Inspired by this dorky exchange I had, thank u BountifulEggnog.
I want to know what your gender means to you, how you define it, what it means for you to “be” that gender and how you define it. Don’t fuss about ‘correct definitions’ or anything, this is about your experience, I want to know what it means to you. How you relate to that gender, perceive it.
Genders have a social construction aspect and is very subjective, so I think people’s subjective, personal views of their own are both important and interesting. Inquiring mind wants to know! 
I'll share some of mine I guess.
I was a trans woman until the contradictions sharpened to a razor’s edge after reading Gender Outlaw and The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto. My brain got cracked in half. I have always hated the effects testosterone would have on my body, so estrogen was a given, but while I do identify with certain things that are commonly associated with being a woman… if nothing is inherently gendered, what even is a gender? 
I had a whole little episode about it in the megathread once.
As I went on from there, I realised that while I like certain things about “being a woman”, equally I found I’d been sort of stifled by trying to fit into the social role. The women I have always related to most are the cis autistic women who basically yeet presentation in favour of dressing for sensory comfort. Almost kinda non binary, in a way… The more I interrogated binary gender in relation to myself, the more I dug up stuff like this. Also I didn’t really like that “woman” is associated with cis people a lot, I really like the trans part of my identity, feel a lot of love for it. I’ve felt freer and mentally clearer and truer to myself as a Non Binary Transfem, it’s cool and funny. What does it mean to me? It represents my goofy sometimes-androgynous presentation, my lack of cissie gender, how being neurodiverse influences my view, being a funny noody goblin. Share yours =)
Gender is estrogen to me and the more estrogen I have the more gendery I am
If my estrogen is off I pretty much go nuts. Vision gets blurry and I become very sensitive and irritable and prone to dysphoria
I’ve worn all sorts of clothes and stuff since transitioning, and I’ve found my comfort zone, but if my estrogen is off I feel like shit in anything
I’m the same way. But, Injections are the only methods that have worked for me. Unfortunately they make my estrogen levels look like Mavericks. (A beach with very large waves). I had to switch to taking the injections once every 3 days. When I did the injections once a week I had ~2 days that were ruined by having low E.
You could try doing pills or patches maybe to even the low out
Gel would probably work too, since you can adjust the dose somewhat. Absorption might be inconsistent, though, especially depending on which gel you use. (For the record, I had pretty good luck with the [anime meme homebrew] stuff.)
Pills didnt work for me. They produced a really high percentage of the weaker forms of estrogen. The moment I switched to injections my titties got sore and I started growing.
I tried patches and couldnt get my levels above 100. I wouldve needed to wear a comical amount of patches for it to work.
With injections 1/3 days, 2.5mg, my peaks are around 350 and my trough is above 100. I’d be happier with my peaks around 600 but my doctor is happier where they are now.
Taking injections so often is annoying but its the best option I’ve found.
I had to do the same thing switching to every 5 days injecting rather than every week. Those last two days were often terrible.
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This is real, and I sometimes have internal difficulty separating hormones from being an expression of gender, which leads to a bunch of stupid gaffes. Big estrogen…
I personally present as cis because it’s easy, but the reality is that I really don’t care about gender as a concept. To the point that I don’t even really like being called “agender”. In spite of lengthy heartfelt conversations with two trans partners in my time, I still really struggle to understand the mindset of feeling gender is important to one’s identity; Not understanding it actually feels quite isolating, sometimes. I frequently feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t “get it”.
None of which is to say I do not love and support my trans comrades to the ends of the fucking Earth
. Transphobes can line up against the wall.Not understanding it actually feels quite isolating, sometimes. I frequently feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t “get it”.
Interesting. I think I used to assume not caring was the norm* and trans people and a few cis people were outliers in caring about it and anyone else performing masculinity or femininity were doing it ironically as a joke.
*I also questioned if sexuality was just made up and people pretended to have sexual attraction because it was expected of them.
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Idk your feelings (or at least similar ones) on the topic are ones I’m seeing more and more, which is pretty neat tbh.
