I hope the title caught somebody's attention because I would like some thoughts other than those I come up with myself.

MTF Trans or non-binary or something else, that is the question. Before HRT I was quite certain I was MTF. There was no doubt and I had been certain for over 40 years. Now after over a year on HRT I'm not certain anymore.

Please don't say that it doesn't matter and that I just need to be what makes me happy. That doesn't work for me. What makes me happy is to be certain; it's just the way my mind works. And maybe part of this is just me needing to write it all down to try and figure it out.

Here is what I am certain of:

• Before HRT the dysphoria was not constant. But it was really frequent and when it was there it was crushing and soul destroying.
• On HRT the dysphoria is almost non-existent.
  I cannot stop the transition dosages I am on. I tried that twice before and the crushing dysphoria comes back worse than before.
• I am really happy with what I am seeing.
• I pass, at least marginally, no matter what I am wearing (usually jeans and one of my old shirts or running clothes). I get called ma'am now more often than sir although most often I am called nothing at all. When I get called ma'am it is beginning to seem normal and makes me happy. Being called sir feels like being slapped.
• I like my long hair and am really fortunate in having all of it. No wigs are needed. So no matter what I'm doing or how I'm dressed the hair is there.

Ok. That all comes across pretty straightforward and seems to confirm what I've always believed. But there are other things that introduce doubt because at least around here this seems pretty unusual. I don't really know any other trans people other than those here to compare feelings with.

• I don't really care about clothes. I no longer have a drive to dress up and go out. Neither do I really have a drive to wear makeup and go out. Before HRT the drive was there but now it's gone. Yes, I do have that stuff but have kind of lost interest in it.
• I don't feel an urgency on a complete public transition anymore. And yet I do have a drive to pass without makeup and flashy clothes. This confuses me.
• When people here say they feel like a woman or feel like a man I have no idea what that means. All I know is that I feel like myself on HRT and not like myself without HRT. On the other hand I did used to be quite certain of my core identity which remained constant whether I was dressing up or parachuting out of an airplane with my face painted green. What I was doing had no effect on my identity one way or the other. It still doesn't.
• Mentally I don't think HRT has changed me much except for eliminating the dysphoria and depression. Other than politics and religion, which I was using as a coping mechanism before, my interests, likes and dislikes, etc. seem to have remained the same. Even my emotions have changed only marginally.
• I also don't really have any interest in body modifications other than what comes naturally with HRT and from taking care of myself. In my mind at least this is the real me. Maybe if I was 20 instead of 56 I would feel differently.

Does anybody else feel at all like this or am I the only one? Is this non-binary or non-standard narrative MTF trans? Is it just me adjusting? Or is it something else?

Maybe it's just me feeling rather happy most of the time for the first time and being hesitant to push the envelope to fast and too far and see it all come crashing down.

This is all a big puzzle. Anyone have any ideas?

I have felt that way for about 33 year, the amount of time I have been without T in my system. Thats how a CIS woman is supposed to feel. Because you aren't presenting female in formal appearances, you tend miss out on dressing for show. Also you are not presenting female for a lover who would appreciate you appearing that way. Much of why a woman like to appear sexy is to please somebody else or for show.

Much of my life I don't wear makeup and am very informal in my dress however if I need to go to the attorney's office, a doctors appointment or some place formal, I enjoy dressing for it. It's not a sexual feeling but I appreciate looking nice for the occasion.

Now weather you are transsexual or non binary very close the the transsexual end of the scale, I can't say. That will be determined on weather you want GCS or if you are comfortable with the original equipment.

Quote from: Deborah on March 26, 2016, 11:00:54 PM
Please don't say that it doesn't matter and that I just need to be what makes me happy. That doesn't work for me. What makes me happy is to be certain; it's just the way my mind works.

OK. I won't say it doesn't matter.

I will say that labels and words we use to describe our experiences are very subjective. What feels like non-binary to me may feel like MtF to someone else, so it's really impossible to be certain about what I am relative to some label. If you find it's a helpful exercise, go ahead, but realize that you're asking questions for which certainty will be elusive.

Quote from: Deborah on March 26, 2016, 11:00:54 PM
Does anybody else feel at all like this or am I the only one?

Me, me, me, me, me. I have felt every single thing you've written here at one time or another during my exploration.

What worked for me in the end was to transition. Once I became the woman I wanted to be, the label I placed on myself because moot.

Can I ask a question: Suppose you knew for sure that you were a transgender woman with a non-binary gender experience (I'm using that as an example, since that's the identity I use to describe for myself). What would that certainty mean for you?

