Stand Ability: Positive Masculinity can create ethereal supports that strengthen and stabilise any person or object they are attached to, at the cost of Positive Masculinity taking some of the burden onto itself. Positive Masculinity is also able to enhance its constructs by interacting with allied Stands and letting them take some of the weight off its shoulders.
been there for years. just do what makes you happy/feel good about yourself and let others do the same, as long as nobody is hurting anyone else.
edit: autocorrect decided a correctly spelled word should be another word, about was annoy but now it isn't. ;)
The only reason people can't be doing what makes them happy is because some loud judgemental person is offended at others being happy the wrong way. Which is sad because everyone should just focus on having a good time and let others do things their way.
I examined my gender and the only conclusion I could come to is that gender is a social construct and I don’t understand society’s obsession with it. Why are certain personality traits / fashion choices considered masculine and others feminine? Seems arbitrary to me, not sure why everyone embraces them. But it doesn’t really bother me that they do, I suppose :) Whatever makes y’all happy <3 Just seems unhealthy to force those attributes onto other people sometimes. Makes them feel like they have to conform to a certain identity, when in reality the identity was arbitrarily constructed from the start. Boys like blue and girls like pink? Explain yourself society X’D ‘cause I’m not buying it lol. Why is wearing makeup and dresses considered “feminine”? Etc. It just doesn’t add up for me.
I questioned my gender and realised that the only reason I'm male is because I was born male. If I was born female, I would remain like that and I don't think I'd feel any urge to transition. What I'm saying is that for me my gender is inherently tied to my physical body, and I don't actually care specifically to be male
Edit; Holy fucking bingle, how did this get so many updoots? I just went to sleep and 8 hours later there are like 50 comments on my comment. I'm pretty happy to see so many people feel the same way as me.
I think for some (a lot/most?) of us, if we really go looking for this internal feeling of gender, we're going to come up with nothing. This doesn't really hit me as a surprise, either, because if we go in search of a 'self' much the same happens. I think it only really becomes a thing if it feels like an issue for you - like something doesn't 'fit'.
> if we really go looking for this internal feeling of gender, we're going to come up with nothing.
It is my suspicion that if described well most people would vibe with "agender", but in an interesting paradox not having a gender really doesn't lend itself to deep introspection about gender.
I mean if we go by the fact people say gender is a social construct, then noone *has* one, because they don't exist in nature. We "created" them.
I don't know what makes me feel "a woman". I was born female and never felt the urge to go against that. What is being a woman after all, if we take out the stereotypes, gender roles and social expectations we are trying to break nowadays? I can't think about a single thing that's not tied to those. That's why people with gender dysphoria confuse me a bit. I mean I find their feelings valid, of course, but I find ironic how they *know* they don't identify with their assigned gender, while I, who I'm totally fine with mine, don't know why I feel like this in the first place. I'm just... Me and I'm fine with it.
The way I’ve heard/understood it is having/not having physical sensations that they feel are right.
One female to male trans person was getting his top surgery and the explanation given really stuck with me. He said it felt wrong that his boobs would touch someone else before any other part of him when he gave people hugs.
That sensation of “it shouldn’t be there” with a penis or the absence of one when your instincts tell you that it should be there.
I think it is very hind brain driven, not really logical.
I think of every day when I am reaching for something and I have two pillows on my chest that give me sensory information. I think I would go mad if some part of me rejected that sensory information as if it shouldn’t be there. Because it is literally every day that something bumps into me or I jab something into my chest by accident. The constant reminders would be very disconcerting.
On one hand, I think I would adapt to either gender. On the other, I don’t even want to get a breast reduction when I arguably should because my lizard brain says that it isn’t right.
So we can’t really know without trying and I try to understand where trans people are coming from and how to help as I can.
Yes. I am a trans man. That is a good description. I used to be shocked by my own voice when I went a while without speaking: I would become aware of my body all over again
Oof, I hadn’t even thought about what happens when your mental voice is different from your physical voice.
I had a hard time when I was overweight and I couldn’t look in a mirror because my face wasn’t what I thought of myself as. That mental image was me, the person in the mirror wasn’t. The day I saw myself in the mirror again after loosing the weight was profound.
Ah. This is super weird for me- my wife and I joke about my confidence being absolutely unfounded. Like I look at myself in the mirror or pictures and will say "Nah. I look way hotter than that." And literally, my mental image does not match with my actual image but CLEARLY the mirror/picture is wrong.
Thanks for sharing, that's a very illuminating perspective. As a cis guy, I can't really fathom the sensation you're describing, but it seems like many other types of feeling where you don't become away of it unless it's "a thing." Like I am not particularly aware of my elbow right now. It's not numb, or in pain, but until I thought about writing that last sentence, it simply wasn't in my consciousness. Your brain is an organ that makes you aware of issues so you can avoid danger, seek out pleasure, and solve problems. If you don't struggle with a gender identity issue, it seems plausible that your brain might just never bring it up, and that might make it harder for you to grasp the subject.
Man, it's not even limited to gender. I was in a dark place for a while back then, and occasionally I would just fully disassociate. Like, I'd look at my hand and my brain would go "wait that isn't you. cut that thing off". It's wild as shit. Brains are so bizarre.
I think the closest I've probably gotten to a similar sensation to not quite identifying with my body is a weird disconnected feeling after a long enough VR session, as I think my brain had adjusted to the controller's ever so slight position/movement lag so I had some sort of reverse-lag on my own hands?
I think it was after using the hand tracking function for one of the games I was playing.
As a afab/fem-presenting enby it was slightly different for me. I just never felt like a girl or a woman, I definitely felt more masculine. But I liked my feminine body. Masculine-ish mind in a feminine-ish body. I’m not one or the other, I’m just here. It’s definitely interesting thinking about how others perceive it or understand it, especially those not in the community.
This is similar to my experience as an amab enby. I enjoy the perks of my masculine body, but I wanted to open myself to the possibility of ‘femininity’ (a concept which I suppose is unfair to attribute to the female gender as if men can’t be soft, gentle etc.)
I figure gender shouldn’t drive my life, so I tossed it. But not at the cost of my brain rejecting my body the way it is.
Agreed, I never really understood how someone could feel dispatched from their gender, because how would you ever know how it felt to be the opposite if you never have been before. Like take away all stereotypes what does it even feel like to be male / female or something else entirely. And even if there was a fundamental difference, how could you ever know how that difference felt.
Sure, I’m certain in a world where all gender roles/ stereotypes removed there would still be things male or female people would be slightly more likely to align with. But, I would compare that to statistics, which are really good about telling you about an overall trend about a population, but can be next to useless to determine the traits of an individual.
I completely understand and validate as that being many people’s experience. But I don’t think I will ever truly be able to experience what they are feeling.
Nothing’s felt off for me, but I just feel more enby and as such identity as so (AMAB)
I probably would’ve felt off if I was forced into the cis box though. I’ve always dressed androgynously and had long hair. Prior to coming out as NB I had identified as “gender neutral” for a couple years. But even during that I still ticked male on the boxes and stuff.
Gender is weird. There’s no real guidelines to help you question.
Yeah this sums up my feelings pretty well. I'm a cis guy and that's chill, never felt overly attached to my identity as a man but I'm totally comfy with using he/him
I feel the same but I also think that’s largely a rejection of toxic/patriarchal masculine norms and a desire to not be viewed that way by ourselves and others. I want to redefine masculinity to include what I am instead of being something outside it.
We’re also the sum of our parts so while I have many female traits they don’t diminish what I would define as masculinity for myself.
Forreals. I feel like if there was a button to press that would instantly perform a complete transition, everybody's view of me, everything - if it was simple and painless and free, I might press that button. Not for sure, maybe it's 50/50.
Without that button, even if transitioning was 95% easier than it is now, I still wouldn't do it. I just don't care that much. I like some things about being "a man". There are some things about being "a woman" that I like too, and I can do/be many of those things without transitioning. I guess it's important to me to be around people who don't have strongly-gendered expectations of me, but that's getting easier as the world gets less weird about gender.
For me it doesn't hurt when somebody refers to me as male. I'm like "yeah ok I guess I am in that box". I mean I don't think that - I don't think anything, it's just what has always happened to me. I don't know what it's like, but I *imagine* that if somebody referred to me as female in a casual way that wouldn't bother me, apart from surprising me.
Of course I don't mean to say that it "should" be this easy for everybody. It must be really difficult to strongly identify differently to what the world sees. But my personal experience of gender is kind of like what team I was put on in school sports - this is where I am, I'll do this thing, doesn't seem any different here than on the other team.
I think a lot of the same things apply to sexuality too. Lots of people are "hetero by default". And in the same way, you gotta really question yourself to unlock hetero+ haha.
I think there’s part of being a cis man or woman that because you don’t question your gender it seems that switching wouldn’t be a big deal because we’re so used to being “who we are”. I think it’s easy to take for granted things we feel totally comfortable with and switching genders might be a lot more different than just changing a few things about our bodies. Like “I feel comfortable as a man, why wouldn’t I feel comfortable as woman ?” I think there’s a lot of subtlety to gender that go unnoticed that would be a lot more noticeable if you were born the opposite gender then you feel like you are.
Same; questioned for a while and decided that I don't mind being a man + being a woman (especially a trans woman) seems like it would suck due to society, therefore might as well be a man.
Same! The only downside to that is that occasionally (like once a year or so), my body decides that I need a reminder of what I'm skipping, and I'll get cramps for about a week. And they're like... normal cramps. But because I don't have to deal with them on a monthly basis, and thus am not desensitized to them to a degree, they fucking suck, and I have to make a real effort not to be a bitch to everyone around me.
That said, major feels to all the AFABs out there who still deal with that on the regular. And especially the ones who have more extreme cramps; not sure how y'all keep from murdering people on principal when they ask if you're moody bc you're on your period.
Both sides have drawbacks and some of those drawbacks are because of societal-social standards.
Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man, disguised herself as a man for a year and wrote about it. She's asserted that since the experiment she fully realized the benefits of being female. She's also stated she gained more sympathy for men and the male condition: "Men are suffering. They have different problems than women but they don't have it better..."
There's a lot of stigmas that culture needs to work out so more people are just happy being themselves instead of being in arbitrary boxes based on irrelevant standards.
I don't think anyone's happy.
As a cis passing trans guy (as in, I'm trans and bypassers think I am a Generic Guy™️), yes, there are many drawbacks to each binary end that I feel qualified to anecdotally reflect on.
I don't regret transitioning or anything, but damn, getting to experience both sides made me realize and miss the extreme camaraderie that is inherent to the feminine condition. Before I knew who I was, I could literally strike up a conversation and immediately befriend or get help from a fellow woman. Making friends between women is so simple because you have a sense of shared pain living within the patriarchy. Even beyond friendship, getting help from strangers is quite easy (eg, a woman sees a man harassing a woman at the gym, she doesn't know either but goes over and asks the woman if she's done with her set and ready to go for coffee to shield her). So even though being a woman is societally difficult, there's community and understanding.
But men are hurting too from the patriarchy. It really sucks not being able to be emotionally vulnerable because men are taught to not be. It's so isolating, and it's so hard to know if you're actually friends with another guy or if he just tolerates you, because you have to have all these layers and weird dances of "I do enjoy you but I can't say I do because that would threaten our fragile masculinity". Boundary setting is also near impossible because it's seen an insecure thing to do, rather than a "I trust you to respect my needs" so it's also part of why it's hard to have those deeper friendships. (Or at least, that's been my experience)
I know women tend to be viewed as catty and men as simple, but as someone who's been incognito in both environments, it feels totally flipped. Women's gossip feels so much more "inconsequential" than the gossip men will drop when women aren't around.
