Who am I?

[Thessa]

I have a feeling that this is something that could make a good discussion in that area.
Continuing my thoughts from another section of this forum.

So in that other thread I self-identified as Non-Binary let me try to get into more details here and also transfer my answers to other posts to this section.
Sorry in advance is this isn't structured well I have the feeling that this will be just a brain dump.

Labels are something that we need to help our mind to wrap around things and I'm still not satisfied with the results my mind produces in regards to my feelings and this could also mean that my choice of labeling is wrong on the other hand and over all it shouldn't matter at all, should it?
Maybe I'm NB, Gender Non-Conforming, Gender-Fluid, a Tom Boy maybe it's a mix of different things - I don't know and this drives me a little bit crazy lately TBH.

If I have to put it in one sentence:
"I have the feeling that I'm not sliding on the spectrum but I'm jumping from hyper-feminine (thinking, feeling and presenting) to very-masculine (thinking and feeling?) in the blink of an eye sometimes"

Although now that I thing about it, most of the time it's mostly induced by some outside influence that catapults me into my masculine spectrum area.
Fight or flight response?

Anyway I'm pretty sure by now that due to the issues my mother had to go thru during her pregnancy the hormones where messed up and this brought me here.
Due to my upbringing, my social surroundings and the time I was born in I didn't had any knowledge and/or opportunity to transition in my (pre-)teens. Quit a very common narrative here. Now one question I ask my self constantly are my "strong masculine feelings" as I named them in the other post a result of nature or nurture.

Would I be (only) the girly girl that I feel so often if I had the opportunity to live a woman's life from the beginning?

Or and this is maybe a hot candidate at the moment - the image I see in the morning and before going to bed in the bathroom mirror - that this image is confusing my brain because the image doesn't fit the girly feelings at all. I had such a hard time in my teens when my long blond hair grew thin and this is still the most dysphoria inducing thing I have to endure.

Another hot candidate is - due to the fact that I don't have a masculine person in my life - that I create that masculinity for myself maybe?
(I learned about myself in the last months that I need masculinity in my life - Yin & Yang is a thing obviously for me)

A lot to think about and I can't find any conclusion or closure for me.
At them moment I'm between a rock and a hard place in general and especially in that area of my thought process...  :-\

 

[Thessa]

To b e honest, no I can't!
I am as female as one can be.  I could dress up as a man, act as a man, but still would feel female.  The man act would be something like Halloween for me.  I left the male world far behind me (but I have not given away any clothing) that I cannot remember the day to day life I had, and even in my dreams I seam not to remember how to be a guy.

I tried to explain my feeling in the first post of this discussion.
Regarding the dressing - I can't bring myself to wear a suit and tie or a normal male t-shirt any longer.
The jeans I can declare to boyfriend jeans and this still works somehow but I kept a few sturdier T-shirt for working around the house (which also doesn't interest me any more - I only want to get it done preferable by someone else). The last time I used the T-shirt it felt soooo wrong and it was also scratchy on my soft skin. So I decided it was about time to get rid of this reminder of my past.

I know that I can't and I don't want to go back to my old life as a guy!
The thought alone is repulsive! Still there lingers this other feeling... *sigh*

 

[Thessa]

Hi @Thessa,

Please know that I mean absolutely no offense with anything I say. So if I make a mistake, please accept my apology in advance. But I'm like @Linde in that non-binary confuses me too. I thought that non-binary means that a person doesn't feel male or female. As such wouldn't non-binary people use they/them pronouns, and not identify as male or female?

You said you identify as female and feel like a female when you are wearing your combat gear, wouldn't that make you a tom-boy instead of a male? That's what confuses me.

Again I mean absolutely no disrespect whatsoever, I'm honestly trying to learn something new today.

Thank you in advance for your answer.

xoxo
Lexxi

No offense taken @Lexxi! 
What is confusing to me are the other feelings I have tried to explain in the first post of this discussion.
And sometimes (often?) I feel so torn between typical female and males viewpoints on certain topics...and this is what makes me so unsure of myself.

