When did you realise?

[Hotaru]

Ok, here we go.
I can't exactly recall when I understood I was so to speak "different", because I have blacked out nearly all memories from my early childhood. There are some little signs I did store somewhere though. One being I always played with cars. xD Then, I remember one of the first days of school when I was 4 or 5 and I wore a dark blue T-shirt. A little boy my age set next to me and I had played games with him the day before. at a certain moment, he said "Hey, you can't wear blue. Blue is a boy's color." I was so upset about that, it was ridiculous. I yelled at him and then he laughed, together with 2 other kids. I've ignored him ever since.
That shows how very early the concept of gender starts developping itself. On the bright side, I babysit this child who doesn't have that at all. He makes sentences like "Mommy promised me I would get that cooky from you if he isn't home before dinner."
The one other memory I have from before I was 11 is about I, who was my best friend until we went to high school. She was the typical tomboy. She has a big brother and we always played his video games after school and a really nice dad. I never had a father around to teach me the things a father teaches his child, or siblings, so I envied that a little. When I was 10,5 years old, I had my first period. Iza asked me if I had had it already and I hastily denied because I was deeply ashamed. Then my memory fails for a while to return somewhere around age 12/13.
In junior high I started socializing with the goths of our school. Two of them, later to become some of my best friends, were pretty androgynous in both appearance and behavior. One of them I'm gonna call N, was the one who introduced me to my favorite band, Placebo. I immediately fell for their androgynous singer and I realized I was very attracted to individuals shifting the concept of gender. After that year N graduated and we didn't meet in a long time and meanwhile, I missed N every day.
N has gotten a tattoo now, saying boy/girl at the same time, when you look at it from different angles. I loved it.
Again a very long time after I got over the fact we never had time for each other anyway, and I more or less moved on.
When I was still 13 I was introduced to my stepsister who was very, very girly. She adores romantic stories and tries to apply them to RL everywhere, she was always hoping to find out she was actually a princess when she was little (while I hated dresses because they were too shiny and impractical), she says she walks better in high heels then in normal shoes and she never leaves the house without make-up. She seemed successfull at life and everyone loved her. I was often compared to her as our faces look alot alike. I started copying her behavior because I thought that was what everyone wanted because my mother was always telling me how glad she was I was a girl and because she was always telling me how great my stepsis was. Sometimes she even straightaway says things like "Why can't you be more like her?"
I knew it would make me miserable right away but I pushed it through. I blocked my emotions and I started cutting to let it out. I was sent to a psychologist when that was found out. At that place, I never said anything useful because I was freaked out they'd use it against me exept for one time, where I was asked what I'd change about my body if I had the chance to change whatever without a catch. I think I said "What wouldn't I change?" And I believe I bitterly smiled.
I really don't know what changed everything, but suddenly I was too fucked up to go any further and I figured "Why the hell would I?" I was 14 and I wanted to die.
I had nothing to lose and I started caring less about everyone gradually and eventually I got myself. Things went better from that point as I was able to put things in perspective. I stopped pretending to be the image I'd created of myself and I started to act in a way that was right for me. I wore lots of sweaters to hide my figure and I cut my hair. My male name somehow ended up in my signature (you have to look very close to read it though) and got my first girlfriend.
I still didn't get it yet. Basically all my friends were guys, I HATED the development of my brests (though they're very small it still hurts when I'm trying to sleep.-I always sleep on my belly-), I verbally abused everyone who called me cute or concluded how small I was (damn you asian genes) and I still didn't quite get it.
The actual realization didn't hit me at once, it grew with bits.
Where I am now, I'm sure I want hormones someday, and also probably top surgery. I can't live with this body forever, but for now I pretty much figured out how to deal with it until then.
So, that was my story. It turned out way longer then I wanted to, so sorry about that and thanks for reading it all.

[itsa_wallaby]

There's a trans woman here on youtube who didn't figure stuff out until "really" late. She was actually dying, and decided to stop suppressing it / transition, and then she lived. (At least that's my understanding of the situation.) http://www.youtube.com/user/conway7734 There's a lot of people out there who take a while to figure things out; I heard that there was an 80 year old woman who transitioned, but I heard it on the internet so I don't know if it's true or not.

