For those of you who choose to maintain an androgynous presentation, why do you do so?
For those of you who choose to maintain a presentation consistent with that of your birth gender, why do you do so?
And for those of you who do something entirely different, I want to hear from you too.

For all of you, how do you accomplish your goals? Do you bind, tuck, remove body hair, et cetera; or do you wear the appropriate clothing; or something else entirely?

I'll start.
I try to look as androgynous/ambiguous as possible. For me it's about the physical and mental incongruence related to appearances. I have dysphoria related to my secondary sex characteristics, and I strive to remove their appearance as best I can. This means binding, at least lightly, most days, using bags that de-emphasize my breasts as much as possible, and dressing in clothing that hides the curves of my body. Sometimes I feel a little more male and pack, but that's just in the privacy of my room or my lover's room.

I present mainly female (birth sex) because it's most flexible...in my view. I often wear mens pants and a woman's top, or vise versa...but it seems to always read female regardless.

I do sometimes bind and dress fully male but I HATE binding and find it draws my own attention toward my breasts even more than before so...there's that. I'm told I need a different binder, of perhaps a larger size. Though my rib size (in bras) will be changing soon and going down due to surgery (I'm not having any ribs removed or anything, but some of the fat tissue will be taken out from under my armpits in addition to the breast reduction I'm under going.)

I also frequently wear fully female clothing because I do like the colors, the prints, the brightness and the fabric choices. I work in an office and it requires "office attire" and so at work I'm dressed fully female.

One thing that I LOVE is skirts. To the point where I make my own and have a store online that sells mainly skirts. I just love them. In American society this is a soley female clothing item but in other societies and other times in the past the skirt wasn't reserved for females only.

I love mens pants, and button up shirts. Though I don't care for ironing...lol! I'm such a prep in my male sense of style. Utterly hippie in my female sense of style. Mixes...interestingly!

I present androgynously nowadays because I can't completely pass.  My worst dysphoria comes from my voice, facial hair, and lack of curves, but I have ways of dealing with those.  I tuck 24/7 and get rid of all body hair no matter what I'm wearing over it; my main goal is to look and feel as feminine as I can without looking like I'm actually trying to pass, it takes away a lot of mental stress and paranoia in public.

Honestly, I don't know.

I just know I want to be as far from male.
I also suspect that to be female is not quite what I want, nor can be in any case.

Lately I'm trying to appear as female as possible, and the end result is that I look androgynous

Personally, I dont really care, I was wearing skirts and makeup randomly even before hormones. Not to say it was easy, but really, this world would not care what a little kid like I is wearing or not.

I don't chose anything. I present as I do because that's who I am.

Mostly it looks male, this is because I put on clothing cut for a female and I look ridiculous, I don't feel myself to be a ridiculous person. Were I to look better dresses/skirts and not ridiculous, I would wear them, because I like them - however, I am aware that I look rather like Les Dawson in some of his sketches, so I don't bother.

I wear a lot of colours and have a lot of accessories/badges/stickers and such, many of them floral.

I spose my bedroom is a more accurate representation of myself, with all the books and cds showing my interest, along with the shapes and colours of flowers, the maps, the old fashioned things, pictures of people I admire, dolls, dictionaries and such.

But as to my own self, I present in how I talk, how I move, how I say what I say - in which I want to be as honest as possible, and am a little more restrained in dress, because people will assume I am stranger than I really am otherwise.

i represent the way i do mostly because of laziness and because i like a certain degree of comfort. only reason i pluck my eyebrows is to look a little more well kempt. just to make a slightly better impression now that i've gotten a job and have to see other people regularly. i couldn't care less about other body hair right now because none other than a few family members will see any of it. but i'll rake it off if i go to a swimming pool, so i won't freak out men who have too high expectations of females

what i wear is usually a mix between rather plane female and male clothes. i'll choose the most comfortable that also looks presentable on me. and i often straighten my hair because it makes me look less feminine. i ended up using the binder only with a few shirts, and as a sports bra now that i started doing tae kwon do. maybe i should buy another one soon

Manlyish with a hint of feminine thrown in. It ends up looking like a more sophisticated look which I don't like either, but gives me a certain credibility.
I look out of place around the so called bikers, but I do look a little better than the average guy. But, really, I just dress down when ever I'm not going to be around most of the public.
I present myself in the manner of the present being that I am. If a person doesn't like it, well, get the F*** outta my world.