Agreed - I’m quite surprised by the responses here, it is neat. Thanks for the open-ended thread <3
I don’t have a gender. I experience dysphoria at things that feel like attempts to gender me, though as i get older i have become more comfortable with dressing in ways that lead strangers to perceive me as a gender. though i don’t think i would ever be comfortable with people who know me using gendered terms for me etc.
but yeah. no gender for me. i don’t even really feel nonbinary, even though the term technically applies since i am not binary. you could say i’m a kitten instead of a man or a woman, though i don’t consider kitten to be my gender either.
i am post-gender. i am just myself. someone forgot to install the gender software in my brain. also i’m intersex, and i feel like this has impacted how i responded to the gender roles society threw at me, because i just sort of assumed none of it applied to me. and my mother, while i was assigned a sex, was very opposed to raising kids differently based on gender so i never really got much of it from my family.
i’ve always been curious about what gender feels like to other people, so i’ve asked a lot of people, cis and trans, and what i find curious is that they all tell me different things. there is no one unifying thing that all women or all men will tell you makes them a woman or a man. and i think that is a good thing. gender is very personal, and we all resolve the trauma of gender being imposed on us very differently, and reclaim it in whatever way feels best.
i remember talking to a cis-lite friend of mine. she told me that she only identified as a woman because she was so often pushed into the roles of caring, cleaning etc, and so she identifies as a woman for the convenience of that.
the trauma of gender being imposed on us
this is my answer to the question. that’s all it is to me. i was just telling someone how like, being always taken in by the women & being mocked by the guys kinda eventually led me to this situation where i’m owning all the vile garbage from my past, but also the affirmation of the ladyfolk. if you want a label, non-binary woman makes the most sense to me. i’m so over labels, though. just. Gender Chaotic.
be confused, cissies; be afraid of the feelings you have perceiving me.
something i have been feeling lately. us just, existing. in a public space, with our own bodies. often feels like gender warfare. people are going to perceive us, react to us, struggle with their own concepts of gender because we don’t fit into them. and that can be dangerous, yeah. it’s no fucking wonder we venture into the outside world so rarely. but just existing, and excercising control over our own bodies, is a fuck you to them. and i’m proud of that i guess.
and that means far more to me than a label - though i don’t begrudge anyone who finds labels comforting or useful.
15·3 months agoyou could say i’m a kitten instead of a man or a woman, though i don’t consider kitten to be my gender either.
“Cis-lite”? but uh
i’ve always been curious about what gender feels like to other people, so i’ve asked a lot of people, cis and trans, and what i find curious is that they all tell me different things. there is no one unifying thing that all women or all men will tell you makes them a woman or a man. and i think that is a good thing. gender is very personal, and we all resolve the trauma of gender being imposed on us very differently, and reclaim it in whatever way feels best.
Yeah this is the spark that started this thread honestly, which is very cool thank you. There are many non-gender or post-gender people though also!
cis lite as in, my friend is techhnically a cis woman but doesnt really feel like one but cant be bothered to change anything. she is cool with the term.
post gender is a nice term for me, maybe. i think about gender less and less these days. i am privileged to live in a community of queer n trans people, and i dont go into the real world terribly often.
i am kinda trans only by default. i take hormones etc, but im not trying to change anything. i am intersex and i prefer my appearance to be androgynous or neutral. so i just kinda try to balance the hormones to achieve that. i do feel quite different to a lot of trans people. but there are also people who feel a lot like i do, like the person who responded to my comment and plenty of others.
anyway none of this is a complaint, just sorta rambling vaguely
Cis lite, gender apathetic… Huh, fair enough.
Yeah I like it too, cool term.
i take hormones etc, but im not trying to change anything. i am intersex and i prefer my appearance to be androgynous or neutral.
Ah I see!! I’ve only ever conceptualised taking hormones as being a huge fundamental change, but this makes sense, just hadn’t thought about it. I’m also not surprised there are many others like you, my wife is intersex and expresses some similar stuff.
Good rambling thank you
oh its rlly cool ur wife is intersex. i get excited to hear about intersex ppl. we seem to be more common than people think though.
i just wanted to add, that i could receive hormones from the state healthcare system and i have in the past. but it has treated me terribly when i have interacted with it both as a trans and intersex person. i self medicate, as an act of control over my body.
There are dozens! The under-diagnosed aspect is absolutely no joke.
Oh huh, sorry your experience was bad but sadly it’s not surprising or uncommon. I will never not be an advocate for selfmed, fuck the state.
absolutely. my partner is having a time with hormones and it doesnt seem to be explainable without her being intersex.
i really want to write something, create something, about self med for these kinda of reasons. a lot of it is focused on self med because of gatekeeping and waiting lists, which is obviously a massive problem. but the other reasons people self med deserve attention.
