So I'm not really non-binary, although I notice I talk less than most cis females, I don't always have the maternal instinct although I do at times and it can be painful sometimes,  and can be a little emotionally distant sometimes (I'm not unemotional, I'm often highly emotional, but don't always express it around cis people who don't know me in an extremely feminine way, and its more like I am in another place than people in the room). I sometimes wonder if I was meant to be some kind of third gender, who needs a female body but has a mix of emotional attributes at the time. I am pre-HRT. It would be so much easier just to be a cis-female for me, but maybe I have to learn how to integrate certain masculine aspects which I have learned and some interests which have no gender to them but are stereotypical masculine into my life. I'm not really a third gender but sometimes it feels like living a male for 24 years, and then spending the remainder in denial and currently the closet leaves its mark on the personality. I kind of want some advice hear on dealing with masculine aspects of personality, even though I feel I was meant to be a female, but don't completely hate every experience I had growing up male, just the highly gendered ones (I could go on and on about locker rooms). Part of this is that  i can relate to many females in my life but cannot relate to my mother and I can talk about stuff with my father but can identify less with his masculinity aspect than I can with my mother as a whole. Sorry to go to Freud-Land.

I agree that how much you talk, whether you are maternal and whether you're emotionally expressive don't say anything about your gender. After all, a lot of cis women are lacking in these traditional markers of femininity, but it doesn't have anything to do with their gender.

Like you, I think the male parts of my personality are grafted on after 50 years of living as a male (though I'm surprised how much of it has simply fallen away after living full time as a woman for a while). But for me, the sense that I'm male, hasn't fallen away. It's still there. My sense of myself as a male has been remarkably stable throughout my transition, which is what makes me think I might be non-binary.

How do I deal with the male aspects of my identity? I cherish them and value them (even though I wish they would just vanish and I could be a binary woman). They make me a special, unique kind of woman, and give me access to experiences and feelings that other women simply don't have. Is this what you were looking for?

thanks, it doesn't seem like a lot of people really discuss how the life experiences of the "male" never completely vanish into thin air during or or after transition.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 14, 2015, 12:04:07 PM
thanks, it doesn't seem like a lot of people really discuss how the life experiences of the "male" never completely vanish into thin air during or or after transition.

So much depends on the starting point of transitioning.  If we consider the 14 yo person who recognizes and accepts themselves as transgender and begins puberty blocking medication they have a potential lifetime as the gender they truly are inside.  Many young people will reasonably want to forget about their more painful past and even take steps toward stealth with being passable the holy grail. 

Its a different story for someone like me that is much older and had a lifetime living as a man.  As Suzi says, maleness was sort of "grafted on" to some degree as I tied to cope with what I could not then change.  That long period of socialization, memories and experience certainly don't vanish!  I believe it has helped me to recognize that I am non binary and may never feel completely male or female.  The amalgam of who we are is, IMO, something to celebrate as our genuine identity.  Masculinity and femininity are terms that seem too simple for the complexity of being fully human.

I'm the same way. I need to present feminine, but I'm a blend between male and female.

Quote from: Tessa James on July 14, 2015, 12:32:23 PM
So much depends on the starting point of transitioning.  If we consider the 14 yo person who recognizes and accepts themselves as transgender and begins puberty blocking medication they have a potential lifetime as the gender they truly are inside.  Many young people will reasonably want to forget about their more painful past and even take steps toward stealth with being passable the holy grail. 

Not all of us did though - I may be older now, but I once was a young transitioner, but I never felt the need to forget maybe because my past wasnt actually painful so I dont feel the need to lose or bury it...

I dont consider myself non binary in the conventional sense - but I am undoubtedly a fusion of male and female and I feel that is something very powerful and glorious to be. I'm not non binary - I am binary transcendant! In short I am me.