I started questioning some time during 11th grade (near the end), I think, and realized I wasn't a girl somewhere in 12th, did something about it the summer between high school and college, and took two years to figure out I wasn't a boy either, and another year to realize that yes, sometimes I WAS a boy, but sometimes I was neither, and occasionally I was both, and sometimes I was just somewhere in the middle of everything. I'm 21 now. Somewhere in that time period I came to terms with the fact that yes, I probably was a girl for a long time, and then something happened and my gender shifted. Or I just got so good at being a girl that it didn't matter whether I was one or not. (For example, I'm an introvert who now apparently acts like an extrovert, as I was told just today. Maybe I even became an extrovert, I don't really know how one can tell such things.)

I grew up with a really clear idea of what was a girl and what was a boy; I have no idea where these ideas / stereotypes came from, because except for the fact that my mom stayed home and my dad worked, we didn't really have any gender stereotypes in my house. My best friends were always tomboys though, so apparently my gender stereotypes only had to apply to me. Or maybe I was jealous of them.

[MissingLynx]

When I was a child I really didn't have much concepts of gender vs sex. I knew I was different. I knew I preferred 'boy things', to the point that I demanded to my mother at about the age of 5 that I was going to wear boy's underwear or wear no underwear at all. I played with the boys on the playground, not the girls, and hated dresses - but loved things like matchbox cars. I seriously leaned to everything masculine and pretty much detested everything feminine -- I think because I didn't want to be stuck into the inevitable 'female box'... because I knew I wasn't a girl... I knew I wasn't anything alike to my sisters or mother. I felt I was more like my brother and father -- and I gravitated to them, and latched on to everything they did (to an extent, that I like to say that I socialized myself male, and to an extent, as far as emotions, that's pretty true).
For a long time, I thought I was an alien. I was literally convinced of it, and I told my mother several times that I was an alien, and from Mars (to which she would say 'girls are from Venus, so you must be from Venus', and I would continue to insist that I couldn't be from Venus, I had to be from Mars).

In junior high, it occurred to me that I was not really a girl, like everyone said I was. I spent a long time confused about that. At 12, I had a fight with my mother about cutting my hair short. I told her I wanted short hair like my brother's... and at that time, he was the closest to me understanding what I was. At 13, I chopped off all my hair and started wearing boy's pants all the time. I stole my brother's pants and shirts literally through high school because I had problems convincing my parents to let me buy only boy's clothes (my dad still hates it, though I'm out of the closet... kinda). By 15, everyone thought I was a lesbian with penis envy. In Japanese class, I used boku (masculine 'I' ---- it drove my teacher nuts because she said it wasn't allowed of girls.... I did it regardless) and refused to use atashi (feminine 'I' ---- 'watashi' is androgynous if you're wondering). By 16, I was convinced I just had no gender what-so-ever, namely, that my soul was genderless regardless that my body was female --- even though I had some kind of deep urge to be male, I guess... I always felt that I would be better or feel better if I had been born male.

At 19, I came out as an FtM trans.

Ironically, I've slid about back to how I viewed myself in highschool. Well, sort of. I often think that I'm fluid between male and completely genderless. Sometimes I think that the genderless feelings are feelings of being a child, being small -- that as a child, I didn't understand gender. Sometimes I think that the feelings of maleness are some attempts to hold on to a norm.

Lately, I just try to let myself settle with just simply not being female.
Because claiming maleness feels like a lie somehow, namely as a lie of omission, that that just doesn't quite explain it.

Thus is why my gender says 'masculine neutrois', because that seems to about sum it up nicely in a way that doesn't really make my brain ache and also accepts my pull towards masculine things.

[GreyRobin]

I was fairly girly as a child, and that of course made me a bit of a social outcast.
Being male meant I couldn't fit in with girls and being girly meant I didn't fit in with boys.

Suppressed it to... fit in I guess. I still had little or no friends but at least I wasn't thinking I was a girl. But I still didn't feel like a boy, I was just male but different. Hence the feeling that I am just "me". I feel like I'm different from the rest I guess, not typical.
Delusions of grandure.

So puberty hit and although I kind of felt sick about it, I just got on and stuck through it all. Yeah it meant being less feminine but it's just growing up. I didn't feel any dysphoria, and I still don't (apart from my chest, but it's deformed genetically).

So being male but leaning towards more feminine styles of clothing and activities (I play flute, go running and stay away from team sports like football preffering hockey or netball which is feminine over here).
I discovered a lot about the differences between sex and gender a month or two ago. I didn't understand at first, because I have no sense of gender at all! I just thought it was your personality, but the more I think about it the more I realise there is a difference.
I've started to explore the other gender identities but for now I'm physically male and psychologically androgynous but hoping to try neutrois to give it a go.

I'm not asexual like people here appear to be a bit. I am attracted to masculinity, and somewhat attracted to androgyne. It's about being attracted to something that physically represents who I am psychologically.