 

[TonyaJanelle]

If I have to put it in one sentence:
"I have the feeling that I'm not sliding on the spectrum but I'm jumping from hyper-feminine (thinking, feeling and presenting) to very-masculine (thinking and feeling?) in the blink of an eye sometimes"

I had this experience most of my life.  At one point I evrn thought I was bigender. Not non binary, that didn't fit because I wasn't in between  or some of each (or however its defined) but male sometimes and sometimes female.

In my case that turned out to be just a coping mechanism for thinking that I didn't have to transition. Took twenty years to figure out that I was associating typically male activities with being or feeling male.

I realized that I could do all of those as a female and that's when it hit  me that I was really transgender. I mean, I knew that women could do those things too, but given my anatomy, for me those were male things.


Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

[Linde]

Being the odd ball here, I had no idea that I was not a boy, young man or man, or not a male until my body made this very clear to me!  Yes, I was different, but there were others, who were also different.  Once my body decided that it was tired of playing the male charade, I lived for quite some time an androgynous life, because I had zero gender identity, but I slowly drifted towards the female side.  At some point I just decided to be a woman, and within a month of time I came out to everybody, and started to live full time as a woman.  I never had the urge to cross dress or anything like this.  In reality, all my male life was actually a perfect version of cross dressing act, if one wants to be technical about this.
I live now for quite some time as a woman, and do not have any desire to fall back into my male role.  I can do it, it is like dressing up for Halloween, but inside I am still a female.  My male life is a thing of the past, and I start to forget the day to day details of it.  I need to see pictures to remember how I looked like.
One funny thing, I have not given away any clothing items, and have still 5 suits hanging in my closet, and all my 30 pairs of shoes!
I don't really know why I don't clean that stuff out, it might be that I am to stingy to just give good stuff away?  Or am I to lazy to just do it?

Hugs
Linde, with the 30 pairs of guys shoes!

 

[Thessa]

Being the odd ball here, I had no idea that I was not a boy, young man or man, or not a male until my body made this very clear to me!  Yes, I was different, but there were others, who were also different.  Once my body decided that it was tired of playing the male charade, I lived for quite some time an androgynous life, because I had zero gender identity, but I slowly drifted towards the female side.  At some point I just decided to be a woman, and within a month of time I came out to everybody, and started to live full time as a woman.  I never had the urge to cross dress or anything like this.  In reality, all my male life was actually a perfect version of cross dressing act, if one wants to be technical about this.
I live now for quite some time as a woman, and do not have any desire to fall back into my male role.  I can do it, it is like dressing up for Halloween, but inside I am still a female.  My male life is a thing of the past, and I start to forget the day to day details of it.  I need to see pictures to remember how I looked like.
One funny thing, I have not given away any clothing items, and have still 5 suits hanging in my closet, and all my 30 pairs of shoes!
I don't really know why I don't clean that stuff out, it might be that I am to stingy to just give good stuff away?  Or am I to lazy to just do it?

Hugs
Linde, with the 30 pairs of guys shoes!

I asked around if anyone wants stuff and a good portion I donated to charity.
They take everything including good and clean underwear, hygiene products etc.

I still have around 5 or 6 pairs of shoes including Bruno Magli shoes from the time I tried to be super stylish and manly.
But I'm in the process of letting go because I know for sure that I will never ever wear anything from that time again.
I lost 18 kg since that time and I want to shed at least another 8 so it doesn't make sense to hold on to this items on many levels.

Letting go of all that things is also part of a bigger house cleaning project.

 

[Linde]

I asked around if anyone wants stuff and a good portion I donated to charity.
They take everything including good and clean underwear, hygiene products etc.

I still have around 5 or 6 pairs of shoes including Bruno Magli shoes from the time I tried to be super stylish and manly.
But I'm in the process of letting go because I know for sure that I will never ever wear anything from that time again.
I lost 18 kg since that time and I want to shed at least another 8 so it doesn't make sense to hold on to this items on many levels.