I'm sort of having a similar experience from the ftm side. I never felt comfortable with my chest or being called by female pronouns. Then when I realised I was trans the dysphoria was soul crushing. It consumed my mind. Now that I'm on T (nearly 5 months) I hardly have any dysphoria. I still want a male chest but the chest I have only now gives me a slight buzz of dysphoria. I can still look at it and not feel trapped or embarrassed. I'm starting to feel that maybe I'm slightly agender. I don't feel 'male' really; I just feel like me. I definitely am not female but I don't feel like I am 100%male. I can't remember what that feels like anymore. I think before T I didn't want to be fem because then people would call me female. But now I can be as fem as I want. As for pronouns I'd probably feel more comfortable if people used gender neutral pronouns. I'm still undecided about bottom surgery as I don't have much dysphoria in that area at all.
Not sure if this is useful. It does bother me that I don't fit into a neat box like most other people but I've gone through so much in my life when it comes to being trans that I regard this as simply another challenge. I'll figure it out just like I managed to figure out how to change my name or get T.

Deborah, I feel much the same with few minor differences. I believe I'm MtF, but sometimes wonder about being non-binary. I don't think I am though as I still get dysphoria sometimes, its just not very powerful. HRT has had a massive effect on that (about 5 years low dose, 2 full).

I'm curious, but I don't care what the label is. For me the label is only useful in trying to understand where I might go from here. Being trans as opposed to cis being the most coarse example. I wouldn't have found this forum if I didn't know that.

For pragmatic reasons I'm purposely presenting very male, and I've no idea how well I'd pass if I tried, or even stopped making an effort pass male. I find it strange that I don't get dysphoria looking the way I do, but for whatever reason I don't. I still occasionally get dysphoria, but its more about the entire female vs male than any details.

I'm beginning to find hiding more oppressive than dysphoria. I can see that might become a problem one day.

I've no idea what it means to feel male or female anymore. A lot of my personality is stereotypical male. I can't tell if that's because of my history or some amount of non-binary. And of course not all women are stereotypically female. HRT has made some definite female inroads into my physical feelings though. Anyway, I don't care. I am what I am.

I'm interested in SRS, but its more from the point of view that I feel a need to move forward in transition, and anything that might out me is off limits for now. I got to do something, and SRS is something, so I'll do that. Plus I want to. Again some practical use to the label, since SRS is something a lot of trans people are happy with, so I've every reason to expect I'd be the same.

If I end up socially transitioning I'll do BA and FFS, but partly so I pass as I don't like the idea of standing out as trans. There's an element of wanting to for its own sake, but I can't separate if from fear of not passing.

I don't think I'll ever know unless I fully transition and find I don't like it there. Knowing if I'm happy where I am matters a lot, but knowing what its called doesn't.

I'd give it more time and see how your feelings evolve. I shouldn't think there's much else you can about it anyway. Stop worrying and enjoy the ride.

Quote from: Deborah on March 26, 2016, 11:00:54 PM

Does anybody else feel at all like this or am I the only one? Is this non-binary or non-standard narrative MTF trans? Is it just me adjusting? Or is it something else?

Deborah, I have very much the same experiences and feelings.  I've debated labels, but I wonder why I would stress over fitting a stereotype of "woman" when I suffered too much pain failing to be male.  Call me self-absorbed, but I am happiest focusing just on being "me", without worrying too much about fitting a category.  I don't know if I'm developing into an approved version of "woman", but I'm getting much better at being "me".

That's a good question.  As far as how I am proceeding it doesn't make any difference.  This course is the only one for me wherever it may ultimately lead.  Going back to my previous mental state is horrible to contemplate.  I guess it's just intense curiosity and the way I am.  I always feel driven to completely understand anything I am interested in.

Quote from: Deborah on March 27, 2016, 08:04:13 AM
I always feel driven to completely understand anything I am interested in.

So am I, but I given up on this one. Too hard.

As far as GRS, I can see myself being very happy with it.  But at the moment it's not a driving need.  Also, I am generally feeling asexual these days so my thoughts don't drop down to that place very much anymore as I'm not using it for anything other than the bathroom LOL.  Even looking in the mirror I tend not to see it (I'm not sure how that works)

There is also the cost of which my insurance covers absolutely nothing except the HRT.  I'm hoping that will change with a decision for Transsexuals in the military.  That would certainly make it affordable as well as alter the cost benefit equation.


Sapere Aude

There are many 100% cis women who don't care about clothes etc at all... who wouldn't care if someone called them 'sir'...

