At it's base, I think gender identity is something that's just an ineffable sense of who you are. You can't really put it into words, or tally up traits that are either masculine or feminine and understand that way (which is why I have a huge problem with tests that try to get at some empirical certainty that will never really be there in good faith). I've never had that solid sense as one or the other as a kid or at present. Part of my personality is heavily maternal and I tend to prefer the passive role in romance, but it also includes a heavily logical side, and especially in LGBT activism I tend to be very outspoken. I've grown to realize, though, that it's not so much having a collection of both typically "masculine" traits and "feminine" traits that makes me an androgyne, it's this ineffable sense of being in between. 

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable.
Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
--Douglas Adams Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

In a language that is binary in the gender sense, there are only terms and labels that are fluid in definition themselves.
Try not to think in terms of masculine and feminine, as they overlap to a huge degree, both being capable of being the other.
Androgyn or non-binary is this. It's definition lies in a language that is unspoken.
It is a feeling. The definition is fleeting, an indefinable sense of being.
It is capable of being understood to us all, more so to those of us who except that it is a true feeling.
One that is for the most part, always there.

Ativan

By age 4 I knew, and had stated to my parents and siblings, that I was a female, period.

The consequence of such an action was a never ending physical and verbal abuse, until I was told to live home at about 13 YO. They did try several cures, from a counseling with  psychiatrist, a shaman, an exorcism by prist, military school, and bribes; nothing worked of course.

Recalling my childhood memories use to fill me with rage, but now -thanks to the wonderful blue magic pill- it just fills me with sadness.

Yea,... The underlying rage and anger will always be a part of me.

A combination of Spiro and Klonopin quiet the beast, keeping it as just a memory.

Ativan

I don't quite remember how I perceived myself when I was very little. Later in my childhood (possibly after 8/9 years old), I was aware of being a female, but I had a tendency to identify with tomboys and male characters in movies and cartoons. Maybe it was simply because female characters were always too girly and boring, while the boys got to do the fun stuff. My dream was to be a cowboy, but I don't think I was trying to be a boy. Same thing with what they call "gender nonconformity". I played with dolls, but also with guns, action figures and lego... At some point, I developed an aversion for everything that was considered for females.
I also had a fascination for male clothing, that grew stronger in my early teens.
As I said, I don't think I was trying to a be boy and most of what I described is about gender expression rather than gender identity, ..so I'm not really sure this means anything at all!
I started to have issues with my body only when my breasts started to grow, but then again, ..I'm not really sure why. Maybe I was just uncomfortable with growing up!

All I know, I was going to cut off my penis, and pierce my ears to wear earrings at one night being on my own.

The rest would have taken care of it self --- if there wasn't my mother (single parent), and the thread of getting the hiding of my life.
And I sure had some of those before, so I bloody well opted out.

Axélle
PS: what I didn't know then was, that electroshock therapy would have been next waiting down the line... just as well. This was in 1954!

when i was 4 i didn't like that just because i was a girl i'd have to have (oral) sex with a boy. but this might have more to do with sexuality (?) i've really no idea. this is one of the weirdest childhood memories i have, and should probably not be explained in depth, other than mentioning that there was no crime involved

when i was 6 i didn't get why i suddenly couldn't be in the men's sauna at the public bath
i was probably around 8-9 when i got pissed at my body being reason that my family couldn't all use our own sauna together
and when i was 10 i knew that i hated what puberty had started doing to my body
if only i didn't have these genes for big hips and boobs. so useless when all i ever wanted was to grow up to become androgynous
the next thing would probably be that funny dream i had in early puberty where i was a hermaphrodite, and the only thing that bothered me about it were the possible reasons for having a dream like this

i also remmeber that i could totally relate when i watched a documentary about transsexualism somewhen in middle school or earlier, but decided that i'd never have srs because they can't make a fully functional penis. so i dismissed the whole thought of anything related to transitioning and accepting myself as trans, since i thought it was all or nothing (and to a certain extent it really is in this country)

other than that i also know that i never got this big difference between boys and girls and why it was bad to walk and sit and talk like i some times did. the answer to why i can't be myself was that i'm a girl. makes sense, right...