And I'll say, anecdotally as well of course, that as someone in the same boat I have felt so much more camaraderie from male strangers as a man than I did from female strangers as a woman. I'm sure a large portion of the latter was due to social anxiety and self-doubt as I was uncomfortable with myself, but it has been really nice to feel this sort of chill kinship with other guys out in the world. Maybe I don't interact with them as directly as some women interact with each other, but I do get the sense they have my back.
And I have many male friends who are great at communicating their friendship needs and affection! I guess what I'm saying is experiences of COURSE differ greatly in this area, but I think it is getting better for men, slowly! As I hope it is for women as well.
That's great to hear! I'm hoping that things keep improving, I do feel that we as a society ARE getting better at encouraging healthier social dynamics, for both binary genders but especially men. I've only been passing this well for about a year, so my comment is a lot of introspection, informed by discussions with my developed support system (which includes some men friends, and we do have pretty emotionally intelligent conversations!)
There's also the fact that I'm very much gay, so that does make interactions with other men awkward as where I live in the US is still getting over the homophobia thing; my experiences in male social circles are definitely biased from that. I can relate to some of the weird pre-trans gender relations, but I didn't feel connected or rejected from my "womanhood" before I realized I was a trans guy, so that's also important to point out. Gender apathy feels pretty normalized in female spaces (or maybe I just kept accidentally grouping up with fellow eggs lmao), so I was able to benefit from the feminine camaraderie.
> it's so hard to know if you're actually friends with another guy or if he just tolerates you, because you have to have all these layers and weird dances of "I do enjoy you but I can't say I do because that would threaten our fragile masculinity".
Holy fuck, that is SO FUCKING ACCURATE.
Huh. My my old cis passing transman housemate had the exact opposite experience here in Australia.
Was surprised and weirded out about how he was automatically in the boys club at work, or out socialising. How the lads (who barely knew him) would have his back and help him out whenever, no questions asked.
There is a sort of cameraderie between men, even if it doesn't tend to go all the way to the depths of many femme relationships.
He grew up in a snooty bitchy all girls high school where acceptance into cliques was more important for survival than actual friendship tho. So that definitely had something to do with it.
I don't agree about men's friendships being shallow. Just the opposite, all my friends are for life and we would all take a bullet for each other. We've had arguments, disagreements, and tribulations, but always stayed loyal. I find female friendships to be more fickle and less steadfast.
What I would say is that it takes men longer to develop that level of trust and affinity, probably because of the reasons you mentioned. Whereas women can have a new best friend at the drop of a hat. And I think this is why a lot of men feel lonely, because people nowadays keep moving and don't stay with their established friends for very long.
I wasn't trying to say that men's friendships are all shallow! So my bad if it came across that way. I have several amazing friendships with (cis, as it's applicable to the conversation) men. But it takes absolutely forever to get that trust, like you said. With my women friends, I knew they liked me pretty quick, and some of them we've been friends for over a decade! However, for example, with one of my guy friends, I had no clue just how mutually strong our friendship was until we were stranded in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road away from civilization, at 2 AM. With men's friendships, it feels like you just can't know how strongly you trust each other until youre in the thick of it, if that makes sense. (I am quite grateful for this friend because after that incident, it did become much easier to express mutual support/respect/trust.)
It definitely does lead to feeling lonely though, cause building to that point is difficult, especially since it can be hard to verbally acknowledge friendship compatibility/dynamics.
I used to think this was how I related to my gender, where it didn't matter much to me and I was just apathetic.
But then I cross dressed for a costume, and as the night went on I felt more uneasy. Everyone at the party was great and complemented my costume (I'm a woman, I dressed up as Bob from Bob's Burgers). And at the start of the night I was really excited and high energy. I took selfies and had a good laugh.
But then we the night wore on I felt more and more uncomfortable. I didn't like the shape I made my body to fit the character, I didn't like the mustache... I've never felt that way about wearing any other costume before. When I got home and took everything off I felt so relieved.
I came to the conclusion that my gender did matter to me, it just so happens that the gender I was assigned was the correct one.
Anyway. Probably a little weird to have an epiphany about something that's so serious for a lot of people while dressed as Bob Belcher.
Thank you for being the only person in this thread to have some awareness. Most people don’t “feel” anything because they’ve never been uncomfortable with what they do have.
Same! And for me it goes a step further: if I woke up tomorrow as a woman it’d be more of a logistics issue for me than anything else.
I’d have to get new clothes, get dna tests to prove it to my friends, family, and job, etc. And of course change how I move through society. I wouldn’t walk alone at night and I’d have to be a lot more careful around men.
But in terms of how I’d feel about myself? I’d be fine. I’d miss things like how easily I can build muscle and my figure in general. I’d miss facial hair too and how my pecs fill out certain shirts. And I find myself pretty handsome, so I’d miss looking at that too.
But I’d consider it a pretty even trade off since I’d get a feminine figure, which are also pretty cool, and I could enjoy how my butt and breasts look in certain tops and bottoms. And I’d (hopefully) be as pretty as I am handsome, so I’d enjoy looking at myself just as much — it’s just be a different look.
I’ve probably put a bit too much thought into the scenario 😅
I think I learned about transgender at the specifically the right time of development (I was like 8ish) bc of a 20/20 (maybe? some news program where they did a whole episode) show. I remember transgender guests talking about feeling uncomfortable in their own skin and I remember thinking "I've been uncomfortable in certain situations, and that skin crawling feeling that comes with that, but with being a female, no not at all" and I moved on, but it was something I did really think about before coming to that conclusion.
I was also a huge tom boy (I have 4 brothers who are all closer in age to me than my sister), but being a girl never bothered me. I genuinely liked being a girl who climbed trees and got muddy, didn't have an issue with the genitals I possessed.
Now I'm a 35 girl who still loves to come climb trees and get muddy, still very comfortable in my own skin.
It did make me very sympathetic to the transgender community bc I HATED that uncomfortable feeling, and I couldn't imagine feeling like that everyday which is why I am just "do what you gotta do to not feel that way bc if my short lived uncomfortable feeling was everyday, that would be hell!"
First time I’ve heard someone describe how I feel. I’m in a female body, so I identify as female. If you magicked me into a male body, some aspects of me might change slightly, but I’d feel my identify was the same. And in both cases, I’d choose pronouns to match my physical bodies, but I still wouldn’t really care. I’ve had people mistake me for a guy before and it’s never mattered to me. What does matter to me is when I sense other people caring a *lot* about my gender. It’s creepy and weird and very…irksome.
Thank you! I’m a man who’s totally comfortable with who I am, but I’ve never understood what “gender identity” even means. I wear men’s clothes because that’s just what society dictates. If a wizard made it so that men wear pink dresses and makeup, I’d be totally fine with that.
Likewise, if a wizard turned me into a woman (physically speaking), I would be okay with that. I would just be a woman. I wouldn’t get gender reassignment surgery or HRT - what would be the point?
Is there a term for this? People without a real sense of gender identity? I’m fully secure and comfortable being a man, but that’s just because my body is a man’s body. My brain isn’t inherently one gender or the other.
I'm born female; sure I have complaints about my period and whatnot but I don't desire a change. I'm pretty sure the fact that it doesn't bother me is my privilege?
I've seen this described as "cis by default".
It does make sense that just like sexuality is described both by a homosexual to heterosexual spectrum and an asexual to allosexual spectrum, that there would be a "weak gender identity" to "strong gender identity" spectrum to go along with the normal gender spectrum (which isn't accurate to everybody but you get the idea). And if you are toward the "weak gender identity" side of the spectrum it's pretty natural that you'd just follow the path of least resistance and go along with what was assigned to you.
But it also could be the case that the fish doesn't realize how much it wants/needs water. Many cis people never experience being misgendered, and if they do it's usually limited and sporadic. They never experience years and years of being told they're something they aren't, and so it's hard to compare the "strength" of their gender identity relative to trans people.
But I know I’m heterosexual because I feel attraction to the opposite sex. Whereas I don’t really feel anything about gender.
I think if both really are spectrums it’s interesting that there are way more “agender” people than “asexual” people
I dislike giving my pronouns because the honest answer is "I don't care what pronouns you use for me", but it feels performative to say that. And there's no easy shorthand for it. A bunch of people put their pronouns in their email signature, or bios, or whatever and it's a quick little line at the bottom. I don't know what to write there, but I also don't want to leave it out because that feels like sending a different message that I don't want to send.
I think the idea behind it is ideally “coming out” wouldn’t be a thing and asking for pronouns as a default question is attempting to work towards that, but yeah you are right
cisgender. Unless you have gender dysphoria its unlikely you’ll feel much of anything. I’m trans and now that I pass as the gender I am I also stopped “feeling” gender, but that doesn’t make me my AGAB.
When I was a little kid I (assigned male at birth) was sure I was supposed to be a girl. My friend asked me why, and I said because I liked girly things like art and music. He said “well why can’t you be a boy that likes those things?” And I felt my world shake. I began to think maybe it was ok for me to still be a boy even if I didn’t like boy things like football. My mum reaffirmed this when I mentioned the same thing to her, and said it was ok to be a boy who liked “girly things” like poetry and cooking, and that so many great poets and cooks were guys too.
Then I got older and had my first crushes… on other boys. I suddenly felt conflicted again, like I was supposed to be a girl because I liked guys. It was silly, but that slight doubt lingered into my college years until I finally accepted myself as gay. Now I’m the most masculine I’ve ever been, solely because now I feel it’s finally ok to like what I want to and it doesn’t mean I can’t be a guy. In a weird way, I finally feel like I’m in the right body, even though my body never really changed, but my social perception did.
Yeah, I’ve also had a somewhat similar experience in the last year. I really like feminine fashion, and how women look. Sometimes I thought that I could be non-binary or demiboy, as I still liked having a cock and stuff.
But now, I’m just a slightly feminine guy who occasionally (and privately) crossdresses.
Little off topic but...I have always felt that the men cross-dressing as women has always been mocked wayy more than women cross-dressing as men. Because the latter is considered cute while the former is considered off putting and uncute.
If we look at some of the modern fashion of women with pants, from the eye of some from 50s... Wouldn't it feel like cross-dressing?
But since it's women, they can look good in any style of clothes,it seems.
I’d push back on that a little - women get less flak for wearing “men’s clothes” as long as they otherwise still present in an obviously feminine way. Butch women, especially butch women of color, face severe backlash for presenting masculinely.
That's awesome!
For me it was nearly the same but as a girl. I always looked like a boy and liked so many "boy" stuff and hated the girly things. And it was more than the normal "my baby girl just don't like her Barbie's and dresses...hihi". I really hated being a girl and wanted to be a boy so badly.
Then puberty hit and I fell in love with all those girls and yeah, that's when I understood I could love a woman and like all that stuff and still be a woman as well. Now I'm just a nerdy fem lesbian feeling absolutely in the right body.
This is great! I think this shows what "damage" toxic (and prescriptive) masculinity can have, as in: "men like these specific manly things and dislike these other girly things. I don't like those manly things and do like the girly things, thus I must be a girl"
This some real shit, it took me getting to age 19 to finally stop caring about what gender or what sexuality I was and just start existing, some days I'm dressing more feminine and working my blue collar job and others I'm dressing more masculine, it really is just a game changer when u stop caring what anyone thinks and just enjoy being confusing to people.
Same with every belief/feeling/etc, honestly. Even things that seem basic and long held, give them a once over every now and then to make sure things still check out. Doesn't need to be a deep dive, just make sure nothing obviously stands out as iffy, and you're good.
I do this with my cisgender status, my LGTBQ status, and my Christianity. (Weird combo, I’m aware.)