If you ever do you should post it on here, sounds rad =)
Gender has always felt like a label with no relevance to me, like what football team I support (none, I don’t watch it.) I’m happier keeping my identity ambiguous, but I have made peace with presenting as my agab irl because it’s easier. I imagine being vulnerable and putting in the effort to ‘pass’ as nonbinary (whatever that means) only to still have people not get it would hurt, a lot more than keeping my real self hidden from everyone but the people closest to me.
Is it even possible to ‘pass’ as nb? Is that when you get they/them’d because someone is unsure?
Hold on, I’m thinking… maybe I need to wear a sticker that says ‘Hello, my name is nonbinary’? They/them knuckle tats?
Is it even possible to ‘pass’ as nb?
Maybe if you’re like a slime or something along those lines? /j
Perhaps if you get nullification surgeries and live in a nudist colony, you could relatively easily pass as an NB.
Being a slime would be fuckin based. Getting nullification and living in a nudist colony is also kinda based.
when i was more on the binary I defined it in terms of behavior sets - masculinity had a lot of baggage over years of performing it, and more than anything, the masculine social role became something i associated with oppression, self and external hatred. I don’t think of that as healthy, it’s just where I ended up after years of performing ill-fitting social roles, and the fatigue of living in misogynistic and patriarchal circumstance; and presentation - how i comport myself, how i dress, how i exist in a social environment.
As I got into hormones, it was the subjective experience of feminization. What started to emerge that felt right, and affirming to do and be just… changed. Gender euphoria guiding, the general internal changes that came with HRT became the most important thing. It literally made my brain work better. I’m autistic and I began just naturally perceiving social cues I used to miss. Im not saying estrogen cured my autism, far from it, however the breadth of what I can naturally process and understand expanded more dramatically than years of psychedelics and painful-to-learn behavioral coping strategies ever gave me. I felt substantially more human, when i used to genuinely ask myself if i was some kind of secret alien or something.
I still feel a kind of alienness to allistic folks but i’m much b etter at doing and being alongside them now, while generally honoring who i am otherwise.
These things all came together and matured, because I got comfortable enough in my own skin to cease defining myself with those behavior sets and presentations i arbitrarily assigned to my vision of womanhood for myself. At this point the high-femme repetoire i learned in my first two years of transition are the basis of a more non-binary being. I call myself transfemme, because i don’t really see myself as a woman, the transness of my identity feels inseparable from any specific manifestation of Gender - I like dressing like a tomboy or a more non-binary femme, like i honestly prefer traditionally lesbian styles that don’t innately accent the feminine form, they’re just cute and comfy things.
I’m not beyond a cute dress and makeup and more traditional expressions of femme being, but in general I try to just exist comfortably now - that’s something dominantly feminine, but not bound by it.
I have limited plans for surgery - i dont want breast augments anymore, i don’t want ffs, i just want laser surgery and/or electrolysis to make my beard go away forever. Everything else feels manageable. Sometimes I think i should pause hormones to bank sperm and try to get myself in a place to have a family - something i deeply, badly want - and i’m perfectly willing to use the birth equipment to get there, so my dysphoria isn’t strictly in a place of needing drasting bodily alteration to sate, and so it doesn’t feel right to myself to insist i’m exactly like somebody who wants to completely alter their look and body.
which is to say i’m kind of in the same boat as OP maybe, but we’re all different, but i felt some kinship in reading it.
Waow I sure wish hormones had let me perceive more social cues… made my brain work better… I guess the wrong hormones would have made you feel more alienated thus perhaps “less human” though, makes sense.the transness of my identity feels inseparable from any specific manifestation of Gender -
Me me me me me me me, oh this whole paragraph me, awesome. Yes we are in fairly similar boats, which is cool - a lot more people than I thought identify with my dorky spiel.
It literally made my brain work better.
Some studies seriously propose these days that autism might have something to do with insufficient estrogen or something like that
Ever since I was a kid, it’s never been about wanting to be a woman so much as not wanting to be a man.
wonder if thats an autism related thing
They pay me more money now
Gender is posting in the trans mega. The more you post in the trans mega, the more gender you have.
srs
Gender to me is all about expression. There’s no inherent essential thing deep inside me that makes me one thing or another.
If I am not expressing my gender in some way, then I feel degendered or agender. To me, expressing my gender in a stereotypically cis male way doesn’t actually feel like gender expression. It feels like default. It is comfortable enough but kind of joyless and devoid of emotion.