No Harry Potter pjs! Now that's just plain sucky!

--Jay Jay

My favorite early memories were at a little less than four years old when I remember asking my mom to polish my nails, and I loved it.  At about the same age my two sisters also dressed me up in their old clothes for Halloween as their little sister. 

Worst memory was when I was about 8 and being told that I couldn't have the doll I wanted for Christmas.  Kind of hurt.

Funny what we remember and how it still feels warm and fuzzy.

I recall being about 7 years old, wrapping bedsheets around my legs and pretending I was a mermaid.  And an earlier time when I was pretending to be the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus.  And a phase of "tucking" in the bathtub. And that my best friend when I was 5 or so was a girl.

As I grew up I "grew out of" it all and felt shame toward any sort of gendered behavior, until I started roleplaying female characters in games at least.

Quote from: foosnark on May 29, 2012, 11:55:11 AM
I recall being about 7 years old, wrapping bedsheets around my legs and pretending I was a mermaid.  And an earlier time when I was pretending to be the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus.  And a phase of "tucking" in the bathtub. And that my best friend when I was 5 or so was a girl.

As I grew up I "grew out of" it all and felt shame toward any sort of gendered behavior, until I started roleplaying female characters in games at least.

I've heard that mermaid fantasies are VERY common for Mtf children. You can see why.

--Jay Jay

Gender roles were both ignored and highlighted in my house... my mother was the type that did sit-ins in high school in the 60's to wear pants to school because she hates dresses, and she always made a big deal that girls can do anything boys can do, but whether I was doing "boy" or "girl" stuff was never highlighted. My father wanted me to be a super-smart science genius and it didn't really matter what gender I was: I was the firstborn and thus I would be wonderful at all things.

So for years and years I'd just read whatever and play with whatever and do whatever, and at school I'd spend more time with boys and my family just figured that's because I was a "nerdy" sort. But I'd still identify with female characters and I always wrote about female main characters in my stories. Why? Because I was a girl in body. No other reason. It was a very literal thing. I'd dress depending on how I felt... sometimes like a boy, sometimes like a girl. I guess being female-bodied people accepted "boy clothing" as okay for a girl.

When I hit puberty I finally went "oh hey I'm supposed to be a girl!!" and started perming/dyeing my hair, pierced my ears, joined a female-only youth group. But at the same time I wanted to cut my hair super-short. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I'm "supposed" to be. I talk a lot about presentation here because really to me that's the only way I can pin down gender in my own life--by what other people say is male or female. Probably if I was going to make up a species with two genders, everything I like would be my gender, and everything I don't would be the "other" gender. I don't even know what I'd call them though. I don't think I'd make there be two. Maybe four? Five?

Really though... and I'm a writer so that's probably why I see it this way... realizing that I identify with characters based less on gender than on personality made me go "I'm not really female in my mind." And I know, I know, men can identify with female characters and vice versa but that's not what I mean... I mean something I don't quite have words for, and it goes back to when I started reading (which was when I was 3), wherein I could totally identify with both little girls and little boys... and even little non-gendered alien children... because it didn't feel "weird" or "wrong" to imagine myself as one or the other. Or maybe it felt equally "weird"... leaning one way or another.

My favorite books have also often included some aspect of changing sexes, or body swapping, or sharing memories of other sexes (I'm thinking heavily here of the Atreides children from Dune Messiah and Children of Dune...)

My earliest memories of androgynous feelings were kindergarten or first grade, I can't remember which. Early on that school year is the first time I can recall thinking of myself as a tomboy, not like other girls, etc. According to my mother, even as an infant I would reflexively throw up on any dresses she put me in; once i was in a t-shirt and sweats I was fine. A couple of times I was accused of having too deep a voice for a girl by my classmates, that I was faking it to get attention. I remember my first real crossdressing experience was when I dressed up as Frodo from Lord of the Rings for Halloween in 5th grade.