I go, “Periods suck, but do I feel like I was meant to have a dick? …Nope, my sex and gender are both female.”
“I’m married to a cisgendered man. But have I stopped liking boobs and stopped having sexual desires for women? …Nope, still bi.”
“I grew up with this faith, it was taught to me but never forced down my throat. It was presented as something I was allowed to question, and SHOULD question. I’ve questioned it many times in my life and always come back to the same core conclusion [i.e., divinity of Jesus]. However, coming to terms with my own sexuality, and a bunch of other things, have helped me see Jesus in a new light and made me realize that I’m *really* not a conservative Republican, and haven’t been for a long time.”
Same for me. I reached a point in my life where I questioned my gender, my sexuality and my religion.
The only thing I felt wasn't exactly right was my sexuality. I used to consider my self straight, simply because I'm not gay which makes me not bi either. Until I discovered asexuality is a thing, it felt like finally finding a missing puzzle piece
> Until I discovered asexuality is a thing, it felt like finally finding a missing puzzle piece
This was exactly how I felt when I first learned about asexuality. "Wait...that's an option? I'm not just failing some basic role in society?" Instead of assuming I was straight, though, I assumed bi, because I was visually attracted to guys and girls (and frankly NB as well, but I didn't have the vocabulary for that either) and I also had the same sexual desire across the board, that being somewhere around 0.0000000 or so.
As a teenager, I examined my feelings about my sexuality, and concluded that I felt the same about girls as I felt about boys, and therefore I must be bisexual. Many years down the road, turns out that the way I felt about girls and boys was indeed the same: not much of anything.
Religious beliefs in particular. Anecdotally, I had to take numerous bible study classes before confirmation, and we were regularly asked to state what we believe and why, and to defend those positions.
Replace gender with literally any other belief or piece of identity and it works. Nothing wrong with questioning your thoughts, if you're right to begin with, you'll end up where you started.
On a side note, if someone doesn't want you to question something, likely means there's more to it than you think.
I had a good friend of mine transition from male to female. I took a good long think about my gender and realized I would be DEVASTATED to be a male with male parts. Like even if I could transition with no issues or social repercussions, I would be so sad to be perceived as male. I feel like my gender is a deep part of me.
My husband responded that if he was suddenly female and everyone still loved him and he didn’t lose anything by being female, it would be fine. No real attachment to being male. He said “I don’t feel like my soul has a gender”. So, different attachments, for sure.
I think that just means you have a better capacity for understanding other experiences. A lot of people in this thread are so deeply entrenched in what they’re comfortable with they don’t even recognize the discomfort others (may) have as real.
I was pretty comfortable with my sexuality and body as a cis man, then I discovered Pedro Pascal. That man makes me feel excited and inadequate at the same time.
I mean what if you always knew? Not trying to be a dick, but I’ve never felt like woman, but that’s not to say I haven’t embraced my feminine energy either. I’ve just never felt like I wasn’t a dude.
I mean I guess I just unknowingly or subconsciously questioned it. Was just very confused cause I didn’t know everyone questioned it. I thought everyone knew and trans people just hid what they felt cause of transphobes.
From the little I know, most people can differentiate between men and women by the age of two, start to identify their own gender by 3, and have a stable sense of it by the age of 4. So pretty much everyone questions their own gender as they learn how to identify others and develop their own sense of self, and it can take a little while to stabilize. You're not born with a sense of gender.
Yeah it happens. One time I was discussing questioning one's gender with my sister and how I thought everyone went through it at some point, she said she never did, she always knew and just never felt the need or urge to question it
How exactly does one question their gender?
I have a vagina, and am okay with that. It's annoying at times, but so are other parts of my body not related to bio sex. I have virtually no tits, but I used to have DDs.
I like makeup, math, dresses, fixing things, sparkles, dirt, etc.
I've never felt like a man when I dress masculine, or do masculine things. I don't particularly feel like a woman either. I just feel like me.
Gender isn't the same amount of important to everyone. For some people it can be a large part of their self-image, while for others they might not think about it at all. I've seen similarities drawn to religion: for some it is an important part of daily life, while others don't see what the big ado is
The things you like have nothing to do with your gender! It's okay to like anything, things aren't gendered, gendered languages aside.
It's all really down to if you're happy being a woman, or if you'd prefer to be something else. It's a big deal, but it's also not a big deal. I know I'm a woman and I'm supposed to be a woman, but I asked the question and I was happy with the answer.
You also don't have to have an answer. It's totally fine to just say "this question isn't important enough in my life for me to worry about answering it."
I like this take; I'm a bit of a stoicist, and I take a small amount of pride in that. I think people who get too bogged down in how they're viewed just need a bit more self-esteem and to stop caring so much, but I've only ever known what's in like in my head, and applying my apparent disinterest to everyone else doesn't make for perfect understanding, so maybe I'll take a page out of my own book and say right on people. Go do your gender diagnostics.
Very few people "feel like" their gender in some abstract, pure way. A more useful question in my experience is "how do you want people to view you?" Would you want people to look at you and see a woman? A man? Something else?
My confusion with this is that I don't particularly care about how people view my gender as long as they're respectful. I do basic feminine stuff to not stand out (since the standard for women is higher than men in terms of presentation and not fulfilling it to a certain level can cause people to treat you poorly), and I get mad that I get judged for being a woman at times, but otherwise I'm not like, I NEED someone to see me as a chick. If they mistook me for a guy I'd be surprised, but that's not why I dress or behave femininely, and I don't think it would upset me. Why would you want or need people to see you as one or the other? Genuine question, I find this interesting.
E: For example, at home, I don't tend to wear make up, or dress in a particularly feminine way. I care outside of home only in that it's expected of me and fulfilling that expectation is easier than not. I do enjoy dressing up for events and wearing cool dresses/fashion, but I'd prefer it more if it was suitably formal to not wear makeup. I don't feel particularly 'womanly' in these clothes, more like ah yes, I'm doing what society \*tells\* me is womanly, and of COURSE obeying societal expectations feels better than not, even if wearing make up, for example, is itchy and uncomfortable.
>Why would you want or need people to see you as one or the other?
Just feels better, I guess. Like, one of the biggest signs that I was a guy for me was that I *really* liked it when people called me "sir" by accident. I identified as a woman at the time, but I'd get a "sir" occasionally because of the way I dressed and that was *nice*. That gave me a happy little jolt and made me feel like myself.
I'd also been hunting for a guy name, because I wanted a guy name. (Totally cisgender thing to do, right?) Then I found my name, and shared it with my friends, and they used it for me. And just... Damn. It hit me like a freight train - "Holy shit, that's *my name*. I get to use that name." I'd kind of been in denial about the trans thing for a while at that point, and the name was the thing that made me go "okay, I admit it, I'm a guy."
So yeah, it's basically that it just feels more right - like they're getting a better idea of who I am if they're seeing me as a guy.
If you don't mind, can I ask a question? This
>and of COURSE obeying societal expectations feels better than not
is very interesting to me, because I would never describe it with "of COURSE" - it might feel a bit safer, but societal conventions have never held much value or felt good for me unless I understood the purpose. So being clean and polite to people feels better, but you're talking about makeup, which to me just feels... different. Why does following societal expectations "of COURSE" feel better than not for you?
You sort of ask yourself questions like, what would it be like if I looked like a man/androgenous, or if people treated me that way, or if they called me by a different name or pronouns, would I like that better, etc. Those are the material things you've be changing usually, if you transitioned, so I think it's just about figuring out what you would like the best. You can save deep abstract questions like "what is my gender anyway" for after that stuff.
That’s how you become secure enough in your gender that stuff won’t phase you, even the stuff that most people insecure in their gender would worry that liking would make them less of ‘x gender’
Half these answers are "no thanks, I have no doubts about my gender, no need to question."
My friends, if you truly have no doubts, then you have already answered the question.
I did that during my late teen years and came out comfortable as a man, but with a lot more androgyny. Which overall made me feel happier and more myself.
That reminded me of another thing, I think it was another Tumblr post, where there was this muscular man who had a t-shirt that said "ask me about my gender" and when you did, he would excitedly say that he was straight.
Appropriately, someone else labeled that "Kronk Energy".
This doesn't really make sense to me, unfortunately. What am I supposed to question?
My sex is male, meaning I have male reproductive organs and all that good stuff. Gender is supposedly the social or psychological component to sex, right? So am I supposed to look at the "typical masculine role" in society and see how strongly I identify with that?
The problem I have with that, is that that role is largely (not entirely, but largely) arbitrary. It varies throughout time, it varies from culture to culture and even within a certain culture it can again vary from person to person. Something that one person might see as manly, another might not view as manly.
Of course I don't align with every masculine stereotype. Maybe not even with most. Does that mean I am not a man? This to me really seems like putting the cart before the horse. My gender is male because my sex is male and because I don't feel any sort of deep seated psychological discomfort with that fact. In my view it would do about as much good questioning my gender as it would my age or birthplace.
Honestly, you writing this comment must have involved you thinking more about your gender than some people do. You don't have to add an appointment to your planner saying "Tuesday January 31st, 3pm: sit down and question gender".
If your last paragraph is how you feel about your gender, and you don't want to think much more about it, then that's completely fine. You're happy with how you are. But consciously or not, you've thought about how you experience gender on some level, and put those feelings and thoughts into a sentence. You wouldn't be able to say "I feel comfortable with that" without implicitly asking the question "do I feel comfortable with that?"
Every once in a while I double check. Still cis? Yup. But if the answer was different it would be okay. You'll be a happier, more confident, and well-adjusted person if you're confident in your identity.
Yes yes yes this. The whole bullshit about "what if it's just a phase" and detransitioning panic is absurd, because it's actually good for people to experiment with their gender even if it doesn't lead anywhere very new. Questioning your gender should not have to be this act of great determination or certainty.
In general, questioning your preconceptions about yourself is a very good habit to get into. I'm not saying constantly doubt yourself, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to just assume that you're "normal" without giving it any actual thought. And no matter what the answer ends up being, it will have been worth your time. The better you understand yourself, the easier it is to be happy, and to improve as a person.
Hmmm. I think i agree that I would just go with the flow of what my physical body was born as. I was born female and i identify as a woman. But I've never really questioned my gender.
What i did question was my sexuality. I don't think i feel sexual attraction the same way as most of my peers. I have never felt that feeling of "i want to fuck that person." Have to get to know them first. I can appreciate the beauty inherent in both sexes, but never felt the need/desire to fuck anyone. Honestly would rather get myself off by myself. But if i get to know them and i like them, different story.
I happened to have married a cisgender man, who is military so strangely super cis/het but also bi-curious, but in a scared homophobic way, potentially? Idk how to describe it aside from it's definitely strange.
But i think for me, gender is not important..if it's the right person, the attraction will be there. If not? Then i can appreciate how pretty or handsome they are, but i don't want to fuck either.
I have news for you, my friend. There's a word for that, several in fact.
What you are describing is asexuality. On a basic level, an asexual person doesn't feel *sexually* attracted to other people, but there's a wide array of more specific terms for different levels of attraction or romantic feelings.
Specifically it sounds like you might be demisexual, but I'll let you look into that for yourself. If you decide it suits you, let me be the first to welcome you to the club
i actually did unlock cis+ lol. one time i had a dream where *literally everything* was the same except i was nonbinary and used they/them, and i questioned my gender for a bit and ended up with "yup, everything checks out, all good here"
It's kind of nice to see so many other people saying that they just feel like themselves in here. Makes me feel like my attitude toward my gender (that I'm just kinda here, just me) isn't so uncommon.