[JustJo]

Growing up, I never really felt like anything was different. The main and possibly only abnormality in my childhood would probably when I had to get haircuts. My mother would always insist on a short and obviously male hairstyle on me but I always ended up refusing most of the time. The few times I did give in were merely to get her off of my back. I never really understood why I couldn't have just any haircut, play w/ any toys, etc etc. They were just material items or a simple idea/style. Never understood why those things had to be of a certain gender.

Now looking back, I know that I've always thought that the gender binary didn't matter, if I even believed it existed to me. Although, that realization would not have happened if I hadn't made the friends I have met in the past few years. Around that same time, I came out to them and other friends as gay. I had trouble admitting that for multiple reasons, mainly, I didn't want me to end w/ me, I wanted kids. But that wasn't the end of all the self realization. Pretty soon those very friends began asking questions. What are you? What's your identity? etc etc.... To put this into perspective, I am a biomale. I am perfectly fine w/ my male body, no wishes to change any of it. But my demeanour, habits, styles, and hobbies are quite fem, including a feminine facial structure. I get a lot of weird looks and such just trying to use a public restroom, the very reason why I rarely use public restrooms. I have the skills and knowledge that males have, like fixing cars, tinkering w/ things, etc. Some I do enjoy, however, most I feel I've learned simply out of necessity. I was raised I should learn anything I had the chance to. But mainly, I haven't really found any fem interest I really didn't like or enjoy. With all of this weirdness and the feeling of being forced to look for a neatly labelled box to fit my life in, I spent the last 8 months looking into gender identities. That is when I realized trying to find a label is confusing as all hell when it comes to gender identity w/ all of the different terms, different meanings, different ideas and so on and so forth... I simply figured, I'm fine w/ my body, so I'm not trans and am not looking into transitioning, I'm not Neutrois, I am pretty much settling w/ gender queer, gender bender, or whatever else is related to these terms to describe myself to others in hopes that they will somewhat get where I'm coming from. Other than that, I am simply me, myself and I. If whoever I meet has a problem w/ me, I don't need 'em. I am through w/ trying to put a label on myself just to please others!

Now the reason I haven't stopped researching is to help others out is to become an accepting and approachable being someone can easily speak w/ on the subject. There really aren't that many in my area that are knowledgeable w/ gender identity issues and I want to fill that gap. If they do know about transgender topics, the stigma of all transgenders want to be the opposite sex/gender is their bias. That really isn't the truth at all. So for the sake of others, I want to help them out. I know it would have made it easier on myself if I had been able to approach someone to help talk these thing through.

[xRinxxx]

Now that I look back..my life did flipflops >_> But I definitely knew when I was in highschool
I was a tomboyish little girl (Aka, I wore gym close and learned how to skeet-shoot and skin deers), then switched to an overly feminine pre-teen, then to a neutral teen in dock-martins, baggy cargos, and lipstick, then an teenager/young adult that heavily corsetted, wore mainly mens punk clothing, and had loooots of make up. I really realized I was..different, when I realized that most of the female friends my church going family and the male friends I made at school, thought i was completely insane. So it wasn't normal to switch back and forth? Huh..well that was news to me. I was always the weird girl at sleep-overs in camo pjs, or the strange chick that hung out with the guys and went dirt-biking even though i wear lots of make up. Its all really sexist to say, but that's what made me realize that I didn't feel like a male or female..I was just..both..and that was that. Now that I'm in college its a lot easier to be what I want to be, and be damned with what other students, teachers, blah, think. I like to be both 'genders' at the same time, so there-nodnod-.

[Alder]

I've always kind of idolized my older brother, and in a sense still do, so I'm sure some of my mentality has a lot to do with that...
I'd have to say like a lot of others I didn't notice/realize until later years, about 2 or so years ago actually. My childhood I was a tomboy and would rough house just like my brother and his friends, as the heavy set girl with the short hair when playing house or such games I'd always be cast as the dad or other male role which I never minded at all.

I never really had those times when the girls around 5th grade stopped playing games at recess and would walk around or sit and circles and talk or such always struck me as weird, why sit and talk about stupid things when you can run around and chase people?

During my teen years I started wearing mens clothing because it was more comfortable, make-up bothers me unless it's for a costume and well all the primping and pampering girls usually do escapes my reasoning.

Though, unlike a lot I've read here I'm not asexual, even though currently I'm a little broken on the romance side due to confusion of what I am I know I'm attracted to things and want to get frisky... I just don't know with whom and how anymore.