I’m with you that I’m not interested in being a woman, and I’d prefer to be a queer something. I believe this for the reasons you listed. But I love going to the gender buffet and taking the things I like. Femme clothes? Oh hell yeah. Girl stuff? Yup. She/her pronouns? Yeah, please. Hairless? Yup yup. Femme voice? Eh, I dunno. Weight lifting? Gonna keep that. Kickboxing? Yeah, I’m gonna keep sparring the bois.
All together, my gender is an express of joy. If I’m not joyful, then I’m not expressing.
What if you are agender and do not want all the gender it gives u
srs
YEAH
goodass view, very nice. I like the GENDER BUFFET, that is rad tbh.
I’m nonbinary AMAB leaning masc but I’m very much gender-agnostic on a personal level, which I think is quite common for autistic people.
I tend to prefer spending time with women and enbies but I think that’s because I live in a pretty patriarchal society and there’s a lot of weird proscriptive masculinity that’s applied to people who present as men here and I’m not interested in all that and I don’t vibe with it, so a lot of men don’t take kindly to me being a weird little guy who doesn’t care for whatever gendered rules I’m supposed to be adhering to. Some women here are also rigid in their expectations of people who present as men but generally they exist in circles I don’t move within so it’s much less of a thing in my experience.
I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and hash out my gender identity seriously because of other more pressing concerns so I just settle on being on the enby spectrum somewhere. I think that also speaks to my attitude of gender agnosticism - for other people gender is a very important or pressing issue and I 100% respect and support this but for me, I have never addressed the higher priority stuff to get down to my own experience of gender.
Aw hell yeah. Goes without saying that being a weird little guy is cool, we support that around here. The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women’s expectations of anyone who presents “male” fascinates me too…
Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience, generally speaking though it seems to me like autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender. I adore how being neurodiverse broadly interacts with gender!
The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women’s expectations of anyone who presents “male” fascinates me too…
It’s really interesting because most women are genuinely cool with me being a queer oddball but there’s a particular type of cisnormative women who are really judgy and averse to me being me. I’m not bothered; I’m the type of person who is better suited to a refined palate and I get that I’m more of an acquired taste (lol) so I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it.
But yeah, I’m just doing my thing and a fair few men find it off putting but occasionally some women do too. I don’t need their approval though.
I think in some respects I must feel “more” transgressive to people with traditional gender norms because I pass as a man pretty well, especially if you don’t know me, because I’m not really out there and camp or loud or performative about being enby so I think it lulls some people into a false sense of complacency but then I will effortlessly transgress gender norms as it suits me and I think more conservative-minded people get a bit of whiplash from it because I’m “supposed” to be a man or because they put me in the box labeled Man but sometimes I do things outside of that because I don’t have any regard for that stuff, whereas for example if I was a really camp gay dude then people would sorta anticipate more transgressive behaviour with regards to gender and stuff so those transgressions are seen as less of an affront comparatively (if that makes sense).
Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience
Thanks, I really appreciate it!
I’m not sure if it’s just such a non-issue for me that it’s never going to be a priority at all because I’m actually agender deep down or whether making sense of my gender will make it to the top of my to-do list some day. Either way, it doesn’t feel like a burning issue for me and that is its own privilege so I tend to keep quiet about contributing to spaces like these since I’m not even really an expert in my own gender so I don’t have much to contribute and I also don’t really need anything from this space on a personal level (e.g. support or guidance). That probably sounds a bit weird but it’s not internalised queerphobia afaik - I am definitely part of the community, I identify with it, and I’m fine with that, but I don’t need much and I don’t have much to provide either so I mostly stick to the sidelines.
but there’s a particular type of cisnormative women who are really judgy and averse to me being me.
I, however, am bothered by her! She is upholding the cisnormative social order!!!
You’re goddamn right about not needing that approval.You are subverting their expectations on the sly, nice. I like it, annoying that people make these assumptions to begin with however.
Either way it ends up being, I appreciate your contribution, thank you
But yeah, in a way you are lucky to be able to just have gender be a non-issue and also not need tons of support from this comm or its people, so I suppose congrats lol.Either way it ends up being, I appreciate your contribution, thank you
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute and for your responses.
But yeah, in a way you are lucky to be able to just have gender be a non-issue and also not need tons of support from this comm or its people, so I suppose congrats lol.