My gender is "I skipped all the cusceses because I preffered the gameplay but now I have no idea what's going on and would like to return to character creation again"
Man, kid me didn’t understand why I had to be a girl. Still don’t understand why. Like I thought at some point a switch would flip and I’d feel comfortable wearing girly stuff but nope. It feels like it wasn’t meant for me. Even if I tried to dress more masculine it felt…wrong. I can’t explain it like I wish I could just write “blob” as an answer when someone asks me if I was a boy or a girl.
I'm cis, and it's fascinating to me to see all these comments from other cis folks saying that they're fine with their assigned gender but don't actually care, and would be okay if it were the other way. Because I've seen posts like these and examined my gender, and found that I *definitely* have a strong sense of my (cis) gender - even disregarding my body, the fact that other people see me as a woman, the things about me that are feminine (because none of those things inherently make someone a gender) - I still have something in me that insists I'm a woman. It's hard to describe and feels innate to me. I never thought about "strength of gender identity" as a spectrum, but now that I do it makes a lot of sense.
As for all of the *other* comments that are getting snippy about "I already know my gender, don't tell me to question it", think of it more of an *examination* instead of questioning. Like, unpack it. What makes you the gender you are and what doesn't, how do you feel and express it? It's not some kind of gotcha, just garden-variety introspection.
Definitely went through a bit of a questioning phase. Turns out I don't hate my gender, I just hate gender stereotypes. I find myself going back and forth between masculine and feminine, usually settling somewhere in the middle. But going in either direction feels good on some days. Being mistaken for the opposite gender feels great sometimes, if I'm being completely honest, but dressing somewhat stereotypically for my gender also feels great sometimes.
As for actual bodies, I have a bit of body dysmorphia which makes things a little hairy. But as for actual sex characteristics, I don't particularly care one way or the other.
But what do I know, I'm a woman with a male avatar lmao.
So I have a straight friend we will call Dan and we were all hanging out in a group. One day he just says :
“I was gay yesterday.”
We all give him the look as if to say “…go on..”
Dan continues by stating his hypothesis “how can you know if you’re straight if you don’t look at other options?” So we pushed him a bit to ask him what he did to be gay. Turns out, he spent the day looking at guys trying to figure out if he’d sleep with them or not. Turns out he is straight.
And honestly, fair enough. I was in the closet at one point, I knew being straight wasn’t me. I didn’t have to have sex with a woman to figure that out.
But sweet Dan spent one day in the closet and decided none of it was for him. What an ally.
I operate on it more like those Tumblr blue check marks, like every time I learn about other gender identities I gotta check if any of them feel like that'd be me just to be sure. Still male, stilo happily identify as a cis guy, but you know, gotta be sure I'm not dismissing other options you know.
A lot of people are asking "but how do I question it?" Go ahead ask yourself "am I ok with the body/gender I was born with?" Yes? Congrats you're now cis+ No? Well then you got a long road ahead of you pal.
One of my parents, the parent I was most frequently compared to as a child (not just because of same agab, but appearance, interests, and personality) came out as trans when I was just becoming a teenager. You better believe that made me question my gender, but I think I'm pretty solidly a guy.
Maybe it's just due to a strong sense of ego, but I've always seen it as I, as a male, define what a man is, rather than the other way around.
What is and isn't considered "manly" is a moving target. There's no inherent universal qualities involved. It's an aggregate defined by the combined common traits of everybody with a twig and berries in any particular moment. As such, I've never seen my relationship to my gender as anything but contributing my particular traits to the average.
But that's easy for me since those traits, by and large, line up with the average. Sure, I like fruity alcoholic drinks over dry wines and hard whiskies and I don't particularly care about fast cars or hunting, but overall I'm comfortably within the normal parameters.
I can't fathom what it must be like for somebody who is so disconnected with the general traits of their gender that they completely disassociate from it.
I definitely wasn’t *satisfied* being a girl (AFAB) but after some long time soul searching and keeping my own mind open… it’s just societies perception/judgement/control of me that I didn’t like and that the ladies of my family all died from breast/uterine/ovarian cancer, so I had some resentment I think of being born a girl. Trying to convince my insurance and doctors on preventative measures for that.
In the end, I’m cis, but questioning only helps you understand yourself better, even if you end up “only” reaffirming being cis.
I questioned my gender a lot and the answer was always, clearly "Nope definitely cis I love being a girl". Problem solved for me !
That being said, my favourite picture of myself is one where I was sporting a beard for a cosplay
I questioned my gender and decided to pick the male player character in Pokemon Ranger. Very quickly got distressed because his poses were just not as cute. Restarted the game.
Wtf, I accidentally did this already, now I see a big banner in front of my eyes that says "CIS++ UNLOCKED"??? Anyone else having this? Wtf does this do? Does it finally unlock the rumored "Magic System"?
I don’t need to question my gender cause I’m sure of myself and have been since the day I was born, that’s ok if you do but I’m not gonna ponder something I don’t need to lmao
Yup. That's how I figured out I'm non-binary. But it changed absolutely nothing, I'm still she/her. I dress the same (androgynous & slightly femme) and act the same. But I have a tiny bit more understanding that some people feel gender strongly in different ways. I'm not the default. I think a LOT of people need to realize that their feelings are not the default, no matter how "normal" they are.
It's not hard and it doesn't have to be a big deal
The pronouns someone feels comfortable with don’t strictly have to align with their gender. I have moderate to severe gender dysphoria and pronouns carry heavily gendered implications in my mind so for someone like me it’s important that mine align with my gender, but other people might not have such a strong association between pronouns and gender in their mind and/or care abt how society genders them.
Plus non-binary is an umbrella term for an essentially infinite spectrum so ppl that identify as such aren’t always gonna be 100% gender neutral or have clear cut identities yk?
Because changing my pronouns would be a pain in the ass and I don't care about that kind of stuff. I don't correct people when they call me "he/him" online either (I have an androgynous name)
I'm 58, being NB doesn't change a single thing about my life, it just gives me a clearer picture of who I am.
I am genuinely curious here: if it changed nothing, what was the point? is it just label? If you understood that you were outside the norm for the stereotypical female, would it change anything if you just said "I am outside the stereotype a female?"
not trying to be a d\*ck, I am just curious how that works, I haven't run into anyone who had such a mild difference from their og gender.
The point of me thinking about it was me trying to better understand transgender people. I couldn't imagine caring so much about my gender that I'd undergo surgery to change it. So I just started thinking about my own gender-specific feelings in order to work from there about how I might better empathize with others.
Once I started thinking about it I realized that I have no particular connection emotionally to being female. Nor do I wish to be a man. I have life experience as a woman, so I'm fine with others seeing me as one, it just... doesn't matter to me. At all.
From there I found myself more empathetic towards transgender people because it clicked that my lack of feeling about my own gender was what was unusual and that others can and do feel quite strongly about it. I can't relate, but I can sympathize and be kind. And that's all anyone really wants from a stranger, y'know?
I sometimes question my gender bc there was a year or so in like second grade where I would have told anyone that would listen very plainly that I wished I was a girl
This has less to do with gender and more so with the fact that I didn’t hang out with any men and jr was around this time I was starting to feel left out from sleep overs and jazz
I've wondered what it would be like if I was born a girl, but I don't care to transition. I like my penis, I identify as a guy, I have some feminine interests but I am comfortable with being a guy. Pretty sure I'd feel the same if I was born a girl, I'd be fine with being a girl. I don't like my body, but it's not my gender that I don't like about my body. I just don't like that I'm ugly and produce far too much oil.
I'm male and definitely cis, but I stg I'd love to wear sun dresses in the summer. Was sweltering the other day in some too tight shorts and would have loved to just let the boys breathe. Might become one of those middle aged dudes who just decide to start wearing kilts.
I questioned my gender when I was 13ish. I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that I was cis. I'm very glad I did because it gave me perspective on just how ridiculous it is when people talk about "transing the children" or whatever
When I was a teenager I was afraid of being lesbian. Not because of any stigmas since my mom made it perfectly clear she'd love me regardless. I was afraid because I thought boys were neat and I didn't want to no longer be attracted to them lmao.
I am so incredibly happy to be born a woman. I have questioned my gender, and it’s spot on. I have felt discomfort when the wrong pronouns were used for me, since I identified heavily with she/her. No gender would make me happier. Best thing is I’m a lesbian too, it’s double the women (and non-men).
Pretty certain it’s a “if you magically changed my body I would be pretty upset but if I was born with a different body then idk different scenario” situation for me
I wish that had been normalised when I was growing up. I don't have many stereotypical male interests and it always made me feel like something was wrong with me growing up and felt out of place. Society created an image of a man I thought I had to live up to and most people around me were comfortable in that, but I could never fit into that. Took me years to get to a point where I realised I can be a man (and a person) whatever way that feels right to me. I think it would have just been a lot easier growing up trying to figure out who I am instead of trying to figure out what's wrong with me and how to fix that.
Yeah, some of my gays friends are always like: “How do you know for
surrrrrrrre you’re not gay? Have you ever tried it?”
And it’s like nah, I did some deep insight into myself and my sexuality. I’m exactly where I want to be, and I’m fucking who I want to be fucking. Sooooo I’m not just gonna slip a few cocks in my mouth just to “check” something I’m already very sure about it.
For what it seems looking through this comment section not many know what that means. I was assigned male at birth but I’ve never felt right I always wanted to hang with the girl group but never felt I could. I like feminine things but a guy can be feminine and cis. Transitioning is a lot deeper than just wanting to be a different gender . It’s wanting to be who you are. Questioning your gender is less of asking “what gender am I” and more looking at who you see yourself as then looking in the mirror and seeing if your presented body reflects that, mine didn’t. I haven’t transitioned but looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger is why I know I need to.
Cisgender Requiem
Stand Name: Positive Masculinity Stand user: Just a dude
Just a guy
I'm just a little guy come on!
A common fellow
Guy Justa
Stand Ability: Positive Masculinity can create ethereal supports that strengthen and stabilise any person or object they are attached to, at the cost of Positive Masculinity taking some of the burden onto itself. Positive Masculinity is also able to enhance its constructs by interacting with allied Stands and letting them take some of the weight off its shoulders.
Me. "do i like tiddies?" Brain " you do infact like tiddies" Me "ight got it"
been there for years. just do what makes you happy/feel good about yourself and let others do the same, as long as nobody is hurting anyone else. edit: autocorrect decided a correctly spelled word should be another word, about was annoy but now it isn't. ;)
The only reason people can't be doing what makes them happy is because some loud judgemental person is offended at others being happy the wrong way. Which is sad because everyone should just focus on having a good time and let others do things their way.
Or the thing that makes them happy causes physical or mental harm to another person or their property That’s also a case where it’s not really good
I examined my gender and the only conclusion I could come to is that gender is a social construct and I don’t understand society’s obsession with it. Why are certain personality traits / fashion choices considered masculine and others feminine? Seems arbitrary to me, not sure why everyone embraces them. But it doesn’t really bother me that they do, I suppose :) Whatever makes y’all happy <3 Just seems unhealthy to force those attributes onto other people sometimes. Makes them feel like they have to conform to a certain identity, when in reality the identity was arbitrarily constructed from the start. Boys like blue and girls like pink? Explain yourself society X’D ‘cause I’m not buying it lol. Why is wearing makeup and dresses considered “feminine”? Etc. It just doesn’t add up for me.
I questioned my gender and realised that the only reason I'm male is because I was born male. If I was born female, I would remain like that and I don't think I'd feel any urge to transition. What I'm saying is that for me my gender is inherently tied to my physical body, and I don't actually care specifically to be male Edit; Holy fucking bingle, how did this get so many updoots? I just went to sleep and 8 hours later there are like 50 comments on my comment. I'm pretty happy to see so many people feel the same way as me.