What I mean is, don't feel forced to call yourself non-binary for anyone else unless you feel it fits you

I had this problem too, for a while i thought i should be NB because I like pastel colours and flowery wallpaper and china and things but then i realised that William Morris and Josiah Wedgewood were (as far as we know) cis guys often designing for other cis guys and so I tend to go with what I feel about my body and how i want society to read me, rather than my interests or how I feel when i'm doing certain 'gendered' activities. i also don't want bottom surgery and some days i don't even want HRT, but I don't want to be labeled as non binary because i don't feel it fits me

however that doesn't mean i would disbelieve anyone who said they felt non binary because of their interests or dress sense - it just means i no longer feel the pressure to not identify as 100% male. labels are meant to make you feel happier about yourself

I tend to put questions about 'labels' into the same bin as questions on 'why or how'.

At the end of the day will it make a difference in who you are and what you feel you need to do Today? You simply are who you are. A unique person on a rock loaded with over 8 Billion others. All unique unto themselves. If some learned person of many letters came by and tapped their wand on you declaring you a ______; would you suddenly alter your life to match that label? Especially if it weren't the label you were hoping for? Or, would you think a bit on it, and maybe make an adjustment to see where it leads?

It it's most simplistic form TransGender can be looked at as a spectrum between cis-female and cis-male. OK, it is far better then seeing gender as a binary. But every color in that spectrum can be mixed with any to all other colors in various ratios. We are not pure elements but rather an amalgam of all things human behaviour.

Quote from: Deborah on March 27, 2016, 08:04:13 AM
That's a good question.  As far as how I am proceeding it doesn't make any difference.  This course is the only one for me wherever it may ultimately lead.  Going back to my previous mental state is horrible to contemplate.  I guess it's just intense curiosity and the way I am.  I always feel driven to completely understand anything I am interested in.

Ah. Then I will give you my understanding, in case it helps you.

In the womb, human brains are wired to want to be a certain gender. The way this happens is different for every complex brain.

Sometimes that gender differs from the sex at birth. Sometimes that gender is experienced as a binary gender, sometimes it is experienced as some non-binary gender. Given the complexity of the human brain, there are an infinite number of ways this can happen.

So each of us experiences our gender slightly differently. Trying to classify them into labels can be descriptive, to get an idea of general categories we may fall into, but trying to definitively classify any particular person's gender into one of those labels may ultimately be futile, since there can be so many variations.

Does that help?

Quote from: suzifrommd on March 27, 2016, 12:32:52 PM
Does that help?

Yes, it actually does.  I expect total life experience has a lot to do with it too and the longer that experience is the more cloudy is the ultimate answer.

Quote from: Deborah on March 26, 2016, 11:00:54 PM

• I don't really care about clothes. I no longer have a drive to dress up and go out. Neither do I really have a drive to wear makeup and go out. Before HRT the drive was there but now it's gone. Yes, I do have that stuff but have kind of lost interest in it.
• I don't feel an urgency on a complete public transition anymore. And yet I do have a drive to pass without makeup and flashy clothes. This confuses me.

I spent years of effort pre-transition in pursuing the minutiae of female presentation (makeup, clothing, etc.) in hopes that I could fool people into thinking I was the cis female I badly longed to be.  The results were mixed, sometimes successful, sometimes not so much.  I was fortunate in my genetic inheritance (not too tall, slight/slender build, tenor voice, features not overly masculinized).  But a lot of my presentation at that time was an act I was consciously projecting.

From that starting point, I have moved forward with HRT, full-time living/working, GCS, legal change of name and documents, etc.  At this point, I pass to the degree that no one has challenged my female identity in several years.  Most of the people in my life now would have no idea what I was like in the past.

While I was very preoccupied in the past with hair, makeup, and clothing, these have little significance to me any more.  I rarely wear makeup now, and my clothing and hairstyle are pretty much what an un-flashy 34-year-old cis female would display.  The most significant factor in passing wasn't what I put on the outside of me, but what came out from the inside of me as I let my female gender identity fully emerge.

I'm really happy that I went forward with transition.  I feel comfortable with a female life and identity.  It works for me!

All of your responses are tremendously helpful.  Maybe I'm not such an outlier after all.


Sapere Aude

I don't think you are an outlier at all. Being trans forces us to look at gender in a whole different way than cis people do and we tend to analyze every little detail to see if we measure up to the ideal very feminine woman. And sometimes when we don't, we feel that we don't deserve the MtF label. But in the end there are approximately 3.7 billion women on this planet, every one of them different from the other and probably very few measure up to the ideals we set for ourselves.

At one of my previous jobs I worked at a factory where there were at least 3000 women.
I saw all kinds of women there, from the pretty 18 year old girl who spent most of her money on clothes, shoes and cosmetics, who walked out of the factory in high heels after standing for 12 hours to the 55 year old mother of three who was a truck driver before and did not care about the mentioned things at all and who looked like a man and even had a mustache(after menopause).

