hi everyone, this is my first post, and i'm not really sure what to say here. i guess a good place to start would be with where i'm at right now, and how i came to sign up for this board. here goes nothing. . .
last night i stumbled across this board while looking for information about this word "androgyne." i was born male, and for a long time i've known that i'm not "straight," just in the same way i've known i'm not "gay," but "bisexual" was never a really good fit either. it just didn't seem right to me, and i never really could figure out why. i experimented and found that while *some* men i find myself really attracted to, i almost exlusively prefer women. for a long time i identified as "heteroflexible" to my close friends, and "straight" when i just didn't feel like being bothered with explaining what i meant by heteroflexible. several years ago, during one of my frequent periods of self-examination, i started wondering if maybe i was trans(gendered or sexual, i'm not sure which since i can't seem to keep those terms from getting mixed up in my head) and began thinking about getting surgery. the more i thought about it, the more i realised that that wasn't the answer either. i realised that i would feel just as incomplete as a woman as i do a man. so i buried it somewhere deep inside my brain and tried not to think about it, while resigning myself to being a "girly boy."
fast forward a few years to August of this year. i met and eventually started dating my current girlfriend. she identifies as "queer," saying that the reason she does is because "gender doesn't matter." well that seems to have opened the floodgates. suddenly feeling that it's okay to be effeminate allowed all of these repressed thoughts to come to the surface with a vengance. i started thinking about surgery again, and again i realised it wasn't the answer. so i asked myself what i really wanted, and found i wanted to be both male and female, sometimes all male, sometimes all female, other times a mix of both. as a result of this i became even more confused than before. it didn't make sense to me, i didn't think that was okay, i thought i had to pick one and stick with it. so i decided to talk to the GF about it. she is the only one in my life currently whom i feel as though i can talk about this too. she didn't have a lot to say, but she did say two very important things: 1) it's okay and perfectly natural to be confused because this isn't easy 2) she explained her views on gender to me, and elaborated on why gender doesn't matter to her. i didn't really get any answers, but i did get breathing room. that's when i started paying a little more attention to gender.
most of my friends would agree that i'm pretty effeminate, but i've always felt like i've been holding back on that aspect of myself. i've worn make up before (and loved it) and i have a few articles of women's clothing that i would work into outfits to create an androgynous look. for a long time i've wished that i looked more androgynous, but until 24 hours ago, i never realised that i could use it as and identity, not just an appearance. i ran across androgyny online, and this is where i first encountered the word "androgyne." the more i read the more it made sense, and the more i could see it as something that applied to me. it explained why i never felt straight for liking girls, and why bisexual didn't seem to fit either. it explained why i wanted to be more feminine, but not actually want to be a female. it also explained why being male never seemed right either.
i'm critical, and i don't like to jump to conclusions, so i'm hesitant to grab onto androgyne as an identity and apply it to myself. however, when i signed up for this forum i picked androgyne as a user subgroup, and was overcome with a sense of self-validation that i've only ever experienced before when i wrote in my journal that all my friends and family would still love me, even if i'm not perfect all the time. while reading through some of the posts in the androgyny forum here, i kept reading so many things from people that were so close to what i think and how i feel, so i think i'm on the right track.
i really look forward to getting to know all of you on here and i hope that i can find some answers, because this is really the only thing that's made sense so far.
-Vicarious One