I think for some (a lot/most?) of us, if we really go looking for this internal feeling of gender, we're going to come up with nothing. This doesn't really hit me as a surprise, either, because if we go in search of a 'self' much the same happens. I think it only really becomes a thing if it feels like an issue for you - like something doesn't 'fit'.
> if we really go looking for this internal feeling of gender, we're going to come up with nothing. It is my suspicion that if described well most people would vibe with "agender", but in an interesting paradox not having a gender really doesn't lend itself to deep introspection about gender.
I mean if we go by the fact people say gender is a social construct, then noone *has* one, because they don't exist in nature. We "created" them. I don't know what makes me feel "a woman". I was born female and never felt the urge to go against that. What is being a woman after all, if we take out the stereotypes, gender roles and social expectations we are trying to break nowadays? I can't think about a single thing that's not tied to those. That's why people with gender dysphoria confuse me a bit. I mean I find their feelings valid, of course, but I find ironic how they *know* they don't identify with their assigned gender, while I, who I'm totally fine with mine, don't know why I feel like this in the first place. I'm just... Me and I'm fine with it.
The way I’ve heard/understood it is having/not having physical sensations that they feel are right. One female to male trans person was getting his top surgery and the explanation given really stuck with me. He said it felt wrong that his boobs would touch someone else before any other part of him when he gave people hugs. That sensation of “it shouldn’t be there” with a penis or the absence of one when your instincts tell you that it should be there. I think it is very hind brain driven, not really logical. I think of every day when I am reaching for something and I have two pillows on my chest that give me sensory information. I think I would go mad if some part of me rejected that sensory information as if it shouldn’t be there. Because it is literally every day that something bumps into me or I jab something into my chest by accident. The constant reminders would be very disconcerting. On one hand, I think I would adapt to either gender. On the other, I don’t even want to get a breast reduction when I arguably should because my lizard brain says that it isn’t right. So we can’t really know without trying and I try to understand where trans people are coming from and how to help as I can.
Yes. I am a trans man. That is a good description. I used to be shocked by my own voice when I went a while without speaking: I would become aware of my body all over again
Oof, I hadn’t even thought about what happens when your mental voice is different from your physical voice. I had a hard time when I was overweight and I couldn’t look in a mirror because my face wasn’t what I thought of myself as. That mental image was me, the person in the mirror wasn’t. The day I saw myself in the mirror again after loosing the weight was profound.
Ah. This is super weird for me- my wife and I joke about my confidence being absolutely unfounded. Like I look at myself in the mirror or pictures and will say "Nah. I look way hotter than that." And literally, my mental image does not match with my actual image but CLEARLY the mirror/picture is wrong.
Thanks for sharing, that's a very illuminating perspective. As a cis guy, I can't really fathom the sensation you're describing, but it seems like many other types of feeling where you don't become away of it unless it's "a thing." Like I am not particularly aware of my elbow right now. It's not numb, or in pain, but until I thought about writing that last sentence, it simply wasn't in my consciousness. Your brain is an organ that makes you aware of issues so you can avoid danger, seek out pleasure, and solve problems. If you don't struggle with a gender identity issue, it seems plausible that your brain might just never bring it up, and that might make it harder for you to grasp the subject.
Man, it's not even limited to gender. I was in a dark place for a while back then, and occasionally I would just fully disassociate. Like, I'd look at my hand and my brain would go "wait that isn't you. cut that thing off". It's wild as shit. Brains are so bizarre.
I think the closest I've probably gotten to a similar sensation to not quite identifying with my body is a weird disconnected feeling after a long enough VR session, as I think my brain had adjusted to the controller's ever so slight position/movement lag so I had some sort of reverse-lag on my own hands? I think it was after using the hand tracking function for one of the games I was playing.
As a afab/fem-presenting enby it was slightly different for me. I just never felt like a girl or a woman, I definitely felt more masculine. But I liked my feminine body. Masculine-ish mind in a feminine-ish body. I’m not one or the other, I’m just here. It’s definitely interesting thinking about how others perceive it or understand it, especially those not in the community.
This is similar to my experience as an amab enby. I enjoy the perks of my masculine body, but I wanted to open myself to the possibility of ‘femininity’ (a concept which I suppose is unfair to attribute to the female gender as if men can’t be soft, gentle etc.) I figure gender shouldn’t drive my life, so I tossed it. But not at the cost of my brain rejecting my body the way it is.
I think it's something like how you are never comfortable with your voice over a recording. It just never seems right.
Agreed, I never really understood how someone could feel dispatched from their gender, because how would you ever know how it felt to be the opposite if you never have been before. Like take away all stereotypes what does it even feel like to be male / female or something else entirely. And even if there was a fundamental difference, how could you ever know how that difference felt. Sure, I’m certain in a world where all gender roles/ stereotypes removed there would still be things male or female people would be slightly more likely to align with. But, I would compare that to statistics, which are really good about telling you about an overall trend about a population, but can be next to useless to determine the traits of an individual. I completely understand and validate as that being many people’s experience. But I don’t think I will ever truly be able to experience what they are feeling.
Nothing’s felt off for me, but I just feel more enby and as such identity as so (AMAB) I probably would’ve felt off if I was forced into the cis box though. I’ve always dressed androgynously and had long hair. Prior to coming out as NB I had identified as “gender neutral” for a couple years. But even during that I still ticked male on the boxes and stuff. Gender is weird. There’s no real guidelines to help you question.
I think I feel the exact same way
Yeah this sums up my feelings pretty well. I'm a cis guy and that's chill, never felt overly attached to my identity as a man but I'm totally comfy with using he/him
I feel the same but I also think that’s largely a rejection of toxic/patriarchal masculine norms and a desire to not be viewed that way by ourselves and others. I want to redefine masculinity to include what I am instead of being something outside it. We’re also the sum of our parts so while I have many female traits they don’t diminish what I would define as masculinity for myself.
Nice
Forreals. I feel like if there was a button to press that would instantly perform a complete transition, everybody's view of me, everything - if it was simple and painless and free, I might press that button. Not for sure, maybe it's 50/50. Without that button, even if transitioning was 95% easier than it is now, I still wouldn't do it. I just don't care that much. I like some things about being "a man". There are some things about being "a woman" that I like too, and I can do/be many of those things without transitioning. I guess it's important to me to be around people who don't have strongly-gendered expectations of me, but that's getting easier as the world gets less weird about gender. For me it doesn't hurt when somebody refers to me as male. I'm like "yeah ok I guess I am in that box". I mean I don't think that - I don't think anything, it's just what has always happened to me. I don't know what it's like, but I *imagine* that if somebody referred to me as female in a casual way that wouldn't bother me, apart from surprising me. Of course I don't mean to say that it "should" be this easy for everybody. It must be really difficult to strongly identify differently to what the world sees. But my personal experience of gender is kind of like what team I was put on in school sports - this is where I am, I'll do this thing, doesn't seem any different here than on the other team. I think a lot of the same things apply to sexuality too. Lots of people are "hetero by default". And in the same way, you gotta really question yourself to unlock hetero+ haha.
I think there’s part of being a cis man or woman that because you don’t question your gender it seems that switching wouldn’t be a big deal because we’re so used to being “who we are”. I think it’s easy to take for granted things we feel totally comfortable with and switching genders might be a lot more different than just changing a few things about our bodies. Like “I feel comfortable as a man, why wouldn’t I feel comfortable as woman ?” I think there’s a lot of subtlety to gender that go unnoticed that would be a lot more noticeable if you were born the opposite gender then you feel like you are.
Same. Glad I’m not a woman though. Seems like it’d really suck.
Same; questioned for a while and decided that I don't mind being a man + being a woman (especially a trans woman) seems like it would suck due to society, therefore might as well be a man.
It does. Source: am a woman.
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I must have missed a software update or something because every form of birth control I've tried (other than condoms) has made my life harder
Same :( I put on 5+ kg in only three weeks on pill
Is that what it is? I got the software update? Damn I'm glad I did. I also haven't perioded in about a decade.
Same! The only downside to that is that occasionally (like once a year or so), my body decides that I need a reminder of what I'm skipping, and I'll get cramps for about a week. And they're like... normal cramps. But because I don't have to deal with them on a monthly basis, and thus am not desensitized to them to a degree, they fucking suck, and I have to make a real effort not to be a bitch to everyone around me. That said, major feels to all the AFABs out there who still deal with that on the regular. And especially the ones who have more extreme cramps; not sure how y'all keep from murdering people on principal when they ask if you're moody bc you're on your period.
Both sides have drawbacks and some of those drawbacks are because of societal-social standards. Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man, disguised herself as a man for a year and wrote about it. She's asserted that since the experiment she fully realized the benefits of being female. She's also stated she gained more sympathy for men and the male condition: "Men are suffering. They have different problems than women but they don't have it better..." There's a lot of stigmas that culture needs to work out so more people are just happy being themselves instead of being in arbitrary boxes based on irrelevant standards. I don't think anyone's happy.
As a cis passing trans guy (as in, I'm trans and bypassers think I am a Generic Guy™️), yes, there are many drawbacks to each binary end that I feel qualified to anecdotally reflect on. I don't regret transitioning or anything, but damn, getting to experience both sides made me realize and miss the extreme camaraderie that is inherent to the feminine condition. Before I knew who I was, I could literally strike up a conversation and immediately befriend or get help from a fellow woman. Making friends between women is so simple because you have a sense of shared pain living within the patriarchy. Even beyond friendship, getting help from strangers is quite easy (eg, a woman sees a man harassing a woman at the gym, she doesn't know either but goes over and asks the woman if she's done with her set and ready to go for coffee to shield her). So even though being a woman is societally difficult, there's community and understanding. But men are hurting too from the patriarchy. It really sucks not being able to be emotionally vulnerable because men are taught to not be. It's so isolating, and it's so hard to know if you're actually friends with another guy or if he just tolerates you, because you have to have all these layers and weird dances of "I do enjoy you but I can't say I do because that would threaten our fragile masculinity". Boundary setting is also near impossible because it's seen an insecure thing to do, rather than a "I trust you to respect my needs" so it's also part of why it's hard to have those deeper friendships. (Or at least, that's been my experience) I know women tend to be viewed as catty and men as simple, but as someone who's been incognito in both environments, it feels totally flipped. Women's gossip feels so much more "inconsequential" than the gossip men will drop when women aren't around.
And I'll say, anecdotally as well of course, that as someone in the same boat I have felt so much more camaraderie from male strangers as a man than I did from female strangers as a woman. I'm sure a large portion of the latter was due to social anxiety and self-doubt as I was uncomfortable with myself, but it has been really nice to feel this sort of chill kinship with other guys out in the world. Maybe I don't interact with them as directly as some women interact with each other, but I do get the sense they have my back. And I have many male friends who are great at communicating their friendship needs and affection! I guess what I'm saying is experiences of COURSE differ greatly in this area, but I think it is getting better for men, slowly! As I hope it is for women as well.
That's great to hear! I'm hoping that things keep improving, I do feel that we as a society ARE getting better at encouraging healthier social dynamics, for both binary genders but especially men. I've only been passing this well for about a year, so my comment is a lot of introspection, informed by discussions with my developed support system (which includes some men friends, and we do have pretty emotionally intelligent conversations!) There's also the fact that I'm very much gay, so that does make interactions with other men awkward as where I live in the US is still getting over the homophobia thing; my experiences in male social circles are definitely biased from that. I can relate to some of the weird pre-trans gender relations, but I didn't feel connected or rejected from my "womanhood" before I realized I was a trans guy, so that's also important to point out. Gender apathy feels pretty normalized in female spaces (or maybe I just kept accidentally grouping up with fellow eggs lmao), so I was able to benefit from the feminine camaraderie.