Yeah, I’m super lucky because I have only ever experienced very mild gender dysphoria mostly when I was younger and I was trying hard to be the man that I was expected to be. It wasn’t like crawling-out-of-my-skin dysphoria or like crushing dissociative dysphoria but more just “this isn’t a good fit for me, I’d prefer to be something else”. I also haven’t really had to face the prospect of losing friends or family over transitioning since I pass as a man and I’m just very indifferent about how my gender is perceived or represented - you can see me as a man and I’d be like “Yeah, I have a beard. That makes sense.” but if you see me as a they or a she I am equally fine with it since… meh. Which means I’m immune to misgendering and people who try to consciously inflict gender dysphoria in me.
(Actually, at one point I was a spectre haunting R*ddit’s far right and because I occasionally dipped my toe in trans meme spaces to better understand the experience and discourse of trans men and trans women [not implying as an enby I’m not under the trans umbrella but I think there’s a qualitative difference for trans women and men who transition compared to my enby transition, which was more like detatching from socialisation and norms than it was crossing from one side of the gender aisle to the other], there was this narrative that the far right goofs started forming that I was a trans woman. They started doing their best to insult me and to push me to ending things because they had this false concept of me and trans-ness in their minds. At first it was a little bit irritating because it wasn’t nice to be exposed to all that transphobia but then when I realised that every insult they slung at me and every attempt to goad me into SH was a completely wasted effort on their behalf, that each time they tried to harass me represented one less opportunity for a trans woman or man to be harassed by them, I actively embraced this and leaned into it. It was kinda neat to soak up that negativity knowing that it was going to make life a little bit easier for some trans folk who might be having a really difficult time and who would otherwise be targeted by them because I was effectively immune to that harm they were trying to inflict. At the risk of being indulgent and self-aggrandizing here, I’ve never felt like a superhero in my life but when I realised that all this stuff was bouncing off of me and it was shielding someone else who could genuinely be wounded by it, I felt a little taste of what it must feel like to be one.)
The upshot of all this is that I’ve never experienced gender euphoria and I don’t think I ever will but, then again, those who do not climb the mountain do not get to experience the exhilarating view from the peak - personally I don’t feel any urge to hike but I have nothing but admiration for the people who do.
Sorry if this is a faux pas to comment on an older thread, but I somehow missed this and @ReadFanon@hexbear.net’s comments really hit close to home for me and I really appreciated hearing them and just wanted to show some gratitude. I’m a spectrum-y enby too, but am more on the dysphoric trans femme side of it, but everything you had to say about gender agnosticism and discomfort with patriarchal gender norms rang extremely true to my own experience.
I’ve always been a queer lil’ weirdo since I was a kid before I really had a conception of what that meant, but being AMAB and being pressured away from “feminine” friendships with girls and being pressured to act more masculine than I am or wanted to be or could convincingly fake was really distressing for me. Being kinda slow to grasp social norms and cues, the slow and awkward divergence of my friend groups as a kid into “boys” and “girls” around the start of middle school age was really alienating as someone who didn’t really get what “normal” kids were feeling starting puberty and discovering their orientations and getting crushes and starting to want to go on dates and stuff.
Realizing in my early teens that the frostiness towards me I felt from some of my girl friends that I didn’t understand was because I was now being perceived as “a guy” instead of “another kid that I’m friends with” because girls of that age have to sort of develop a form of hypervigilance about (perceived) boys because of how manipulative and duplicitous straight cis teen boys can get to try seduce girls. It took me awhile to figure it out, but looking back, that social dissonance I felt from being basically softly excommunicated from “kid (feminine)” to “teen (gendered male, possible threat to teen girls)” was so jarring that it really ended up solidifying my internal concept of gender down the road.
By broad standards, I’ve always been kinda non-binary in terms of affect and interests growing up, but that really clarified how gender works for “normal people” to a degree where I went from “I mean, I’m a boy, right? That’s what I’m supposed to be like according to everyone I guess even though I feel like I kinda suck at boy-ness compared to the other boys” to “okay yeah, idk wtf I actually am or if there’s a term for whatever I am or if there’s other people like me out there, but I’m damn well sure I’m Not A Guy™️.”
Exploring my own feelings about that helped me alleviate some of my hangups about gender and made me understand and be more comfortable with my own gender identity and understand now that part of that discomfort I couldn’t place or nail down growing up was dysphoria, but what you described about your own experiences really opened up a lot of shit I’d kinda buried mentally. In a post-gendernorm society, I’d probably be comfortable being a trans femme enby that’s like, 7/10ths femme, 3/10ths masc in a kinda fruity way, but in the world we live in now, the most salient point of my gender identity is Not A Guy™️ and being clear to cis men and women, and people that aren’t cishet men understanding that I’m in their camp.
autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender.