Ativan

What I want to present as and what I actually present as are currently two separate things.

My ideal would be no curves, no breasts, tight clothing to reveal an obviously male frame. Yet I would prefer longish feminine cut hair, and lots of eyeliner and funky coloured mascara. So I would appear as female as possible while still obviously male. That's how I feel inside and how I want the world to see me.

As it stands, I'm a very curvy breasty sort of person, so I stick to baggier clothing to hide my body, and my hair is short back and sides and I wear no makeup because I can't get away with it yet, I would just appear obviously female, which is not acceptable to me.

Quote from: Jeatyn on October 08, 2011, 04:22:14 PM
What I want to present as and what I actually present as are currently two separate things.

Same here, I'm very lazy by nature, left things too late to ever transition fully and so am stuck with what I've got. Add to that a major aversion to surgery and to doctors.

Just wish I lived in a country where it was hot enough to wear simple stuff all year round. Jeans, t-shirt, flip flops... What more does anyone ever need.

This is just the way I am. I don't go out of my way to try to be anything else.

I like to shape my eyebrows,make them look a little more feminine,and i`ve got long eyelashes too,so i like to bring them out with an eyeliner pencil.I`m not happy at all with my face tho`and my nose looks like a duffle bag full of cricket balls.I`ve got a little money saved up so i`m going to get something done to make me feel better,i`m male born and i`ve been a gym monkey for years so my bod`s ok,a bit too muscled really,but i`m gradually slimming it down(apart from my bum that is which my bf adores!)I`m ok with my male body,i can`t really change it even if i wanted to which i don`t.The small things i do just express my female self and make me feel good.

These replies have been interesting.

Personally, I identify as androgyne and I've just started binding. I identify in such a way, though, that I'd really like a male chest but to keep my female anatomy downstairs. So I bind and dress in male clothes, but I don't pack and I'm definitely not going to go all the way to bottom surgery. If I transition I will stop after chest surgery; unfortunately I don't think I can do even that without going on testosterone (can I?) and either way my parents won't support me.

Sorry, I guess that's kind of confusing. Anyway, I dress and look fully male... except for my face. Unfortunately my face is wildly female. I've never been mistaken for a male before (except, interestingly enough, by close friends and my own brother, and they KNOW I'm bio female) and I probably never will be due to this face.

Anyway, sorry for the long post...

--Kayden

Much like Pica here; I think skirts are great, especially very long ones, but mostly i'd look foolish dressing too femme.  (I did once, with the right combo, think a top and skirt looked half decent on me; not to the extent I would wear them in public though, and it was the exception rather than the rule.)

I wear the sort of button-down ladies' shirts that are cut like mens' shirts, or else pastel or flowery mens' shirts.  Or just geeky t-shirts.  I like stripey socks and fun colors and the like, but I also like grey and black.  Mostly I dress for a combination of comfort and expressing the long-suppressed nonmale aspects of myself.  She needs that salute.  Honestly, I'm also a little bit under the radar as well; I don't like confrontation and don't want to attempt to explain androgyny to either strangers or acquaintances.  I feel weird about those rare occasions when people say I'm pretty, too.

(That said, where's your site Sevan?  I or my wife might be interested in buying something )

The more I think about my presentation, the more I feel like I'm doing it all wrong. I should be in a male body trying to balance that out with feminine things. I'm stuck doing it all backwards. I shouldn't be female, I should be male on E.

Quote from: Julian on October 14, 2011, 01:52:13 PM
I should be in a male body trying to balance that out with feminine things. I'm stuck doing it all backwards.

