My Gender Identity - I feel like there's not even a label

Post Reply New Topic

I feel like there's not even a gender identity label that applies to me.

I was born in a female body. But I have used hormones to transition to male. I am seen as male and like this. I want to continue to be referred to as "he", and want to continue being seen as male. I THINK I want chest reconstruction surgery but I'm not sure. I certainly don't want OTHER people to see my breasts, but the thought of getting them removed is a little... strange.

I am both male and female at the same time.

There are so many gender identity labels, but I can't find one that works for me.

Bi-gender usually refers to someone who identifies as male in certain situations and female in others. Not both at the same time. So I feel like that doesn't work.

Genderqueer is too broad. It would fit under that umbrella, but it's not specific enough for me.

Genderfluid isn't quite right, my gender identity doesn't really change - it's always both at the same time.

I call myself transgender because socially it works - I was raised female, transitioned to male, everyone sees me as male. But really, I am both male and female at the same time.

Anyone else?

I'll hazard a guess ... "Gendermixed", perhaps?

It's beats the clinical "Hemaphroditic", it's much nicer than "Shemale", and does not need any further explanation like "It's Complicated" does.

Agendered, transmasculine (or transfeminine). Twin-spirited. There's so many to choose from.

Kate Bornstein (a gender activist) worked with some people to come up with a list of gender/sexual identities and came up with a list in the hundreds.

I think you should focus less on trying to find a label for it and just enjoy being yourself.

Last edited by Rorberyllium on 16 Sep 2012, 4:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have to ask, and don't take this the wrong way, but:

Does there ever come a time of just plain simple acceptance? In other words, you may have wished you were born male, but you weren't, so why not just accept it, for better or worse? It is what it is?

Hey again_with_this - I understand your question, don't take my passionate response the wrong way either: I don't just WISH I was born male. I WAS born male, in my mind. I was born male and female, and my body reflected mostly female. I desire to present as male. Thankfully, it's possible for me to do this.

Gender is more than just what's between your legs. I DID try to accept my female anatomy, and if I didn't go ahead with the transition and instead tried to live as a female (And I tried that for more than 20 years), that was a path to suicide. It sounds dramatic, but before I transitioned, I hated myself and didn't have any interest in life. Now that I'm exploring myself and finding who I really am (a guy), I am so much happier, so much more confident, and so much more engaged with life. It's impossible to accept that I'm female, because I simply am not.

As for terms, Gendermixed might work. I don't know about Agendered, I thought that meant neither gender, not both at once. I actually have a gut connection with the term twin-spirited/two-spirited, but it's actually a Native American identity with a lot of history and spiritual significance and while there IS a little bit of Native American on my mom's side, I can't adopt a Native American identity without it being a huge faux pas.

I don't know why I want a label so much... I just really feel the need to categorize things.

How about Gender Outlaw?

Also I know a 100% Swedish person who identifies as twin-spirited.

I've never been in this situation...

Honestly, I'm perfectly happy to call or use whatever label an individual finds suitable. It's your gender, it's your body and as long as I don't offend you, it isn't my business.

I hope that doesn't sound terrible. It wasn't meant to. I guess what I'm saying is that, I support your choice.

Still it was interesting reading some of the responses.

For the person who suggested agender - agender dosn't fit - agender is having no gender.

Bigender doesn't require swapping, you can have them both at the same time and be bigender, but that's not what most people think of, so its harder to get understanding with bigender there.

Two-spirit is good, other than if you don't like the Native American part of it.

I've heard the idea of "double binary" which was interesting - your style of being non-binary is being on both sides of it. I'm not sure whether I like it or not, but it seems worth mentioning.

The other person I know who feels like they're always both always feels like they're both, but swaps which one is stronger and which one is presenting, and uses bigender.

It's not that I don't like the Native American part of the term "Two-Spirited"... I actually feel quite a connection with certain Native American traditions. I have a small amount of Native American lineage, but don't know enough about it yet. I'm working on tracing my genealogy.

The problem is that people who are Native American take offense when someone who is not Native American tries to adopt their culture. Two-Spirited is not just a gender identity label, it has history and spirituality and culture that is significant to Native Americans. Every LGBT institution I've talked to has said that adopting the Two-Spirit label is a big no-no when you're not Native American because it's offensive (offensive to the Native Americans because you're appropriating their culture.)

I might adapt the bigender label, but I don't ever wish to present as female. I know that I want to present and be seen as a male, all of the time.