I feel like both at the same time
Gender? I’m literally just vibin’
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Mostly I’d rather be perceived without any assumptions based on gender. I have a special hate for sports, for example, because of cis guys asking me about them, forcing me to eternally be saying I don’t know anything about them and am not into them. Generally goes over with the awkwardness of a fart in a church.
I don’t really think of it at all. I think about it about as important as my name, which is to say I don’t care about it or think it has really anything to do with what’s important about me.
I feel the same. I don’t particularly care much about it. I probably stressed “don’t be gay” or “don’t be a girl” up until my twenties. Now it’s just whatever. I guess that’s a benefit of being cis?
So as some (many??) of you know I am newly hatched and autistic so
I know this isn’t how most people see things and I don’t mind if other people view things differently, do whatever/label yourself however you like. Also I have not so much as even worn girl clothes so, yaknow maybe my understanding will be influenced as I start to transition.cw for possible brainworms, dysphoria, and envy
I think it is mostly about my physical body and presentation (such as clothes and accessories). I want to look like a woman. I “know” I am a woman in the sense that I want to be a woman. But when I look in the mirror, I do not see a woman. I see a man. With hrt and girl clothes, I hope to feel like a woman. To see one in the mirror. I feel like my pronouns are to reinforce that I am actually perceived as that woman I hope to be/look like. When someone calls me she, it makes me feel happy because I want people to look at my body/clothes and say “yup, that’s a woman”. Honestly, when people misgender me irl I don’t get that upset. It hurts a little bit they don’t see me as a woman, but honestly I don’t see myself as a woman. I very obviously look like a man. I see myself as a future woman, once I transition. If I never got to take hrt/dress fem I would see myself as being a guy. Trapped as a guy. While I use the term “pre transition woman” for myself, I think “trans guy” actually makes more logical sense to me. I am a guy who wishes to transition. Being a woman, to me, is getting hrt and dressing the part. And with that will come being she/her’d, which re-enforces that hrt/clothes are working to make me look like/be a woman.
Basically I am what I “look like”, and I want to look like a woman/inject E directly into my body. This makes/will make me a woman.
I know its very biological brained I’m sorry
edit: oh its a little funny that wearing funny socks would make me feel more like a woman then having a penis makes me feel like a man. Maybe the “biology” is literally just hrt?
Henlo welcome to gebder thenk u hope u enjoy ur stay
This is funny in contrast to me, because there are agender or post gender people here who take hormones to make their bodies more comfortable. Whether or not someone views hormones and the physical aspect as being part of gender… well they’re clearly not inherently gendered, but like maybe as a potential expression of gender? Idk, fascinating.
brainworms
I think “trans guy” actually makes more logical sense to me. I am a guy who wishes to transition.
Defining ourselves by the binary gender a doctor arbitrarily assigned, are we? Tsk tsk, eggynog…No sorry, good to have this as a reference point so thank u, very literal and utilitarian perspective. And that IS funny about the socks, lol.
It is one of the stays I have had that’s for sure
I just can’t separate it in my brain. Maybe that’ll change with time?
spoiler
No, I’m saying that based on what I see in the mirror. Fuck that doctor (for other reasons). And yes I know its not how everyone else seems to view it
very literal and utilitarian perspective
that’s me alright. It is a very funny thought, it makes me second guess how connected sex and gender are in my brain.The impression that I’m getting so far is that being trans long enough will cause any individual with a sufficiently decent understanding to fuckin ascend, to truly move from
to 
in terms of being a gender understander.spoiler
FUCK THAT DOCTOR LFG!! And yeah I know, but also some of that coincidentally resembles terf language, so uh lol. Y’know ✨
Not surprised tbh, I would not be shocked if most autistic people start out with such a literal perspective on it
also they will probably disconnect if they haven’t already. Gender is fuckin fake shit, I changed my sex this past decade.That’s the dream!
spoiler
Yea I know it does, that’s why I cw’d it. I try very hard not to let this impact how I see other trans people, a lot of it is how I view myself I suppose.
I changed my sex this past decade.
