What could this mean?

[Natasha]

I have always had a mix of ideas and feelings regarding my identity. I don't know if other people have had a similar experience.

 

As a kid I remember fantasizing about being a girl on some rare occasions. But also enjoying being a boy. The same in adolescence, and later on.

 

As a kid I dressed as a woman on two occasions, for carnival, and I remember I enjoyed it a lot. I had memorized how to do make-up from observing my mother, and I did it perfectly on those occasions. I remember I felt proud of myself because I passed really well on that occasion.

 

But I also had my fair share of moments when I wanted to be the most macho of the kids, but in terms of strength. I never liked getting dirty.

 

When I was 5, I remember also that a girl said she wanted to be a boy and that she prayed to change. I think I was in love with her, I am not sure, but I do remember that some nights I would say that if she was going to be a boy, I wanted to be a woman. And I prayed to be a woman. It was my secret. Then I stopped doing it.

 

There's some pictures of me from holidays, and I don't know why but in some of them I was wearing my mother's clothes, it was kind of a game of imitation we did. It's strange because I never picked imitating my father.

 

also in my kid days, I remember there was an anime called Ranma 1+2 or something like that in which a man that falls inside a pool gets transformed into a woman every time that he gets under cold water (I think). I remember I liked the idea, specially the possibility of being able to switch from one gender to the other one but also return to the original one. And I remember I wanted that, but I was disappointed to find that was not possible.

 

I also had moments that I truly enjoyed male role models and I wanted to be like them.

 

I will continue later to write about other annecdotes that I had and have sometimes. The general idea is that sometimes I feel female in short periods of time (in certain aspects), and then I return to feeling male in most others. Which is a bit confusing to me.

 

Does anyone also experience that?

 

(I will try to add more details later)

[Natasha]

9 hours ago, MaryMary said:

First I'll si hi , then I will state that many people like a wide variety of gender expression. You can be cis male and love feminine things and it's ok. It's easy to mix gender expression and gender identity. Then I'll say that your story remind me of non-binary stories so maybe you are non binary?

 

anyway, good luck on your exploration

Hi MaryMary ☺️ thanks for your reply.

 

I guess it could be what you say.

 

In some sense I remember I explored the possibility of being an eunuch during my adolescence, but after reading a while I realized it was not exactly that what I wanted. It was more like wanting to be male and female at the same time.

 

I always have had quite an androgynous body (something that I like about me): although I am tall, I have narrow shoulders, I am thin and don't tend to get much muscle, even when I worked out in the gym and was quite strong. And I didn't have much changes during puberty (my beard didn't grow until I was almost 20, and my Adam apple is not noticable although I have a deep voice). Till I was 18 I remember I liked wearing long hair and my face didn't look much masculine or femenine whithout beard. Old people sometimes would say I was an attractive woman and I had to correct them, and guys my age would sometimes beat me because of my appearance. Still now, that I wear short hair and a beard I can recall hearing some of my neighbors ask between themselves if I am ftm, it's not frequent though.

 

----

When I was in love with women, I sometimes imagined myself having their body. It was like I was dressing and all of a sudden I was feeling like my body was her body. Something strange to me, which I shaked of my mind quickly and then and tended to try to think of other things.

 

I do remember experimenting with my sister's clothes when nobody was at home. But it was on very rare occasions. I did the same sometimes with my exgf clothes. I mostly felt male with my exgf, except when we were intimate or sharing beauty treatments. But I tend to enjoy wearing really classical smart masculine attair.

 

Also, sometimes is like I want my body to have mixed elements of both genders. For example: female upper body, and male lower body, or the opposite (but always combined with androgynous appearance, nothing supermasculine). Also sometimes I feel like I would prefer to have female genitalia instead, but others I am ok with my male one. So it's kind of confusing to me.

 

I do remember that I had some moments of exploration at my late teens in which I felt like it would be interesting to simulate my death when I had learned enough about my work sector, and restart a life as a woman at another country working on that same sector but without nobody knowing me. But I think of it just as a recurrent fantasy I had on that period, not something I would end up doing. 

[VickySGV]

Being Non Binary or Gander Fluid is nothing to be ashamed of.  They are both valid identities although in some areas they are held under suspicion or some outright dislike at this point in time.  It s a matter of personal identity and while sex may be a part of it, sex is a very minor part that is tacked on at the end.  It is much more important that you be a reliable, productive and skillful member of your community than what your personal appearance is. 

[Krisvm]

I was going to say I identify as genderqueer and Non-Binary and I definitely recognise a lot of this. These are all very familiar. 

 

Also I only discovered Ranma 1/2 last year and fell in love with it. Wish I had read it growing up. 

[Kirsten]

Try not to think about the “labels” so much. Find out what makes you happy and learn to be okay with that. That’s all you have to do. Then maybe a label will fit you. But it’s really the journey within that matters. 

I wish you luck in finding yourself. ❤️

[reyindium]

7 hours ago, Kirsten said:

Try not to think about the “labels” so much. Find out what makes you happy and learn to be okay with that. That’s all you have to do. Then maybe a label will fit you. But it’s really the journey within that matters. 

I wish you luck in finding yourself. ❤️

I second this.

Also, I enjoyed Ranma 1/2 too. Still  have the manga, in fact.

[Kamarka]

I'm familiar with these feelings (down to sneaking into my brother's room and wearing his clothes when he wasn't home!), and it took me a little while to not get so anxious about not being able to pin down where I was on the spectrum with the binary. Don't feel obligated to pin yourself down anywhere yet until you're comfortable, whether you feel more masculine, feminine, neither, or anything in between. Even then, it can change! You're free to experiment, to see what feels right. 

 

The metaphor I use for my identity to explain to friends is that there are two light switches– dimmers, the ones where you can control how much light shines. They do not always have to equal out to one hundred. Just because one is at fifty doesn't mean the other has to complete that. Perhaps you feel the same? Perhaps not. (though this metaphor does imply that I can feel 200% gender– I never excelled at math anyways ?)

 

With regards to expression versus identity, I often find that the two do intersect for me, but on occasion, I may combine appearances, try to appear blended– androgynous as you say. I wouldn't call my body-type androgynous by any means. But despite very obvious curves, I've got my broad shoulders, and can build muscle fast, which I've used to my favor (Thanks, Dad!). Yet, even when I'm feeling 'male' on the inside, my gender expression can be softer and leaning more feminine, as it were. I'm not sure if that makes sense considering I'm writing this at midnight, but expression and identity can definitely be exclusive. Maybe you feel like you're a dude rocking a dress! Maybe you feel like you're a woman rocking a suit! You define your own feelings. You attribute your own characteristics to the labels you choose. 

 

[Natasha]

Thanks for all your replies. I agree with the point of not labelling myself and try to explore it better.

 

One thing that confuses me as well is that sometimes I feel that if I could press a button to restart my life, I probably would live again my entire life as a female. But there's things I enjoy about living as a male now, and if I look at the mirror I see my birth assigned gender, and it's like, I feel I want to try to live being male, because I feel things will be easier, but at the same time I feel a bit like lying.

 

At work and outside I like being male, because I feel comfortable this way. I sometimes think that maybe the only place I feel I would want to be a woman is with a partner.