My sex is also female and my gender is non-binary (not exclusively male or female) but I haven't nor do I plan to transition. I wish I was born intersex but I'm content enough with my body that I don't feel the need to transition and I typically go by feminine pronouns (mainly because I'm almost completely closeted, gender wise) but I really have no preference. Most of the time I feel like I'm neither male nor female, more-so something in-between, but sometimes I feel like both simultaneously or none at all and occasionally I'll feel like one or the other. It's somewhat confusing and most people I talk to don't understand it, so I don't usually talk about it anymore. I typically just say that my gender is non-binary and if I feel like adding anything else, I'll say I'm trigender (it's a term I found, and it seems to fit the best). I'm not sure what your gender is (only you can truly know that) but from what I gather these are "the" (main) genders.

Binary:
Boy/Man (Male)
Girl/Woman (Female)

Non-binary:
Agender - Neither male nor female
Bigender - Both male and female; jointly or separately
Androgyne - Mixture of/in-between male and female
Trigender - Moving between agender, bigender and androgyne.

By the way, just in case you don't know, there is a difference between gender identity and gender expression/role. You can identify as a certain gender, such as a man, and still take on the role/express yourself as a woman. That doesn't mean that your gender is any less masculine, it just means that you choose to present yourself in a feminine manner or vice versa (drag kings/queens are known for doing this quite often).

As someone who identifies as non-binary (specifically gender neutral), and was born intersex, this is an interesting perspective to me. Being intersex typically involves surgery at a very early age in one direction or the other (that you don't get to consent to), and usually having some physical (and oftentimes mental) complications that go with that. There are no true hermaphrodites among humans (as in no one completely functioning as both male and female physically), just people born with ambiguous genitalia that falls somewhere in between. But if they did exist then being a hermaphrodite would be awesome, I can agree with that.

I would much prefer to be hermaphroditic as opposed to female (or male) but by intersex, I meant in the general sense, namely ambiguous genitalia but also with small or non-existent breasts and lacking in the reproductive department (I'm not sure I'd ever want to experience pregnancy and whatever sliver of want for that I do have is far outweighed by my loathing of the menstrual cycle). Basically, I wish I was born with a body that matched the mental image of myself, one that is completely androgynous in nature, neither masculine nor feminine.

Last edited by Drebi on 19 Sep 2012, 3:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeah I can understand that. The only thing that sucks is that in most cases your parents and/or the doctors would have you go through surgery to prevent certain physical complications and to assign you a gender/birth sex of their choosing (you are a baby and don't get a choice in this matter). And there's a chance that your family could keep this a secret from you for years. Some people are born intersex and go much of their life without knowing. Dealing with the confusion of why you look, feel, and function slightly differently from everyone else that you know. Would you really want to go through all of that?

There's no way I would be born with that body except in an ideal world, and in an ideal world, humans wouldn't care enough about it to force unnecessary/unnatural circumstances upon their children (as in, no surgery). As for the bit about confusion and not functioning properly, I already experience that as is (albeit it most likely in a somewhat different way, but still).

Yeah, like I said I see where you're coming from, but this isn't a ideal world. The way you worded it was kind of upsetting and insensitive from my perspective. It's a bit like going up to someone with a conjoined twin and saying "I wish I had a conjoined twin!" People who have birth defects don't wish for them.

Saying you wish you could be closer to both, or neither, that's fine. I feel that every day myself, and being intersex doesn't make me any less dysphoric (and I get dysphoria in both directions). It may seem like an ideal but it's really not.

To the OP,
I am bio female and also feel as if I am both genders at the same time. However it doesnt cause me much anguish though. I like to dress in both masculine and feminine clothes at the same time. Like a girly shirt with guy jeans and I have worn a flouncy skirt with a masculine sports jacket, and sometimes I wear all guyish clothes with my hair is some girlie doo.
Sometimes I feel agendered, bigendered, genderfluid, pangendered and sometimes I feel like a girl and other times I feel like a feminine guy....but I just roll with it.
All in all, it doesent really matter as far as sex goes cause I am Asexual and just as quirky about all that too. I am panromantic Asexual which means that I am romanticly, but not sexuality, attracted to people's personalities but dont see people in terms of gender...kinda how I see myself I guess. All in all, I guess my brain doesnt compute genders very well.

I am just all kinds of weird, I guess, but my advice to you is the answers will come.
I dont think one label will fit us perfectly and the AS in us wants order and categoration and if you have OCD this need will be mupltiplied tenfold, however you may have to end up making up your own label. A wise woman told me once, "those who never stop seeking are never truly lost." This is profoundly true.

Jojo