See but how is that different then when I say it. When i feel that way I think people view it negatively. I just don’t understand :ohnoes: gender, sex, and how other people view them is so hard.
spoiler
Uh because “sex” is a bunch of different factors I guess, mental physical chemical whatever else, it’s a whole thing. I don’t view it as binary I guess. To me a trans woman’s sex is female regardless of any other factor. Malleable. It’s like
you know? Shit’s all fake terms dreamed up by scientists who are only describing what they can see.There’s a negative view of “I changed my sex” as a thing because it feels binary, arbitrary, cisnormative, you know. Kinda stinky. You can use it cool though.
It means being hot and gay
It means walking around with the exaggerated swagger of a soviet marshall with full confidence that every day of my life is better than the last day
TRUE AND CORRECT
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I don’t know if this is uncommon among nonbinary people or not (certainly seems to be in this thread at least), but I have a gender. I actually have a very strong experience of my personal gender. But my gender is just an extremely subjective personal lens through which I experience the world. Idk if I can encompass all of it in a verbal description, but I will try my best.
extremely long post
I was coercively assigned female at birth and I get a lot of dysphoria from that fact. I’ve always experienced strong social dysphoria, I hate getting perceived/gendered as a girl or woman. I want to take testosterone to fix this, as well as to solve some physical dysphoria problems that I experience (a lot of feelings of incongruence up in this body!) This took me a while to work out, though; for a while I thought that maybe I would be comfortable as a nonbinary person who did not physically transition, until the contradictions sharpened within me or something and I was pushed to the realization that yes, I do in fact want some fat redistribution and a lower voice. Top surgery took me even longer, because I thought for a while that I liked my boobs, but I realized rather recently that I only like them from an aesthetic point of view, and that actually living with them is kind of a huge pain that I would rather not deal with.
However, while I think I would prefer if (irl) I was perceived as a man, to some level that still makes me uncomfortable. I would only prefer it insomuch as I would prefer it to being perceived as a woman; no more than that. I do not feel like a man, I do not want to be a man. I do not even feel or identify as a masculine person. This is why I do not like using the label “transmasc” for myself even if it technically fits me as a person CAFAB who wants T. This does create some awkward situations sometimes, especially online. I do not fit neatly into transmasc spaces because I really don’t find myself identifying with transmasculinity; hexbear is my main online trans community rn. I try my best to delineate that I am not transfem and cannot speak to that experience, while also not incorrectly gendering myself as transmasc. (I hope I’m doing an okay job of that? Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing that poorly.)
Another aspect to this is HRT, and the fact that I’m not on it yet. I want it, it’s been about two years now since I confirmed I wanted it; but in that time I’ve been living in a very unstable household. I’m going to be temporarily moving out later this year and that’s when I plan to get it. I feel like my experience of gender is very subject to change once I inject the funnyman hormones for the first time. Maybe I’ll start identifying with transmasculinity then? Who knows.
Unironically I view my gender through the lens of the things I care about the most. It’s like a personal xenogender. My gender is swarming cicadas, it’s brutalist architecture, it’s the sci-fi megastructure, it’s abandoned buildings and rusting metal, it’s insect exoskeletons, it’s industrial and cyberpunk. It’s the art I like best — surrealism, illustration, abstraction, pen and ink, explosions of violent color. It’s being a communist and a vegan. It’s masking in all public spaces because I still take covid seriously. It’s my music taste and fashion sense — I’m a gestures vaguely gothy punky something-or-other, I DIY my clothes and I listen to tunes, I visibly stick out in public because of my fashion and I don’t care.
These are gender markers, to me, the way “skirts” have been constructed as a gender marker for women and “suits” have been constructed as a gender marker for men. I mean, while both of these markers are real phenomena neither of them are innate or immutable, they’re all products of the dialectical process of history; so ultimately my personal gender markers are just as real as they are, in a way, even if I’m the only person who sees and accepts them. I’m currently like, theory-crafting an idea that subcultures and aesthetics constitute their own forms of gender in the modern age. There is a performance and a set of interests associated with being goth or punk — almost like there is a performance and set of interests associated with being a “man” or “woman”. Of course, they are not yet the same (and within subcultures there are still divisions of gender and a lot of misogyny), but with how the concept of gender is currently shifting in front of our very eyes, I think it’s very possible that in the future, gender will be more of a subcultural experience than a superstructural one. Maybe I’m wrong on that one, who knows.
I’m not a fan of the idea that being nonbinary makes you inherently more “queer” or “transgressive” than being a binary trans person (whatever these categories even mean — I think they’re a bunch of fluid, noodly nonsense anyways.) There’s a good Lily Alexandre video that sums up my thoughts on that whole discourse. Ultimately, we’re all smashing the cissexist notions of gender. Capitalism revolutionized the understanding of gender for millions of people. Should communism win, which I believe it will, I believe a second revolution will come — and this time a better one.