Letting go of all that things is also part of a bigger house cleaning project.

I am still waiting that my daughter will fore me, by denying to cook anymore! And she is a good cook!  That might get me going!

 

[Mim89]

If I have to put it in one sentence:
"I have the feeling that I'm not sliding on the spectrum but I'm jumping from hyper-feminine (thinking, feeling and presenting) to very-masculine (thinking and feeling?) in the blink of an eye sometimes"

Maybe you're "genderfluid"? I've heard that this is the "label" for people whose gender expression shifts between masculine and feminine.

transgender, transexual, trans persons, trans people, trans folks, non-binary people, genderfluid people, agender people,people with a trans background.

 

[Spr]

Although I've had inner struggles for a long time, I've tried not to acknowledge these feelings, by giving it a label. I'm very new to this. I've put in my profile non binary, but this may well change, I wonder if gender fluid is a better fit, whether in time I'd consider trans woman. I don't feel like I need to change my first name at this early stage. Maybe when I'm more accepting, I will.

 

[Linde]

Although I've had inner struggles for a long time, I've tried not to acknowledge these feelings, by giving it a label. I'm very new to this. I've put in my profile non binary, but this may well change, I wonder if gender fluid is a better fit, whether in time I'd consider trans woman. I don't feel like I need to change my first name at this early stage. Maybe when I'm more accepting, I will.

For most of my life, I did not feel I belong to any gender. I don't want to label it, but I was floating in mid air without anything that could be called a gender feeling. I was told that I am male (that was the first mistake, because I have XX chromosomes, but nobody knew this at the time), and I tried to live like a guy, but did not feel that I belong to the brotherhood of guys. But I did not feel female either. This changed many years later, when my body decided to feminize itself more and more. Along with this came a more and more strong female feeling of belonging. It all ended up with the happy woman I am these days!

Just give yourself time, to learn to know yourself, and do only what you feel comfortable with.

Hugs
Linde

 

[OzGirl]

I have never subscribed to an identity, I still don't and probably never will. The definitions just don't fit me. I was never male, and I can never be female, so I am destined to float somwhere between. It makes traditional 'transition' difficult as I don't have a destination. I hope to find peace living as a trans woman, but that is not who I see myself as.

Do we really need all these identities and rules? Can't we just be ourselves?

Hugs,

Allie

 

[Monica]

I think some people are best suited to gender fluid or non binary designations. For others, I think it fits only because of circumstances or perhaps just being on a journey not complete. I find it insulting when people assume a person in these categories is on their way in a few years to full binary transition.
One thing about coming to terms with a gender that one was not born into, the process is pretty dynamic. The goals can change along the way.

 

[Confused]

I think some people are best suited to gender fluid or non binary designations. For others, I think it fits only because of circumstances or perhaps just being on a journey not complete. I find it insulting when people assume a person in these categories is on their way in a few years to full binary transition.
One thing about coming to terms with a gender that one was not born into, the process is pretty dynamic. The goals can change along the way.

What Moni said!!

I started out identifying to non binary. I changed it to gender fluid. I don't think anything changed. I just started to understand myself more. Will I ever be binary? Don't know. I am what I am. The label doesn't really matter. You just be you.

Hugs,
Mike

 

[Spr]

Thanks everyone. I really do appreciate the input. You are such a lovely bunch of people.

 

[Katie]

I almost never talk about it, but for a long time I thought I might be non-binary. In fact, when I first started my quest for answers, my username on other sites was "WhatAmI?". Sometimes I still don't feel 100% connected to being a woman. Maybe 90%. But the few moments when being a woman seems misaligned with who I am, it's things that many cisgender women also have problems with (body image, etc.). So, I decided that maybe non-binary isn't actually who I am, I am just woman with the same struggles as any other woman.

 

[Confused]

I almost never talk about it, but for a long time I thought I might be non-binary. In fact, when I first started my quest for answers, my username on other sites was "WhatAmI?"

It is uncanny to me how simillar our stories are. It makes me wonder how my story will unfold.

Hugs,
Mike