Hello all!

[Guest mmwel]

Hello,

I'm a teenager from France. I can best identify as genderfluid, but there is just so much to make me think.

I've been having "issues" with gender through my life for as long as I remember.

As for what I'm doing with my life, currently I'm unschooled, I like to play chess and just joined a fashion design workshop (I don't know if that's the right word; I like lots of things related to fashion, its sociological aspects and just fashion and technology relating to fashion and its history, somehow it seems more welcoming than other subjects I'm also interested in, so it's the one that I prefer...), we'll do a show in June with the clothes we designed. Before I was doing an informal training in weaving.

I'll also be trying to pass the baccalauréat in June, hopefully I'll do well. I have some problems with my family, well my mother, with whom I live and who had been violent to me in the past, but now she isn't mostly because I am careful and have a few mental health issues (panic attacks, depression), getting better. This and other things caused me to leave school and stop doing things I liked, that and issues with my body (breasts and periods) and difficulties to eat and sleep normally; now I'm getting better, doing things I like, eating normally and trying to sleep normally. One problem with becoming more confident, is I learned badly what being confident means and how to do when people bother you, so I'm afraid to be(come) violent myself because I've somehow been told that to be taken seriously you have to impose yourself by violence.

Going to the chess club makes me see people without too stressing social interactions when I don't really know how to deal with. This year and the year before I was involved with people in a collective and a zine about youth rights, but some of the persons I related the most with couldn't do it anymore and I sort of got isolated, even though at this point I needed it because my participation kept me from doing other things and took too much of my energy. It's also depressing to think about stuffs that happens. The people there were open to iat least the concept of non-binary identities, still I'm not out to anyone, so I felt like I was/am lying to them (and others) sometimes when I'm not a woman and they think I am... somehow sometimes I don't feel I am a woman, but I still want to identify as a woman to bother sexist people I meet or hear about? Because somehow being a woman is a great argument and revendication? Other times I identify perfectly with being a woman and it's just who I am. Rarely I am a man, mostly something else, and it confuses me when I'm a woman, because then my other identities from different times don't seem as legitimate. Thinking about my childhood confuses me as well.

It also stresses me explaining, trying to analyze it, so mostly I come here to feel legitimate... please use whatever neutral pronouns you prefer to talk about me. I still don't like female pronouns, because when I'm not a woman it feels weird to me to be assumed to be so.

Most times I don't think about my body and act like it is someone else's, but others I am self-conscious and it's just weird what are those things doing on me. Yet I'm kind of proud when I am a woman, when I'm not it just don't "fit" and I'd like to be proud but I'm just too confused and it's like I don't exist, but even when I am a woman I try to ignore that it's my body.

I guess that's all. I don't want to think about it all too much. Mostly when I identify as a woman it's from wanting to be part of some sort of "sisterhood" and political, I mean people see me as being a woman and as if it is a bad thing so it's like if they saw me as bad for something else I would really attach and identify myself as that something else that they think is bad, but when I don't identify as a woman it's because my body just don't fit and it's really confusing. Then when I just start writing or thinking about it I'm even more confused as you can see, and finally you'll say why put on a label? Because it makes me feel more legitimate.

I don't even think about my gender all the time, as I can see my body as that of someone else, but when I do THIS happens. It seems nice here, too. I hope this long post was understandable. Thanks for reading.

[Charlize]

Welcome to Laura's Dear,

For an "unschooled person" your english is lovely. I hope you will read some posts here that may help you come to grips with your gender fluidity. I have made a decision to do a complete change but can certainly understand the call of the other and th econfusion that causes. As i made my decision that pain seemed to lessen, at least for now. Please read the terms and conditions on the bottom of any page. It helps to keep the site open and safe.

I spent a summer in Reims at lycee when i was a child. My french is very rusty so its a good thing that we do all our posts in english. I would be embarrassed otherwise.

Hope to read more from you. Enjoy Laura's

Hugs,

Charlie

[Carolyn Marie]

Welcome to the Playground, hon. I do think you'll find this site helpful in discovering things about yourself, and also what others have experienced and their thought processes. Please do read the forum threads that interest you, and post in any that you like. We'll do our best to answer honestly.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest miss kindheart]

Hi Mmwel,

<<< hug >>>

Welcome to Laura's Playground.

Please feel free to come over and chat sometime.

The Chat room does require another registration that is separate from from your forums one.

Please read the chat room rules before coming in, and expect a short interview with one of the chat room moderators.

One of the things that they will ask you is if you read the rules.

We all look forward to seeing you.

vanna

[Guest Robin Winter]

Hi there

Welcome to Lauras.

[Guest]

Welcome to LP mmwel.

Thank you for your introduction.

I am happy you joined.

I would certainly not call you unschooled. Your english is great.

Huggs,

Joann

[Guest mmwel]

Hello you all!

Thanks for the welcoming! As for the unschooled part, I thought that was how you said in english that you were homeschooled, but not by your parents or a private teacher, not that you didn't have any instruction. Thanks still, I learned english listening to music, watching movies and reading english material on the Internet.

Maybe it depends on whether americans or british people talk.

[Guest angels wings]

Hello and welcome to Laura's relax and enjoy

Angel