I wouldn't say I thought about it overmuch as gender rules per se...I just knew that I was different, accepted it and moved on -shrug-

Yeah, that's how I was: I wasn't thinking about it much until puberty and then it was more "I want to fit in than anything else." Frodo is an awesome character to dress up as for Halloween.

I just had another thought on character identification: Jadzia Dax, from Star Trek: DS9. Female character, but she'd been both female and male in past lives (it's a symbiont thing.) I adooooored that character. So very much wanted to be her. Maybe I should head over to fiction to continue that. >.>

(Also, Your Humble Savant, I love your little avatar picture. EDIT: And apparently I got your name wrong. Sorry.)

Quote from: Ariel on May 30, 2012, 10:24:21 AM

My favorite books have also often included some aspect of changing sexes

You jogged a memory, Ariel. The first novel-length fantasy story I wrote as an adult involved a young man who was cursed with periodic unpredictable shape-shifting. One of the shapes he shifts into was - you guessed - a young woman. At the time I just thought it was a kind of a cool thought, but now that I'm more in touch with my genderqueerness, I see it in a different light.

Quote from: agfrommd on May 30, 2012, 11:30:04 AM
You jogged a memory, Ariel. The first novel-length fantasy story I wrote as an adult involved a young man who was cursed with periodic unpredictable shape-shifting. One of the shapes he shifts into was - you guessed - a young woman. At the time I just thought it was a kind of a cool thought, but now that I'm more in touch with my genderqueerness, I see it in a different light.

The group of characters around which I've been building stories since I was about 9, that will one day (hopefully) be a novel series, include a very definite woman who works in what is for our society very traditionally male roles, a lesbian couple that was until recently a heterosexual couple--one of the characters switched genders on me--and a man who regularly cross-dresses. And in the society I built, there are few "traditional" gender roles at all and wealth/status is determined in a nearly purely meritocratic way. People do what they're good at, to the point of switching careers later in life being nearly impossible (every society has to have its drawbacks, yeah?)

It was only very very recently that it occurred to me that maybe I was having trouble deciding what gender/gender expression my characters should have for a very good reason.

I knew at 5.  But, since I was beat just for crying I learned to hide very well.  So well that I could blend in with any crowd.  Now that I am not worried about getting beat, I have no reason to blend.

Quote from: Brooke777 on May 30, 2012, 01:30:16 PM
I knew at 5.  But, since I was beat just for crying I learned to hide very well.  So well that I could blend in with any crowd.  Now that I am not worried about getting beat, I have no reason to blend.

Why do people do that? I was never beaten, but I certainly was made to feel shame for crying. I do remember "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"

I figured I'd understand when I get older. But I'm 50 now, not likely to get any more adult, and it still baffles me. I don't ever punish my kids by hurting them physically, and I can't even CONCEIVE of giving them a hard time for crying.

One of those things I guess I'll just never figure out.

The whole "stop crying of I will give you something to cry about" statement usually came mid beating.  When you are little and have a 6'2", 350lbs man hitting you, you don't put up to much of a fight.  My step dad kept this up until I was 16, and I finally had enough and laid him out.  My mom luckily stopped when I was about 15 and was finally bigger than her.

Quote from: Brooke777 on May 30, 2012, 04:12:28 PM
The whole "stop crying of I will give you something to cry about" statement usually came mid beating.  When you are little and have a 6'2", 350lbs man hitting you, you don't put up to much of a fight.  My step dad kept this up until I was 16, and I finally had enough and laid him out.  My mom luckily stopped when I was about 15 and was finally bigger than her.

Tough way to grow up. Hope things are better for you here on out.

Willing to accept a cyberhug for what you've been through?