I totally know what you mean! 

Since I'm very curvy and chesty (binding with D-cups is a monumental bitch, by the way), and have very feminine facial features, I try to look like an effeminate boy, and I'd like to think that I pull it off pretty well; at least my girlfriend thinks so. 

Even though I identify as genderqueer, I feel more comfortable being viewed as a guy, yet because I'm still a girl I can get away with feminine attributes and mannerisms.  A level of ambiguity to my gender when perceived by others is very acceptable.  It really depends on what I'm going for that day. 

I mean, if I'm obviously binding and trying to look male, it'd annoy me to be called a girl, and if I'm in a skirt and trying to be female I don't want to be called a guy.  Wow, I'm kinda complicated.  I must confuse the hell out of my cisgendered friends...  lol.

In a nutshell, I like being either in-between or both, really. 

My store is on vacation mode right now as I heal from surgery. So you can't see any of my items until I reopen the store. The store is flutterby.etsy.com and it'll be back up on/around the 21nd. I also have a blog which has a bunch of items up in a gallery so you can see what my style is. That can be found on flutterbuygifts.com

Quote from: Sage on October 15, 2011, 12:02:57 AM
I totally know what you mean! 

Since I'm very curvy and chesty (binding with D-cups is a monumental bitch, by the way), and have very feminine facial features, I try to look like an effeminate boy, and I'd like to think that I pull it off pretty well; at least my girlfriend thinks so. 

Even though I identify as genderqueer, I feel more comfortable being viewed as a guy, yet because I'm still a girl I can get away with feminine attributes and mannerisms.  A level of ambiguity to my gender when perceived by others is very acceptable.  It really depends on what I'm going for that day. 

I mean, if I'm obviously binding and trying to look male, it'd annoy me to be called a girl, and if I'm in a skirt and trying to be female I don't want to be called a guy.  Wow, I'm kinda complicated.  I must confuse the hell out of my cisgendered friends...  lol.

In a nutshell, I like being either in-between or both, really. 

Heh, I like being neither. I want to confuse people by removing all the signifiers that might cause them to gender me. And I totally hear you on binding with D cups. Can't wait to get these babies reduced or removed.

Totally! I couldn't bind my DDDs. I'm not exactly sure what size i've gotten down to...either a B or C cup. Reductions aren't an exact science. I'm hoping, and had asked for a C and I'm pretty confident in my surgeon...so we'll see what I end up with once healed up. I'm interested to see how well it'll bind down.

I wear unisexed attire mostly cause that way I can feel more comfortable but at the same time not freak too many people out.

Just because some are intolerant doesn't mean I have to freak out those who don't care and just simply want to live their lives.

As male, out of fear and comfort.  Typically loose clothes, never shorts.

How would I like to present?  Without any stubble on my face, without hair on my arms or legs, and in colorful clothes that are loose and joyful (I like what some Buddist monks wear, for instance, which is ironic considering it is meant as cheap, utilitarian clothing).  Not sure I'd fit in going to work in a large corporate HQ building wearing Buddist robes (nor would I want to offend Buddists - so what I wore would need to be distinguishable).  But if I could wear anything, I'd wear bright yellow robes of some sort.  The thought of it makes me happy.  I love the idea of being able to wear clothes without the lie of being a man or a woman - so clothes that are bright, flowing, and non-form-fitting would really appeal to me.  I just want to be who I am!  So does anyone know of something like the Buddist robes that wouldn't offend a Buddist to see a non-Buddist wear, which doesn't involve sewing (I don't have a good machine right now - one day I'll get one, but until then I'm not going to sew clothes by hand!), and is colorful?  I'd love to own something like that!

Hair has never mattered to me, so I have short, functional hair now.  I've done the opposite, with hair down past my shoulders in the past.  Ironically, it was the short hair (although not as short as now!) that caused my friends to tell me I wore a feminine hair style!

One day I suppose I'll figure out how to live in truth.  I'm not there yet though - still too much fear (I couldn't even tell you what I fear right now).