Questioning my gender identity…

I’m afraid of speaking out about possibly being gender fluid(?) to my friends and family, and well, to anybody at all since I’ve been a cisgender girl for 16 years. Like, it’s not like I’m uncomfortable in my body- but like, the thought of being referred to as a boy or using he/him pronouns and such don’t feel… wrong. And I like my name. It’s hard to explain but I like being a girl but I also feel like I’d like being boy. Like biologically I am a girl but… even though I’d feel/like to be a boy I wouldn’t want to change anything (although my boobies are super annoying sometimes and I just anxious just feeling them on my body. Sometimes. Like, I don’t feel dysphoric on a regular basis, I just feel sort of overwhelmed over my boobs but not my genitalia.) Is this valid…? So many trans + genderqueer people go through so much more, and I’d feel like I’d just be taking the title “genderfluid/queer” for fun or experimenting. I feel like there are certain qualifications for some reason. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time but I feel like I need to really think deeper a little bit more before I admit to myself and my friends/family about possibly being… well, not cisgender.

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Charla

2 Answers

As a gender-fluid person who still uses the male pronoun (easier) I believe it is easier basically saying to your friends to treat you as the opposite gender as they never can and therefore treat you somewhere in the middle.I said to my parents i don't give a shit about gender or sexuality (comes with the pansexuality).If you wanna experiment go for it, wear some different clothes advertise yourself as something else, it's fun and helps you learn about your body! :) hope This helped in any way!

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Erin Moos-Golding

You'll never really understand your own identity until you start experimenting with it. I've been working to understand my own gender for around a decade now and I've yet to stop discovering new aspects to what really is a part of my gender identity and what those pieces mean to me. Gender doesn't have to be some hyper defined thing. Physical dysphoria being a qualification tends to only support a rigid binary. And just because you feel like you don't go through as much as other doesn't make your feelings invalid. Especially with a very umbrella-like term that genderqueer is. Like, genderqueer is basically "undefined non-heteronormative gender" which can encompass things like fluidity, agender, dualgender, non-binary, etc.

I give this advice to anyone else who struggles with their gender identity as well as to those involved with people who struggle with their gender identity: You're not gonna have all the answers right away. You're not going to know what you gender identity is to you until you push it. Some people start with a bigger piece of the puzzle than others and that's perfectly okay. Some people fit pieces into that puzzle faster than others. Some people have to try hundreds of pieces into one spot before they find a piece that fits. It takes time and don't feel bad if you don't ever have that puzzle finished because its such a complicated thing for some people that it can be impossible to finish.

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