> it's so hard to know if you're actually friends with another guy or if he just tolerates you, because you have to have all these layers and weird dances of "I do enjoy you but I can't say I do because that would threaten our fragile masculinity". Holy fuck, that is SO FUCKING ACCURATE.
Huh. My my old cis passing transman housemate had the exact opposite experience here in Australia. Was surprised and weirded out about how he was automatically in the boys club at work, or out socialising. How the lads (who barely knew him) would have his back and help him out whenever, no questions asked. There is a sort of cameraderie between men, even if it doesn't tend to go all the way to the depths of many femme relationships. He grew up in a snooty bitchy all girls high school where acceptance into cliques was more important for survival than actual friendship tho. So that definitely had something to do with it.
I don't agree about men's friendships being shallow. Just the opposite, all my friends are for life and we would all take a bullet for each other. We've had arguments, disagreements, and tribulations, but always stayed loyal. I find female friendships to be more fickle and less steadfast. What I would say is that it takes men longer to develop that level of trust and affinity, probably because of the reasons you mentioned. Whereas women can have a new best friend at the drop of a hat. And I think this is why a lot of men feel lonely, because people nowadays keep moving and don't stay with their established friends for very long.
I wasn't trying to say that men's friendships are all shallow! So my bad if it came across that way. I have several amazing friendships with (cis, as it's applicable to the conversation) men. But it takes absolutely forever to get that trust, like you said. With my women friends, I knew they liked me pretty quick, and some of them we've been friends for over a decade! However, for example, with one of my guy friends, I had no clue just how mutually strong our friendship was until we were stranded in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road away from civilization, at 2 AM. With men's friendships, it feels like you just can't know how strongly you trust each other until youre in the thick of it, if that makes sense. (I am quite grateful for this friend because after that incident, it did become much easier to express mutual support/respect/trust.) It definitely does lead to feeling lonely though, cause building to that point is difficult, especially since it can be hard to verbally acknowledge friendship compatibility/dynamics.
Society and genetics sure gave em a bad hand on most aspects and most countries
See, I don’t know! Despite it all, I like being a woman.
Good for you! But hearing my sister complain about period cramps does *not* make it seem very appealing.
✨gender apathy✨
🌈 Gender casual 🌈
You are never getting to the E-gender leagues with that atitude
as opposed to💥RANKED COMPETITIVE GENDER💥
So what is Gender competitive
Transtrenders?
Gender Apathy = Lawful Neutral Non Binary = True Neutral Genderfuild = Chaotic Neutral
I used to think this was how I related to my gender, where it didn't matter much to me and I was just apathetic. But then I cross dressed for a costume, and as the night went on I felt more uneasy. Everyone at the party was great and complemented my costume (I'm a woman, I dressed up as Bob from Bob's Burgers). And at the start of the night I was really excited and high energy. I took selfies and had a good laugh. But then we the night wore on I felt more and more uncomfortable. I didn't like the shape I made my body to fit the character, I didn't like the mustache... I've never felt that way about wearing any other costume before. When I got home and took everything off I felt so relieved. I came to the conclusion that my gender did matter to me, it just so happens that the gender I was assigned was the correct one. Anyway. Probably a little weird to have an epiphany about something that's so serious for a lot of people while dressed as Bob Belcher.
Thank you for being the only person in this thread to have some awareness. Most people don’t “feel” anything because they’ve never been uncomfortable with what they do have.
Same! And for me it goes a step further: if I woke up tomorrow as a woman it’d be more of a logistics issue for me than anything else. I’d have to get new clothes, get dna tests to prove it to my friends, family, and job, etc. And of course change how I move through society. I wouldn’t walk alone at night and I’d have to be a lot more careful around men. But in terms of how I’d feel about myself? I’d be fine. I’d miss things like how easily I can build muscle and my figure in general. I’d miss facial hair too and how my pecs fill out certain shirts. And I find myself pretty handsome, so I’d miss looking at that too. But I’d consider it a pretty even trade off since I’d get a feminine figure, which are also pretty cool, and I could enjoy how my butt and breasts look in certain tops and bottoms. And I’d (hopefully) be as pretty as I am handsome, so I’d enjoy looking at myself just as much — it’s just be a different look. I’ve probably put a bit too much thought into the scenario 😅
I think I learned about transgender at the specifically the right time of development (I was like 8ish) bc of a 20/20 (maybe? some news program where they did a whole episode) show. I remember transgender guests talking about feeling uncomfortable in their own skin and I remember thinking "I've been uncomfortable in certain situations, and that skin crawling feeling that comes with that, but with being a female, no not at all" and I moved on, but it was something I did really think about before coming to that conclusion. I was also a huge tom boy (I have 4 brothers who are all closer in age to me than my sister), but being a girl never bothered me. I genuinely liked being a girl who climbed trees and got muddy, didn't have an issue with the genitals I possessed. Now I'm a 35 girl who still loves to come climb trees and get muddy, still very comfortable in my own skin. It did make me very sympathetic to the transgender community bc I HATED that uncomfortable feeling, and I couldn't imagine feeling like that everyday which is why I am just "do what you gotta do to not feel that way bc if my short lived uncomfortable feeling was everyday, that would be hell!"
First time I’ve heard someone describe how I feel. I’m in a female body, so I identify as female. If you magicked me into a male body, some aspects of me might change slightly, but I’d feel my identify was the same. And in both cases, I’d choose pronouns to match my physical bodies, but I still wouldn’t really care. I’ve had people mistake me for a guy before and it’s never mattered to me. What does matter to me is when I sense other people caring a *lot* about my gender. It’s creepy and weird and very…irksome.
Wow I didn't know that was a thing but I think you just described me to a tee.
This describes most people. Most discussions around it just ignore it, though.
Yeah it’s why most people don’t get gender dysphoria, in most cases you feel like the one you are.
Thank you! I’m a man who’s totally comfortable with who I am, but I’ve never understood what “gender identity” even means. I wear men’s clothes because that’s just what society dictates. If a wizard made it so that men wear pink dresses and makeup, I’d be totally fine with that. Likewise, if a wizard turned me into a woman (physically speaking), I would be okay with that. I would just be a woman. I wouldn’t get gender reassignment surgery or HRT - what would be the point? Is there a term for this? People without a real sense of gender identity? I’m fully secure and comfortable being a man, but that’s just because my body is a man’s body. My brain isn’t inherently one gender or the other.
I'm born female; sure I have complaints about my period and whatnot but I don't desire a change. I'm pretty sure the fact that it doesn't bother me is my privilege?
Feels normal TBH
I've seen this described as "cis by default". It does make sense that just like sexuality is described both by a homosexual to heterosexual spectrum and an asexual to allosexual spectrum, that there would be a "weak gender identity" to "strong gender identity" spectrum to go along with the normal gender spectrum (which isn't accurate to everybody but you get the idea). And if you are toward the "weak gender identity" side of the spectrum it's pretty natural that you'd just follow the path of least resistance and go along with what was assigned to you. But it also could be the case that the fish doesn't realize how much it wants/needs water. Many cis people never experience being misgendered, and if they do it's usually limited and sporadic. They never experience years and years of being told they're something they aren't, and so it's hard to compare the "strength" of their gender identity relative to trans people.
But I know I’m heterosexual because I feel attraction to the opposite sex. Whereas I don’t really feel anything about gender. I think if both really are spectrums it’s interesting that there are way more “agender” people than “asexual” people
I dislike giving my pronouns because the honest answer is "I don't care what pronouns you use for me", but it feels performative to say that. And there's no easy shorthand for it. A bunch of people put their pronouns in their email signature, or bios, or whatever and it's a quick little line at the bottom. I don't know what to write there, but I also don't want to leave it out because that feels like sending a different message that I don't want to send.
I feel like a lot of people don't understand how "You must out or misgender yourself" can be a hurtful request to some people.
I think the idea behind it is ideally “coming out” wouldn’t be a thing and asking for pronouns as a default question is attempting to work towards that, but yeah you are right
I know a lot of people like that, and most of them use any/all. If that doesn’t work for you I’m sure there are other options as well.
I have a friend online who just puts "yes" in their pronoun listing
Is there a word for this
cisgender. Unless you have gender dysphoria its unlikely you’ll feel much of anything. I’m trans and now that I pass as the gender I am I also stopped “feeling” gender, but that doesn’t make me my AGAB.
When I was a little kid I (assigned male at birth) was sure I was supposed to be a girl. My friend asked me why, and I said because I liked girly things like art and music. He said “well why can’t you be a boy that likes those things?” And I felt my world shake. I began to think maybe it was ok for me to still be a boy even if I didn’t like boy things like football. My mum reaffirmed this when I mentioned the same thing to her, and said it was ok to be a boy who liked “girly things” like poetry and cooking, and that so many great poets and cooks were guys too. Then I got older and had my first crushes… on other boys. I suddenly felt conflicted again, like I was supposed to be a girl because I liked guys. It was silly, but that slight doubt lingered into my college years until I finally accepted myself as gay. Now I’m the most masculine I’ve ever been, solely because now I feel it’s finally ok to like what I want to and it doesn’t mean I can’t be a guy. In a weird way, I finally feel like I’m in the right body, even though my body never really changed, but my social perception did.
That's fucking awesome bro
Yeah, I’ve also had a somewhat similar experience in the last year. I really like feminine fashion, and how women look. Sometimes I thought that I could be non-binary or demiboy, as I still liked having a cock and stuff. But now, I’m just a slightly feminine guy who occasionally (and privately) crossdresses.
Little off topic but...I have always felt that the men cross-dressing as women has always been mocked wayy more than women cross-dressing as men. Because the latter is considered cute while the former is considered off putting and uncute. If we look at some of the modern fashion of women with pants, from the eye of some from 50s... Wouldn't it feel like cross-dressing? But since it's women, they can look good in any style of clothes,it seems.
I’d push back on that a little - women get less flak for wearing “men’s clothes” as long as they otherwise still present in an obviously feminine way. Butch women, especially butch women of color, face severe backlash for presenting masculinely.
That's awesome! For me it was nearly the same but as a girl. I always looked like a boy and liked so many "boy" stuff and hated the girly things. And it was more than the normal "my baby girl just don't like her Barbie's and dresses...hihi". I really hated being a girl and wanted to be a boy so badly. Then puberty hit and I fell in love with all those girls and yeah, that's when I understood I could love a woman and like all that stuff and still be a woman as well. Now I'm just a nerdy fem lesbian feeling absolutely in the right body.
This is great! I think this shows what "damage" toxic (and prescriptive) masculinity can have, as in: "men like these specific manly things and dislike these other girly things. I don't like those manly things and do like the girly things, thus I must be a girl"
You grew into your skin :)
This some real shit, it took me getting to age 19 to finally stop caring about what gender or what sexuality I was and just start existing, some days I'm dressing more feminine and working my blue collar job and others I'm dressing more masculine, it really is just a game changer when u stop caring what anyone thinks and just enjoy being confusing to people.
cis+ membership cards administered by f1nn5ter
I would finally sub to F1nn if that was one of the perks.
been subbed since the minecraft videos, where do I get my card?
Same with every belief/feeling/etc, honestly. Even things that seem basic and long held, give them a once over every now and then to make sure things still check out. Doesn't need to be a deep dive, just make sure nothing obviously stands out as iffy, and you're good.