When I was 14 I was quite sure I was a heterosexual girl who needs GRS to be happy. Then life happened, I did not transition in my teens, I tried to repress my feelings. Then when I knew this would not work I tried to label myself using the stereotypes to justify my MtF label and I failed. I got more confused at the end than when I was 14 years old.
That bothered me a lot at first because I needed to be certain before I made a move on important issues like this.
As I was still not sure I started doing things slowly to feel a little better, I bought clothes, shoes etc... And they were all very feminine, exact opposites of what I wore as a guy.
After a few years living part-time as a woman, my wardrobe is now a lot more casual. Now I don't wear high heels all the time, sometimes I just put on jeans and sneakers with a t-shirt and I almost never wear any makeup. And guess what, the women in around me do the same. My partner is MtF so I'm living in a lesbian relationship and I don't consider GRS a vital part of my transition now while 16 years ago I thought that was the most important thing. What does that make me? I really don't know but I'll probably transition anyway because I feel that I could be happier that way.

Quote from: Deborah on March 27, 2016, 04:18:15 PM
Maybe I'm not such an outlier after all.

Actually, from what I hear, most of your experiences are somewhat typical. There was nothing in the original post in this thread that I hadn't heard from dozens of women before you.

I just wanna add that nobody knows what it's like to be "a woman" or "a man" in the sense knowing they feel exactly like every other woman or man. All anybody ever knows is how it feels to be them.

I identify male, but do I know how other men feel? Absolutely not. I can compare things other people might say about being male, or about being female, and draw conclusions that I'm probably one and not the other, but in all truth I know nothing except what my own brain experiences. I also know from general observation that all men and all women are most definitely not the same in terms of how they say they feel, what they want to do with their time, and how they wish to present. All there is to go on in the end is what is comfortable for you, and what is not, what feels right and good, and what doesn't. So go with what feels right and don't worry if you're not meeting the criteria of others.

I'd also suggest that not worrying or caring as much about things you used to can be a result of natural coping, or maybe the HRT just making you feel more comfortable and less harassed about things in general. I'm told this is what it often does for both males and females. I know myself that huge drops in estrogen levels caused me almost manic levels of anxiety at one point in my life, which makes me think that estrogen has a calming effect to a certain degree, and if your brain is geared to have higher levels in it and you believe it should, then higher levels are going to make you feel more at ease, and when someone's more at ease they certainly don't sweat the same things as much as if they are not.

If I think back to my extremely dysphoric days, my coping mechanisms were non existent and I had no HRT (I still don't yet, but I do have coping mechanisms in place now). Far more details and desires about what I wanted regards my body bothered me then than now. The current mechanisms prevent me from sweating the same stuff any more to anywhere near the same degree. I figure you've probably found your mechanisms.

I spent most of the winter in a top and jeans with many days without makeup at all. I also have found that if I could go without makeup I would and I have at time already yet I still have some more hair removal to go. Laser has helped enough though that I can do that and people on the most part don't noticed.  As Dena stated it really just comes down to being female and being female all the time where you don't fuss and stress over those things anymore. I stay dressed pretty casually most of the time and really don't dressed it up except for certain times. The key is however your comfortable is best. Whether that is non binary or mtf is totally up to you. My dysphoria was clearly centered on my genitals but didn't really have it in relation to anything else. I don't try to do anything special but be me. I hope that helps. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: Elis on March 27, 2016, 06:44:23 AM
I'm sort of having a similar experience from the ftm side. I never felt comfortable with my chest or being called by female pronouns. Then when I realised I was trans the dysphoria was soul crushing. It consumed my mind. Now that I'm on T (nearly 5 months) I hardly have any dysphoria. I still want a male chest but the chest I have only now gives me a slight buzz of dysphoria. I can still look at it and not feel trapped or embarrassed. I'm starting to feel that maybe I'm slightly agender. I don't feel 'male' really; I just feel like me. I definitely am not female but I don't feel like I am 100%male. I can't remember what that feels like anymore. I think before T I didn't want to be fem because then people would call me female. But now I can be as fem as I want. As for pronouns I'd probably feel more comfortable if people used gender neutral pronouns. I'm still undecided about bottom surgery as I don't have much dysphoria in that area at all.
Not sure if this is useful. It does bother me that I don't fit into a neat box like most other people but I've gone through so much in my life when it comes to being trans that I regard this as simply another challenge. I'll figure it out just like I managed to figure out how to change my name or get T.

Did you have an image in mind of exactly what kind of male you would be before? You look mostly like an androgynous male and not all men are alike. There's nothing wrong with that. Did you want to be more traditionally masculine?