It was after the birth of my daughter that it really started to grate at me, the fact that I was female. I didn't...feel maternal, I felt paternal. Yes I carried the child inside my body.. I certainly didn't glow during my pregnancy but felt more like I was just carrying something that needed protecting than creating the miracle of life. I didn't feel like giving birth was anything 'special' I just did it.. (and yes, I gave near natural birth with just the smallest amount of painkillers which was really to stop the pushing before the doctor arrived) I still don't fuss and such over my daughter as my friends do their children... If she falls, I comfort her how my dad did me, not how my mother did...

After her birth the dysphoria started... if there's anything that will make you feel less like a man, it's birthing a child through your vagina. I would end up in long periods of depression over being female and blahblahblah(don't want to bore with more details ^.^) My husband was sakely supportive through all of it.... which only made it worse....

After I left him because he was a douche(for other reasons, not just trying to pacify my self hate) I decided it was time to explore this side of me that I'd had to keep closed up and began research on transgenderism... and would end up in tears since I didn't fit that bill fully either... It was when I was reading a book ( becoming a visible man by jamison Green) I had read the term "androgynous" and while it hadn't clicked when I read it there when I decided to look into that it all fell into place like it was the missing puzzle that was me... I cried tears of happy for the first time in a looong time.. that was about a year ago. And while the journey to explore just who I am is still a struggle, I'm happy I'm not longer alone in my confusion. There /are/ people who understand how I feel.... and even my friends are embracing me as an effeminate 'male' instead of a manish female... because I feel thats who I truly am inside.

[SumthinElse]

It's been a long, confusing ride really. The feelings during the first half of my life are all blurred by the desperate desire to fit in and be like everyone else, and a crushing sort of humiliation at never succeeding. During the second half, I guess I just accepted that I was different in some essential way and gave up trying. But I've never found a real explanation until now.

In the beginning, I'm asking myself - was I a tomboy? I dunno - I grew up in pants and teeshirts, and never did like pink. I played with cars, and toy animals, and dolls and rode bikes and climbed trees and explored the woods ...it was all the same to me. I didn't know girls and boys were supposed to like different things.

But as someone else mentioned, somewhere after the first day of school, I was surrounded by these kids who were already following binary gender rules, and I couldn't relate to any of them. Of course it only got worse as I got older, and the girls and boys became more and more different from each other. I still felt somewhere in the middle, not understanding or wanting to be either. I felt like a nothing, a misfit, a developmentary malfunction. Self-esteem issues started here.

To my horror, the breasts started growing when I was 11, and it became a constant battle to hide them. But within a year came the cursed libido, and suddenly I was desperate to look like the other girls who seemed to be so successful at attracting boys. It never did work, but I tried. I tried to wear the same clothes, feathered my hair, wore makeup, yikes - I even wore a pair of pink high heeled shoes one year. But through it all I felt like a poser. I didn't feel pretty, I felt ridiculous. Some have said "I felt like a man in drag" lol. I kind of want to say that, too - but I imagine that most men in drag are dressed that way because it feels good and right. Me...I did not feel right.

Finally I escaped the horrific scene of high school and off to college, where people dressed as they pleased. Big sweaters, men's overcoats...coolness. Away from my home town, I discovered gay men - and how sexy they were. Did I want to be with them or BE them? Both, I think. Either way, it was a total rip-off, because neither was gonna happen, and I was really upset about that for a long time. So I gave up on it all and went asexual for the next decade. My goal was to be a forest ranger and wear one of those awesome uniforms and live up in the woods by myself. Every spring break - when the other chicks were going off to the beach or whatever it is they do - I went camping and climbing in caves (and NO, bats are not scary, duh - stupid screaming girls!). Best years of my life.

Continuing to stray quite obviously from girly-rules, I got my first car, and when things went wrong, I figured it out and fixed the engine myself. Got my first pet rat - best pet ever, you know! Fell in love with the first boa constrictor I met, and started to keep them as pets, as well - along with a giant carniverous lizard. Finally did end up in a uniformed job, with a nice shiny black belt and jingling keys, nightstick, etc. That was cool, but the boobs kinda ruined the whole image. Ironically, my partner was a lesbian. We really hit it off, and were alike in a lot of ways - just not sexual orientation. At that time - in the 80's - all I'd ever heard of were men, women, gay men, and lesbians. Since being a straight woman didn't fit, I decided that perhaps I was a lesbian too, even though I'd never been attracted to women (ok, you can laugh). Soooo....got drunk at a gay bar and kissed a girl. No sparks. Felt like I was kissing my sister. End of lesbian experiment, and back to being asexual. I remained confused about gender, and just felt left out of the whole picture.