That’s based, nice =)
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Awesome, ty for this excellent writeup! Most of this is things I’m familiar with, this definition of “not ttansmasc” however is new and fresh. Makes sense though honestly. Fwiw I think you are doing the delineating pretty well.
Kind of exciting how hormones can potentially change your experience or view of gender, wishing you all the good stuff when you inject the funnyman hormones. I do love the way you describe your gender as being the things that matter to you most. Also I do not really like the clothing constructions myself, the gender markers they carry, Idk… Seems weird…
I agree about binary vs nonbinary genders, why I am excited to hear from Seryph, was hoping to get some binies involved and chattering. We Are All Smashing Cissexist Notions Of Gender!
Again ty for writing this giant explainer =)
Np, I had a lot of fun :)
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My relationship with the word transmasc is honestly a pretty complicated one, and I don’t think it’s completely settled yet. I think it’s very possible that I may start identifying with the label in the future. Weirdly enough I do not mind if other people view me as transmasc, I just usually don’t describe myself that way. I feel like one of the big sticking points for me here is that I do not want to be “masculine” (whatever that means) and I have zero desire to be “one of the boys” like many trans men/transmascs describe. I don’t think either of those things are requirements for being transmasc, though… I think I just need to do more gender noodling to work out my feelings around this.
I think learning a little bit about the history of how gender and sexuality literally changed because of changing material conditions completely just broke any sense I had of “man” and “woman” being immutable categories, lol. The fact that within like a hundred years women wearing pants went from “transgressive gender performance” to “just a Tuesday” renders all cissexist conceptions of gender void so quickly, and that’s just one example out of thousands. Skirts are definitely coming back for men within the next century, I’m pretty sure I’ll be alive to see it. I’m already seeing the beginnings of it in the hanfu revival movement in China, for example.
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Huh… yeah, it is funny lots of transmasc people are not “masculine” in presentation, but if you don’t vibe with it due to the masc part, understandable. More gender noodling is always fun and cool though ✨
Yeah me too!!! None of it actually means anything, it’s a bit!!! “Man” is just a guy someone made up!!! Lol my brain broke in exactly the same way yours has, awesome. Skirts for men will be funny, in the past when dudes wear skirts do they tuck…?
I try my best to delineate that I am not transfem and cannot speak to that experience, while also not incorrectly gendering myself as transmasc. (I hope I’m doing an okay job of that? Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing that poorly.)
I don’t think I noticed you avoid using “transmasc” label. I sorta assumed you were, but I think I treat the label as basically a shorter version of “CAFAB trans person” (and “transfem” as a shorter version of “CAMAB trans person”)
Honestly I really don’t mind if I get viewed as transmasc, I think my not using it is mostly an internal thing. If someone else were to describe me as transmasc I would be fine with it, and like you I sometimes use it as shorthand to describe my being a CAFAB trans person when I’m pressed for time and don’t want to get into all the ins and outs of my gender experience (like, when I don’t want to write a whole essay like I did here.) “Trans man” does feel very wrong though, that feels like misgendering while “transmasc” does not.
Usually if asked I will just say I’m “trans”, I like that label on its own, short and sweet. I also fuck with “trans guy”, wherein guy represents some nebulous masc-ish neutral-ish weird thing (an extremely subjective personal experience with the word which I do not expect other people to share). Other labels I will use are “genderqueer” and “nonbinary”. I don’t usually say I’m transmasc, but as I said I don’t mind if other people describe me with the label. Idk if that’s weird? Labels are very strange creatures to me, I do not pretend to understand them. I also feel like it’s very possible that I may start using the transmasc label more in the future; it’s honestly something that I waffle on a lot.
Idk if that’s weird?
Doesn’t seem weird to me. I use to be in the same boat. Trans, NB, agender, genderqueer were all good, transfem was a label I thought technically correct but not a fan of using it for myself, and trans woman was a no. Transfem has since grown on me, if for no other reason than no longer feeling like I need to explain my complicated relationship with the label and to avoid calling myself “AMAB” all the time to avoid using that label.
I have the same feelings with identifying as transfeminine vs trans woman. Transfeminine feels inclusive and closer to right and trans woman mostly feels alienating, and with expectations of cis womanhood that I do not particularly align with. down with cis
