in as many or as few words as you'd like... this is not me asking you to "explain yourself" or "define yourself" or any of that. i'm just wondering what people think, because i use these words interchangeably to describe myself, whether to other people or in my head:
- multigendered
- genderfluid
- genderqueer
- agender/genderless
- gender nonconforming
- gender->-bleeped-<-
- radical

and other things:
- i want my gender to be what my body does, not what my body appears to be (this is why i am going to be a farmer.)
- gender is frustrating.
- sometimes, i want gender to go away entirely.

there are other things. i will come back and say more. i'm just interested to hear what other folks have to say, because i feel strange when i am asked to "choose one" ... especially when there is so much overlap and other stuff, and it's not entirely mappable or explainable, and it goes so far beyond a spectrum of man -> genderqueer -> trans woman, or female -> genderqueer -> trans man.

?? ?? i feel highly inarticulate.

Swinging at the pinata...
Okay, I don't think I'm male... but I am becoming more convinced I'm not female either...but rather that I feel both.
Maybe 40% male and 60% female? but since I've been busy being female for 37 years, I'm having a party with the male-ish aspects ATM.
I was a very in-your-face dyke in the 90's when that was the radical thing to do...except I figured out I still am attracted to men...But yet presented very butchly.

I...am not currently socially in a position where it would be without major consequence to say "I am third gender, neither man nor woman."   But if/when I see myself in a permissive employment and social situation.... . I'm inclined to rattle cages.  I think people ought to have a right to not have to cut off parts of their true selves to fit in the little pink or blue boxes, one per customer, thank you.

(I've never been a big respecter of social norms for which I cannot see a necessity.  Crossing at crosswalks=good.  Gendered bathrooms=bad.  Using trashcans=good, skirts for women only=bad. )

Female, no more no less....

(With a few gene physical anomalies to overcome)

Defo with an unconventional start out to life....

Hey, check this out: http://www.kreativekorp.com/miscpages/gender/gender.pl.  It's got a huge list of terms, many of which I've never seen elsewhere, that you can choose from, as many as you want of course.

My favorite terms to apply to myself are: FT?, gender atypical, gender confused, gender nonconformist, gender transcender, gender variant, genderqueer, opt-out, queer, transmasculine, ungendered, and of course, gender obliterator.  I feel like there's nothing female about me besides my body, but I don't think I'm terribly male either.  I don't know if I even can understand how other people experience binary gender in the first place.

I use the words "transgender," "bigender," and the definition of transgender in order to explain to people who I am.

"female" on a form, or to anyone I don't want to explain anything to.  I've gotten over the issues I had as a kid with people mistaking me for a guy, so if they do, I won't correct them, though.

"trigender" here, since sometimes I *do* actually feel a bit more female than neither, though if it's skirts and dresses time, I've never gotten over that feeling like crossdressing.  I guess it takes more than my mostly androgyne-male brain has got to get past that hump, even when surrounded by other people similarly dressed up.  (maybe I'd feel less weird if there were sometimes other guys in dresses wherever I happened to have to wear them, too?)

"transgender" in addition, as the body I was born with and gender I was assigned on my birth certificate do not match the body I want and what's in my head, even if I'm mostly somewhere around the blue line on the male side of the hockey rink of gender and not way back at the goal like most guys with solid male gender identities, even if they do skate around the rest of the ice on occasion.

I've given this a little thought and I think I'm at risk of sounding clever here. But my gender defines me.

I really hate these labels. Labels are a means of dismissing people. Summing them up so that any further interest in unnecessary.

People are so much more than a single aspect.

I'd say I have a fairly good idea of what my gender is and where it sits on the scale. From all my time thinking about it and viewing others I feel I've come to an understanding of myself in regards to gender! Of course I wish it was a few more notches towards the right... but I need to be honest with myself and others.
I've heard some people say that gender is fixed and I would really like to believe that and sometimes I do.. but maybe it can move ever so slowly with the right kind of influences? I don't know enough about it to say. I know I can change my gender roles etc but my identity? I do plan on trying to push it to the right more with time. Like right now I dislike a lot of things that are considered to be exclusively female but I am open to the idea of one day changing that once I feel more comfortable in my softer skin. The thought of looking awkward is just not appealing at all to me

   Lately, I just don't. If I think about it just sort of, I feel like I'm going to be wrong. If I think about it a lot, it tends to get a bit confusing. So lately, I don't. I just am and I'm happier about myself. It seems easier to just be. I know without having to define it because I don't need to explain myself to anyone, except maybe my therapist. I see anyone who isn't androgyne as being clueless and it makes me laugh to myself. I know that's just a little mean, but it's not anywhere as mean as they could be to me. So screw'em!
   But I wish there was an easy way to explain it all here for all of you. But I can't, and I am sorry for that. There are the frustrations in some posts that make me feel pretty sad. For you and for me because it hits home.
   Neither gender or both. Or both of those or neither of those. It's easier to think about the beginning and the end of existence. Or the universe. So lately, I just don't.

I don't really "fit" anywhere. Androgyne is a decent descriptor, I guess, but there are layers to how my identity works. As far as gender roles and presenting to the world go, it's fairly fluid. Sometimes I feel entirely agendered, other times I'll take on a masculine or feminine attitude. But my body dysphoria is less fluid. I'm very concrete on what my body is supposed to look like and what's out of place.