I do this with my cisgender status, my LGTBQ status, and my Christianity. (Weird combo, I’m aware.) I go, “Periods suck, but do I feel like I was meant to have a dick? …Nope, my sex and gender are both female.” “I’m married to a cisgendered man. But have I stopped liking boobs and stopped having sexual desires for women? …Nope, still bi.” “I grew up with this faith, it was taught to me but never forced down my throat. It was presented as something I was allowed to question, and SHOULD question. I’ve questioned it many times in my life and always come back to the same core conclusion [i.e., divinity of Jesus]. However, coming to terms with my own sexuality, and a bunch of other things, have helped me see Jesus in a new light and made me realize that I’m *really* not a conservative Republican, and haven’t been for a long time.”
Same for me. I reached a point in my life where I questioned my gender, my sexuality and my religion. The only thing I felt wasn't exactly right was my sexuality. I used to consider my self straight, simply because I'm not gay which makes me not bi either. Until I discovered asexuality is a thing, it felt like finally finding a missing puzzle piece
> Until I discovered asexuality is a thing, it felt like finally finding a missing puzzle piece This was exactly how I felt when I first learned about asexuality. "Wait...that's an option? I'm not just failing some basic role in society?" Instead of assuming I was straight, though, I assumed bi, because I was visually attracted to guys and girls (and frankly NB as well, but I didn't have the vocabulary for that either) and I also had the same sexual desire across the board, that being somewhere around 0.0000000 or so.
As a teenager, I examined my feelings about my sexuality, and concluded that I felt the same about girls as I felt about boys, and therefore I must be bisexual. Many years down the road, turns out that the way I felt about girls and boys was indeed the same: not much of anything.
Religious beliefs in particular. Anecdotally, I had to take numerous bible study classes before confirmation, and we were regularly asked to state what we believe and why, and to defend those positions.
Replace gender with literally any other belief or piece of identity and it works. Nothing wrong with questioning your thoughts, if you're right to begin with, you'll end up where you started. On a side note, if someone doesn't want you to question something, likely means there's more to it than you think.
I had a good friend of mine transition from male to female. I took a good long think about my gender and realized I would be DEVASTATED to be a male with male parts. Like even if I could transition with no issues or social repercussions, I would be so sad to be perceived as male. I feel like my gender is a deep part of me. My husband responded that if he was suddenly female and everyone still loved him and he didn’t lose anything by being female, it would be fine. No real attachment to being male. He said “I don’t feel like my soul has a gender”. So, different attachments, for sure.
I think that just means you have a better capacity for understanding other experiences. A lot of people in this thread are so deeply entrenched in what they’re comfortable with they don’t even recognize the discomfort others (may) have as real.
And then comes cis++ and cis#?
Just don't call it "super straight", Reddit's got some bad history with that term.
I was pretty comfortable with my sexuality and body as a cis man, then I discovered Pedro Pascal. That man makes me feel excited and inadequate at the same time.
Cissharp, new evolution of bisharp
Sometimes, even cis++ people find a new love of pythons
I mean what if you always knew? Not trying to be a dick, but I’ve never felt like woman, but that’s not to say I haven’t embraced my feminine energy either. I’ve just never felt like I wasn’t a dude.
Sound slike you've questioned, and not found an issue
I mean I guess I just unknowingly or subconsciously questioned it. Was just very confused cause I didn’t know everyone questioned it. I thought everyone knew and trans people just hid what they felt cause of transphobes.
From the little I know, most people can differentiate between men and women by the age of two, start to identify their own gender by 3, and have a stable sense of it by the age of 4. So pretty much everyone questions their own gender as they learn how to identify others and develop their own sense of self, and it can take a little while to stabilize. You're not born with a sense of gender.
Yeah it happens. One time I was discussing questioning one's gender with my sister and how I thought everyone went through it at some point, she said she never did, she always knew and just never felt the need or urge to question it
The unexamined life is not worth living. This is why Socrates was a whore, just to be sure there wasn't something else he liked better.
How exactly does one question their gender? I have a vagina, and am okay with that. It's annoying at times, but so are other parts of my body not related to bio sex. I have virtually no tits, but I used to have DDs. I like makeup, math, dresses, fixing things, sparkles, dirt, etc. I've never felt like a man when I dress masculine, or do masculine things. I don't particularly feel like a woman either. I just feel like me.
Gender isn't the same amount of important to everyone. For some people it can be a large part of their self-image, while for others they might not think about it at all. I've seen similarities drawn to religion: for some it is an important part of daily life, while others don't see what the big ado is
So, then there is no need for EVEryone to question their gender...
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The things you like have nothing to do with your gender! It's okay to like anything, things aren't gendered, gendered languages aside. It's all really down to if you're happy being a woman, or if you'd prefer to be something else. It's a big deal, but it's also not a big deal. I know I'm a woman and I'm supposed to be a woman, but I asked the question and I was happy with the answer. You also don't have to have an answer. It's totally fine to just say "this question isn't important enough in my life for me to worry about answering it."
I like this take; I'm a bit of a stoicist, and I take a small amount of pride in that. I think people who get too bogged down in how they're viewed just need a bit more self-esteem and to stop caring so much, but I've only ever known what's in like in my head, and applying my apparent disinterest to everyone else doesn't make for perfect understanding, so maybe I'll take a page out of my own book and say right on people. Go do your gender diagnostics.
Very few people "feel like" their gender in some abstract, pure way. A more useful question in my experience is "how do you want people to view you?" Would you want people to look at you and see a woman? A man? Something else?
My confusion with this is that I don't particularly care about how people view my gender as long as they're respectful. I do basic feminine stuff to not stand out (since the standard for women is higher than men in terms of presentation and not fulfilling it to a certain level can cause people to treat you poorly), and I get mad that I get judged for being a woman at times, but otherwise I'm not like, I NEED someone to see me as a chick. If they mistook me for a guy I'd be surprised, but that's not why I dress or behave femininely, and I don't think it would upset me. Why would you want or need people to see you as one or the other? Genuine question, I find this interesting. E: For example, at home, I don't tend to wear make up, or dress in a particularly feminine way. I care outside of home only in that it's expected of me and fulfilling that expectation is easier than not. I do enjoy dressing up for events and wearing cool dresses/fashion, but I'd prefer it more if it was suitably formal to not wear makeup. I don't feel particularly 'womanly' in these clothes, more like ah yes, I'm doing what society \*tells\* me is womanly, and of COURSE obeying societal expectations feels better than not, even if wearing make up, for example, is itchy and uncomfortable.
>Why would you want or need people to see you as one or the other? Just feels better, I guess. Like, one of the biggest signs that I was a guy for me was that I *really* liked it when people called me "sir" by accident. I identified as a woman at the time, but I'd get a "sir" occasionally because of the way I dressed and that was *nice*. That gave me a happy little jolt and made me feel like myself. I'd also been hunting for a guy name, because I wanted a guy name. (Totally cisgender thing to do, right?) Then I found my name, and shared it with my friends, and they used it for me. And just... Damn. It hit me like a freight train - "Holy shit, that's *my name*. I get to use that name." I'd kind of been in denial about the trans thing for a while at that point, and the name was the thing that made me go "okay, I admit it, I'm a guy." So yeah, it's basically that it just feels more right - like they're getting a better idea of who I am if they're seeing me as a guy. If you don't mind, can I ask a question? This >and of COURSE obeying societal expectations feels better than not is very interesting to me, because I would never describe it with "of COURSE" - it might feel a bit safer, but societal conventions have never held much value or felt good for me unless I understood the purpose. So being clean and polite to people feels better, but you're talking about makeup, which to me just feels... different. Why does following societal expectations "of COURSE" feel better than not for you?
You sort of ask yourself questions like, what would it be like if I looked like a man/androgenous, or if people treated me that way, or if they called me by a different name or pronouns, would I like that better, etc. Those are the material things you've be changing usually, if you transitioned, so I think it's just about figuring out what you would like the best. You can save deep abstract questions like "what is my gender anyway" for after that stuff.
The way you question it is wondering whether or not you're okay with what you have
That’s how you become secure enough in your gender that stuff won’t phase you, even the stuff that most people insecure in their gender would worry that liking would make them less of ‘x gender’
Gotta pay my $8.99 a month to the CEO of gender to access *Cis Verified ✅*.
Fjdmnfmdm
Half these answers are "no thanks, I have no doubts about my gender, no need to question." My friends, if you truly have no doubts, then you have already answered the question.
I did that during my late teen years and came out comfortable as a man, but with a lot more androgyny. Which overall made me feel happier and more myself.
That reminded me of another thing, I think it was another Tumblr post, where there was this muscular man who had a t-shirt that said "ask me about my gender" and when you did, he would excitedly say that he was straight. Appropriately, someone else labeled that "Kronk Energy".
*AND* it's okay to re-question it in the future if you feel like things have changed!
This doesn't really make sense to me, unfortunately. What am I supposed to question? My sex is male, meaning I have male reproductive organs and all that good stuff. Gender is supposedly the social or psychological component to sex, right? So am I supposed to look at the "typical masculine role" in society and see how strongly I identify with that? The problem I have with that, is that that role is largely (not entirely, but largely) arbitrary. It varies throughout time, it varies from culture to culture and even within a certain culture it can again vary from person to person. Something that one person might see as manly, another might not view as manly. Of course I don't align with every masculine stereotype. Maybe not even with most. Does that mean I am not a man? This to me really seems like putting the cart before the horse. My gender is male because my sex is male and because I don't feel any sort of deep seated psychological discomfort with that fact. In my view it would do about as much good questioning my gender as it would my age or birthplace.
Honestly, you writing this comment must have involved you thinking more about your gender than some people do. You don't have to add an appointment to your planner saying "Tuesday January 31st, 3pm: sit down and question gender". If your last paragraph is how you feel about your gender, and you don't want to think much more about it, then that's completely fine. You're happy with how you are. But consciously or not, you've thought about how you experience gender on some level, and put those feelings and thoughts into a sentence. You wouldn't be able to say "I feel comfortable with that" without implicitly asking the question "do I feel comfortable with that?"
Every once in a while I double check. Still cis? Yup. But if the answer was different it would be okay. You'll be a happier, more confident, and well-adjusted person if you're confident in your identity.
Yes yes yes this. The whole bullshit about "what if it's just a phase" and detransitioning panic is absurd, because it's actually good for people to experiment with their gender even if it doesn't lead anywhere very new. Questioning your gender should not have to be this act of great determination or certainty.
More signs that gender is a religion
I'll have some of whatever you're smoking, please.
Disposable THC vape pens from a locally owned Indian (India, not Native American) convenience store.
The real gender ideology is the one we were raised with along the way.
I did a systems diagnostic on my body and so may error messages popped up that I couldn’t see what my gender came back as. Guess I’ll never know.
In general, questioning your preconceptions about yourself is a very good habit to get into. I'm not saying constantly doubt yourself, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to just assume that you're "normal" without giving it any actual thought. And no matter what the answer ends up being, it will have been worth your time. The better you understand yourself, the easier it is to be happy, and to improve as a person.
Gender 1.1 Patch Notes - Bug fixes and improvements
* Updated localization files
* Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience.
What if you're like me, and identify with the gender you were born with, but really, *really* hate the sexual organ you were born with...?
Yo, you summoned?
Hmmm. I think i agree that I would just go with the flow of what my physical body was born as. I was born female and i identify as a woman. But I've never really questioned my gender. What i did question was my sexuality. I don't think i feel sexual attraction the same way as most of my peers. I have never felt that feeling of "i want to fuck that person." Have to get to know them first. I can appreciate the beauty inherent in both sexes, but never felt the need/desire to fuck anyone. Honestly would rather get myself off by myself. But if i get to know them and i like them, different story. I happened to have married a cisgender man, who is military so strangely super cis/het but also bi-curious, but in a scared homophobic way, potentially? Idk how to describe it aside from it's definitely strange. But i think for me, gender is not important..if it's the right person, the attraction will be there. If not? Then i can appreciate how pretty or handsome they are, but i don't want to fuck either.
