, and that life sounds absolutely ideal and like what I really want...

The next day, I could feel 100% male, feel like I want to dress and talk and act masculine, challenge myself and be ambitious in my career, like anything is possible and the sky's the limit, like getting married and having kids sounds nice but isn't a priority and I could be perfectly happy alone, or waiting a long time before settling down.

I don't know how I can resolve this. It's been going on for years, but more intensely this past year. I feel like I can't commit to anything because of this changing identity.

For a small but relevant example: what if I did rush a sorority and was happy at first, but then felt completely male and overcome with dysphoria at being with a bunch of "sisters" all the time? On the other hand, what if I felt male when first arriving at college and bypassed rushing a sorority, only to later feel intensely female and regretful for not joining in on something that interests me?

Anyone else feel these constant back-and-forth? How did you deal with it? Did you finally settle into one identity?

(Small note: Although it may sound like it, I don't think I could happily be bigender or gender fluid. Because it would seem to me that unless I transition, I will be be viewed as and treated like a female no matter how masculinely I am presenting.)

Hey Bacon!

Welcome to Susan's    Great to have you here - looking forward to seeing you around the forum.

I think the issues you have identified are common for many non-binary and gender fluid people. And it can often be very difficult for them to express themselves as they would like within gender binary society. I'd suggest maybe having a chat with a therapist who has some experience with gender about some of the ways you may approach your identity.

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Cheers

Grace

I think you may suffer as I do/did from black and white, or binary, thinking. I use the "IF you think you're trans, you are" definition. Now, where in the spectrum do you reside today? Keep in mind that location, as almost all things in life, can change.

All my life I knew deep down inside I should have been born a girl. After I got out of uni I experimented with transitioning as the natural extension of years of cross-dressing. I actually tried it twice and stopped for various reasons. Primarily I was not emotionally equiped to at that point in time, both my life and society in general (1970's). So I settled on being a cross-dresser as a means to manage my dysphoria with the occasional on/off low dose HRT for the brain reset when things got bleak.

That kind-of sort-of worked for 30 years. Ask anyone and I have done an exceptionally well as a male. In fact much of who I see myself as is also tied into what in general is deemed "male dominated". Six years ago I came to the realization I needed to take the trans-beast on for real. Found a support group, started therapy, started HRT again, eventually lived part-time as female now see a for real gender therapist. Still present primarily as male. Talk about flip-flopping!

I constantly wrestle with the Need vs the Want. The intensities vary wildly as I go from mostly presenting as male to being able spend time in the real world presenting as the real me. As I said to my therapist the other day, unfortunately I am not some ascended master. The shear joy of seeing a happy woman in the mirror is important to me. For a good day afterwards it's crash and burn time. Yes, I've made fantastic strides in bringing together these two great aspects of my soul together to make one happy and healthy person.

Thanks for the reply, Joanne! I certainly can relate to a lot of what you said about your own journey. As for being a black-and-white thinker, it's odd...I've spent so much of my life thinking in gray and constantly overanalyzing everything, that I think I'm finally completely sick of it and just want some clarity and definition. Because I definitely haven't been happy the way I am, the gray thinking has gotten me nowhere, only makes me go around and around in obsessive mental circles.

If I could go back in time and be born with a male body, I would. Although no one can say for sure, if I was born male, I can't imagine that I would have gender dysphoria (i.e. I don't believe I would have a single thought about wanting to be female instead).

However, the fact remains that I was not born with a male body, I was socialized as a girl, and I sometimes feel like I could be truly happy as one as too. I genuinely feel sometimes that the best path to happiness is to accept myself as a woman, get on with life, enjoy what is to be enjoyed about being female, fall in love, have children, lead a normal life, etc.

Still, I wouldn't be on this forum at all if that's how I felt 100% of the time, or probably even 80%. I don't know how to split the percentages exactly, because they do vary, but it's nowhere close to being consistent, and therein lies the huge issue. There are other times when I feel so sure that I should be living as a male, so sure that I want to get my first T shot -that moment- and finally start my new life!

Surely you and I can't be the only ones that flip-flop this way though! Come on, where are my other flip-flopping folks?! Share your stories!

Hey, Bacon!

I did quite a lot of flip-flopping.  I've had kind of a reprieve from that as an image of "the new me" is kinda taking shape.  I identify with, and get along with, ftm guys than mtf girls.  I was assigned male at birth, and I always gravitated towards tomboys... so I've started calling me a tomboy even though that means striving to be a bit girlier.

My mom's a feminist hippie, so my concept of gender is "**** gender, people can do stuff."  So, I was never ashamed to do "girl stuff." However, my dad was a Marine, and a very manly man, which I took to like a duck in water.  I'm strong, fast, uncouth, mechanically inclined, and my happiest place in life is freefall or the closest thing I can get to it.  And I never got along with boys.  Always felt like an outsider.

I never paid attention to my clothes (or really, my skin until something hurt a lot) or hygiene... so about the strangest thing in the world to me is that I started to crossdress.  Freaked my wife out, too!  I opened up a couple of times, and got the closet door slammed on my fingers (figuratively).  Thanks in part to my own discomfort and my desire not to trouble my wife, I spent about a year in denial.  Well, with both of us in therapy, things started to get better.  I had about two months of very strong day-to-day genderfluidity... that was really rough.  Really really rough.  On girl days, I'd be in the pits because I'd see this man looking at me in the mirror, I'd be wearing these grubby boy clothes.  On boy days, I'd think about the friends I'd told, the pain I'd caused my wife... the mental image of myself dressed femme made me want to puke.

Once, it all went away.  Boymode for over a month!  "Whew, wasn't that an awkward chapter of my life!  Really wish I hadn't told anybody..."  Before you know, it was back to the rollercoaster, starting with a giant crash.

Then, I had an idea: I'd just kinda sneak out of the closet.  I like my life, I like my job, so I don't want a "new me," I just want me to be me.  Gradually, I've been introducing girlier stuff into my wardrobe.  I've got a transition plan: low dose hormones for a while to see how it goes, zap the beard & moustache off... maybe ramp up the hormones if that goes okay.  The wife's on board, too!  With a plan, and having found a noun that seems to fit, I find myself forgetting about my gender.  I'm not preoccupied with it all day.  There's still some variability, but it's not a huge swing anymore.

So for me, genderfluidity was a result of having the rational part of my brain hardwired for a gender binary world despite having a nonbinary identity.  Now that I've settled on picking and choosing from "both" genders as I please, the bucket's stopped sloshing.  I used to be a bit masculine of center, now I'm a little femme of center.