So, like ativan I don't. Not trying to define it is just so much more comfortable. I can exist without having to struggle for the right words or feel like I'm being pigeon holed. I just am.

Quote from: Ilan Reshon on September 21, 2010, 11:02:09 PM
Hey, check this out: http://www.kreativekorp.com/miscpages/gender/gender.pl.  It's got a huge list of terms, many of which I've never seen elsewhere, that you can choose from, as many as you want of course.

this is cool. i'd seen it before, actually, and i'm glad you pointed me back in its direction, because i think i am in the space now (where i wasn't before) to actually go through and decide what applies to me, not necessarily all the time, but sometimes.

Quote from: ativan on September 23, 2010, 10:21:31 PM
   Lately, I just don't.

Quote from: Lepidoptera on September 23, 2010, 10:35:40 PM
I can exist without having to struggle for the right words or feel like I'm being pigeon holed. I just am.

entirely legitimate. thanks for bringing that up-- both of you. i feel that way a lot of the time, and when i don't feel that way, i sometimes forget how frustrating it is - and how much sometimes i would prefer not to think about it. (hence the word "frustrating" i guess.)

I get a different answer when I try to be logical than I do when I just try to listen to my soul. I have six decades of acting male so it seems automatic, but also like a set of clothes I put on that do not fit. I look in the mirror and see a male, but I do not see me. Which to my logical mind makes no sense.

So, for now I call myself genderqueer or androgynous; I have male and female aspects. My self-definition.

My head says male.

But I feel female.

It would be easier to feel like my body, but I do not. I feel so overwhelmed. and scared.

Head says: "male"

Heart says: "woman"

Head says: "compromise - androgynous"

Heart says: " woman"

Head says: "I am so lost/->-bleeped-<-ed/messed up"

Heart says: "woman"

I do not think I can be just anything I imagine or choose to be. I do not feel like I can define myself so much as discover the self that has been buried and denied for so long.

Kendall

I'm a genderqueer trans man.  I'm way more comfortable and happy living as a man than I was as a girl, but I still don't identify as 100% male.  I'll always be a little in between or outside.

I don't, and I can't.  All the terms overlap and/or don't quite apply.

The drunker/more honest I get the more I realize that I'm just me.  I honestly think that there are a lot more people like us than unlike.

Quote from: LilDoberman on September 27, 2010, 01:57:10 PM
I don't, and I can't.  All the terms overlap and/or don't quite apply.

The drunker/more honest I get the more I realize that I'm just me.  I honestly think that there are a lot more people like us than unlike.

it's hard for me to say that i think there are "more people like us than unlike" even though i really like the sentiment - i don't really know or understand anyone's experience but my own, unless i am with someone who uses the same words for their experience, whose experience resonates. i don't know what "people like us" because even as a gendernonconforming trans person i know i am not the same as other gendernonconforming trans people. does that make sense? so even though i really like what you're saying, i don't agree for myself. does that make sense too?

Yes, makes sense exactly.  What I was thinking was simply that we 'assume' that everyone who acts/appears to be completely male/female actually is and I really don't think that's true.  I personally believe in the whole gender spectrum thing and that when people are truly open about it, there aren't as many piling up agains the end poles as it seems.
So yes, I know and agree that I am not the same as most other nonconforming people out there, but I think there are a TON of us.

I also *know* that I need another cup of coffee before writing anything that important.  You deserve a cookie if you can decifer it

the "gender as a spectrum" thing makes me think in a lot of directions too, actually. i can see how my starting this thread could be potentially a problem for some people, because it asks people to assign a name to their identity. for me, it's helpful to have words, even if none of them feel right 100% of the time. gender-as-spectrum doesn't entirely work for me. god, it's TOTALLY problematic that i started this thread.

...i'm glad i realized that.

Think of a sphere. Now place all the gender labels, descriptions, etc. all over the surface as individual points. Now imagine someone trying to locate themselves on that surface.
I think that most people would just keep looking to find out where they are. That's reasonable I suppose. And things will change as they progress through life. Reasonable.

Now think about the inside, the inner volume, of the same sphere. That's Androgyne. None of us are the same as the other, but we are in that same inner volume. Apart from the rest. We to, will change as time goes on, but we will remain in that volume, looking at all the descriptions that everyone else uses to describe themselves, and become more content in knowing where we are and where we will be.

Just my take on it. Maybe why I don't try to describe my gender, lately. It is what it is.

the center point? or the whole volume? there are a lot of people who bounce around the middle, walk around the inner area of the surface, bisect it, do other things, or litter the sky outside of it like bizarre constellations. androgyne means a lot of things, but there are a lot of things that people do, and then they overlap. i like your sphere. i want it to expand.

I don't see what is so complicated about it... in my understanding it is fixed and there is a line that moves from one binary to another and we all (not one excluded) fall somewhere on that line. If you don't know where you are on that line then perhaps one should do everything within their power to maybe figure it out? I consider it a good thing to know.. of course if you don't want to know and feel that knowing wouldn't enrich your life then....