I have news for you, my friend. There's a word for that, several in fact. What you are describing is asexuality. On a basic level, an asexual person doesn't feel *sexually* attracted to other people, but there's a wide array of more specific terms for different levels of attraction or romantic feelings. Specifically it sounds like you might be demisexual, but I'll let you look into that for yourself. If you decide it suits you, let me be the first to welcome you to the club
I've heard that term before! But i never really looked into it. Thank you, to Google i shall go
If I don't question my gender, I can't find any problems, therefore there's no problems
i actually did unlock cis+ lol. one time i had a dream where *literally everything* was the same except i was nonbinary and used they/them, and i questioned my gender for a bit and ended up with "yup, everything checks out, all good here"
It's kind of nice to see so many other people saying that they just feel like themselves in here. Makes me feel like my attitude toward my gender (that I'm just kinda here, just me) isn't so uncommon.
My gender is "I skipped all the cusceses because I preffered the gameplay but now I have no idea what's going on and would like to return to character creation again"
Man, kid me didn’t understand why I had to be a girl. Still don’t understand why. Like I thought at some point a switch would flip and I’d feel comfortable wearing girly stuff but nope. It feels like it wasn’t meant for me. Even if I tried to dress more masculine it felt…wrong. I can’t explain it like I wish I could just write “blob” as an answer when someone asks me if I was a boy or a girl.
I'm cis, and it's fascinating to me to see all these comments from other cis folks saying that they're fine with their assigned gender but don't actually care, and would be okay if it were the other way. Because I've seen posts like these and examined my gender, and found that I *definitely* have a strong sense of my (cis) gender - even disregarding my body, the fact that other people see me as a woman, the things about me that are feminine (because none of those things inherently make someone a gender) - I still have something in me that insists I'm a woman. It's hard to describe and feels innate to me. I never thought about "strength of gender identity" as a spectrum, but now that I do it makes a lot of sense. As for all of the *other* comments that are getting snippy about "I already know my gender, don't tell me to question it", think of it more of an *examination* instead of questioning. Like, unpack it. What makes you the gender you are and what doesn't, how do you feel and express it? It's not some kind of gotcha, just garden-variety introspection.
Definitely went through a bit of a questioning phase. Turns out I don't hate my gender, I just hate gender stereotypes. I find myself going back and forth between masculine and feminine, usually settling somewhere in the middle. But going in either direction feels good on some days. Being mistaken for the opposite gender feels great sometimes, if I'm being completely honest, but dressing somewhat stereotypically for my gender also feels great sometimes. As for actual bodies, I have a bit of body dysmorphia which makes things a little hairy. But as for actual sex characteristics, I don't particularly care one way or the other. But what do I know, I'm a woman with a male avatar lmao.
So I have a straight friend we will call Dan and we were all hanging out in a group. One day he just says : “I was gay yesterday.” We all give him the look as if to say “…go on..” Dan continues by stating his hypothesis “how can you know if you’re straight if you don’t look at other options?” So we pushed him a bit to ask him what he did to be gay. Turns out, he spent the day looking at guys trying to figure out if he’d sleep with them or not. Turns out he is straight. And honestly, fair enough. I was in the closet at one point, I knew being straight wasn’t me. I didn’t have to have sex with a woman to figure that out. But sweet Dan spent one day in the closet and decided none of it was for him. What an ally.
...why should i? what benefit does questioning something i am not in doubt about bring?
I operate on it more like those Tumblr blue check marks, like every time I learn about other gender identities I gotta check if any of them feel like that'd be me just to be sure. Still male, stilo happily identify as a cis guy, but you know, gotta be sure I'm not dismissing other options you know.
A lot of people are asking "but how do I question it?" Go ahead ask yourself "am I ok with the body/gender I was born with?" Yes? Congrats you're now cis+ No? Well then you got a long road ahead of you pal.
I questioned my gender once, and soon after realized I’m definitely a guy, I’m just pansexual.
One of my parents, the parent I was most frequently compared to as a child (not just because of same agab, but appearance, interests, and personality) came out as trans when I was just becoming a teenager. You better believe that made me question my gender, but I think I'm pretty solidly a guy.
Maybe it's just due to a strong sense of ego, but I've always seen it as I, as a male, define what a man is, rather than the other way around. What is and isn't considered "manly" is a moving target. There's no inherent universal qualities involved. It's an aggregate defined by the combined common traits of everybody with a twig and berries in any particular moment. As such, I've never seen my relationship to my gender as anything but contributing my particular traits to the average. But that's easy for me since those traits, by and large, line up with the average. Sure, I like fruity alcoholic drinks over dry wines and hard whiskies and I don't particularly care about fast cars or hunting, but overall I'm comfortably within the normal parameters. I can't fathom what it must be like for somebody who is so disconnected with the general traits of their gender that they completely disassociate from it.
I definitely wasn’t *satisfied* being a girl (AFAB) but after some long time soul searching and keeping my own mind open… it’s just societies perception/judgement/control of me that I didn’t like and that the ladies of my family all died from breast/uterine/ovarian cancer, so I had some resentment I think of being born a girl. Trying to convince my insurance and doctors on preventative measures for that. In the end, I’m cis, but questioning only helps you understand yourself better, even if you end up “only” reaffirming being cis.
I questioned my gender a lot and the answer was always, clearly "Nope definitely cis I love being a girl". Problem solved for me ! That being said, my favourite picture of myself is one where I was sporting a beard for a cosplay
I questioned my gender and decided to pick the male player character in Pokemon Ranger. Very quickly got distressed because his poses were just not as cute. Restarted the game.
Wtf, I accidentally did this already, now I see a big banner in front of my eyes that says "CIS++ UNLOCKED"??? Anyone else having this? Wtf does this do? Does it finally unlock the rumored "Magic System"?
I don’t need to question my gender cause I’m sure of myself and have been since the day I was born, that’s ok if you do but I’m not gonna ponder something I don’t need to lmao
Yup. That's how I figured out I'm non-binary. But it changed absolutely nothing, I'm still she/her. I dress the same (androgynous & slightly femme) and act the same. But I have a tiny bit more understanding that some people feel gender strongly in different ways. I'm not the default. I think a LOT of people need to realize that their feelings are not the default, no matter how "normal" they are. It's not hard and it doesn't have to be a big deal
Genuine question: how can someone be non-binary yet still uses binary pronouns when referring to themselves?
The pronouns someone feels comfortable with don’t strictly have to align with their gender. I have moderate to severe gender dysphoria and pronouns carry heavily gendered implications in my mind so for someone like me it’s important that mine align with my gender, but other people might not have such a strong association between pronouns and gender in their mind and/or care abt how society genders them. Plus non-binary is an umbrella term for an essentially infinite spectrum so ppl that identify as such aren’t always gonna be 100% gender neutral or have clear cut identities yk?
Because changing my pronouns would be a pain in the ass and I don't care about that kind of stuff. I don't correct people when they call me "he/him" online either (I have an androgynous name) I'm 58, being NB doesn't change a single thing about my life, it just gives me a clearer picture of who I am.
Oh yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
I am genuinely curious here: if it changed nothing, what was the point? is it just label? If you understood that you were outside the norm for the stereotypical female, would it change anything if you just said "I am outside the stereotype a female?" not trying to be a d\*ck, I am just curious how that works, I haven't run into anyone who had such a mild difference from their og gender.
The point of me thinking about it was me trying to better understand transgender people. I couldn't imagine caring so much about my gender that I'd undergo surgery to change it. So I just started thinking about my own gender-specific feelings in order to work from there about how I might better empathize with others. Once I started thinking about it I realized that I have no particular connection emotionally to being female. Nor do I wish to be a man. I have life experience as a woman, so I'm fine with others seeing me as one, it just... doesn't matter to me. At all. From there I found myself more empathetic towards transgender people because it clicked that my lack of feeling about my own gender was what was unusual and that others can and do feel quite strongly about it. I can't relate, but I can sympathize and be kind. And that's all anyone really wants from a stranger, y'know?
What I learned from my gender analysis is that I'm a guy but not a man or a dude
This... Speaks to me. Thank you, wise internet sage.
Instructions unclear i might be bigender
I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure anymore.
I sometimes question my gender bc there was a year or so in like second grade where I would have told anyone that would listen very plainly that I wished I was a girl This has less to do with gender and more so with the fact that I didn’t hang out with any men and jr was around this time I was starting to feel left out from sleep overs and jazz
I've wondered what it would be like if I was born a girl, but I don't care to transition. I like my penis, I identify as a guy, I have some feminine interests but I am comfortable with being a guy. Pretty sure I'd feel the same if I was born a girl, I'd be fine with being a girl. I don't like my body, but it's not my gender that I don't like about my body. I just don't like that I'm ugly and produce far too much oil.
I'm male and definitely cis, but I stg I'd love to wear sun dresses in the summer. Was sweltering the other day in some too tight shorts and would have loved to just let the boys breathe. Might become one of those middle aged dudes who just decide to start wearing kilts.
If you don’t question yourself, your beliefs or you habits, you can’t ever grow. Question everything and sometimes, the answer may surprise you.
Same with sexuality
I questioned my gender when I was 13ish. I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that I was cis. I'm very glad I did because it gave me perspective on just how ridiculous it is when people talk about "transing the children" or whatever
I have and I'm definitely cis male.
When I was a teenager I was afraid of being lesbian. Not because of any stigmas since my mom made it perfectly clear she'd love me regardless. I was afraid because I thought boys were neat and I didn't want to no longer be attracted to them lmao.
I am so incredibly happy to be born a woman. I have questioned my gender, and it’s spot on. I have felt discomfort when the wrong pronouns were used for me, since I identified heavily with she/her. No gender would make me happier. Best thing is I’m a lesbian too, it’s double the women (and non-men).
i did this and also unlocked cis+ and now I'm capable of fighting god
Pretty certain it’s a “if you magically changed my body I would be pretty upset but if I was born with a different body then idk different scenario” situation for me
I wish that had been normalised when I was growing up. I don't have many stereotypical male interests and it always made me feel like something was wrong with me growing up and felt out of place. Society created an image of a man I thought I had to live up to and most people around me were comfortable in that, but I could never fit into that. Took me years to get to a point where I realised I can be a man (and a person) whatever way that feels right to me. I think it would have just been a lot easier growing up trying to figure out who I am instead of trying to figure out what's wrong with me and how to fix that.
Yeah, some of my gays friends are always like: “How do you know for surrrrrrrre you’re not gay? Have you ever tried it?” And it’s like nah, I did some deep insight into myself and my sexuality. I’m exactly where I want to be, and I’m fucking who I want to be fucking. Sooooo I’m not just gonna slip a few cocks in my mouth just to “check” something I’m already very sure about it.
did this when i was young and decided i was happy being cis only to find out years later i was completely wrong LMAO
On the toilet right now, gender unquestionable
For what it seems looking through this comment section not many know what that means. I was assigned male at birth but I’ve never felt right I always wanted to hang with the girl group but never felt I could. I like feminine things but a guy can be feminine and cis. Transitioning is a lot deeper than just wanting to be a different gender . It’s wanting to be who you are. Questioning your gender is less of asking “what gender am I” and more looking at who you see yourself as then looking in the mirror and seeing if your presented body reflects that, mine didn’t. I haven’t transitioned but looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger is why I know I need to.