I did eventually get married. The key statement I made to my husband to be after he proposed was "Just so you know, I don't do any of that wifey sh**" >D He still teases me about that. And it's true. I'm not very good at anything domestic, and have become more of a computer geek than anything. Been online roleplaying for a couple of years and have tried out being female, androgyne and male, and met a few genderqueer people. This got me wondering if there might be a definition of what I am by now - if there might be others like me after all. It took a few internet searches before I finally came upon the terms agender and genderless, probably because I started out searching for "gay man in a woman's body" - Pshh, all that gets you to are articles about some sex-symbol actress(s) who are just being quotable. I did eventually end up here, though, and am recovering from the shock of discovering that there are people who feel the same way I do. I'm still thinking through it myself - thus the long post, sorry about that. Thanks if you've read it all

[Kinkly]

I always knew I was different wanting to play girl games but knowing I was Supposed to be a boy but from a young age I would be exculeded from the boys games because I was different. At 15 I was given a reason why I felt wrong why I couldn't fit in that reason was a brain tumor but none of the other teens I met from the various teen cancer groups were like me. While fighting for my life I didn't have much time to work out who I was but I did know that I was more of a lesbian then a straight male I also told many people that "you know how men are from mars & Women are from Venus ... well I'm prom Pluto. So I knew but didn't have the language skills to explain what I was. I also thought I'd have to travel to the edge of the solar system to find someone like me. I was 30 before I had enough space and was healthy enough to work out who I am I actively started seacing for the words for who I was close to 4 years ago olny been the last year or so That I've been living as me full time

[MoonEyes]

I'm 23, and I realised only two weeks ago that I'm not a straight woman as I thought in my whole life, but a masculine androgyne who's attracted to men/masculine people. (In the moment I identify myself as this, but I often recognise genderless features in myself as well. I'm looking forward to what identity I'll I settle with )

I guess it took me so long to see the reality, because I have a 100% female body and I'm 100% attracted to males, so it didn't ever occur to me that I wasn't really a regular though very unfeminine woman. I feel a bit ridiculous since I realised it, because the signs were SO obvious...
Some of them:
- I've never felt feminine at all. I can much more identify with the "can do" masculine attitude, than the cute, laid back, adaptive feminine attitude.
- I haven't really had female friends because I don't know how to relate and behave with them. It feels a bit awkward, the same as with children, I just simply don't know "what to do with them" D:
- Because of this, I've always hung out with guys, and also, I've had geeky interests and hobbies. Celebrities and fashion just couldn't interest me, instead I was pc gaming and roleplaying a lot.
- I've worn unisex/male clothes most of my life, for comfort. I never ever wore make up (except for 'prom night'), I can't identify with spending time and money to put messy toxic stuff on my face to look more feminine
In the past 5 years since graduation, mainly due to my mother's and sister's pressure, I tried to adopt a more feminine clothing style, expecting that I'll feel and be more feminine because of it. Needless to say, it didn't happen Since I realised that I'm not a woman at all, I can't even think about wearing my feminine clothes... Ew D:
- I was always outraged when someone told me to do things or behave in a given way because I'm a girl. At that time me and my family took this only as a strong sense for right and equality.
- I don't like my breasts, they are only bothersome and restrict me in freedom of movement. I'm almost absolutely sure that I'll have top surgery.
- I always felt repulsed by the idea of pregnancy and giving birth. Like some parasite is growing inside the person, which has to be 'removed' with huge pain...
- I've been always fascinated with the male body and envied that guys have penis and flat chest and I don't
- When I watch porn, it's always gay porn, as I'm instantly turned off when I see women genitals in close-up
- I often fantasized about being with a guy as a guy, but I shrugged those off as mere fancy fantasy.
- I once told someone, that if I wasn't a woman, I'd be a gay guy And no, I didn't have the slightest idea about it at that time... I feel so stupid D:
- A few months ago I took BBC's Sex ID test, and as I remember it gave the result that my brain is 75% male, 25% female. Still had no clue

So, when all the stuff clicked together (thanks to MeikoEliasXavier on YouTube ) I was shocked, but it also felt so RIGHT. Now I'm still exploring my gender identity, but I feel I'm tons closer to my true self than before.

A bit awkward that I've always took pride in knowing myself very well, and voilà... A self-slap on my face...

Oh and I'm still in the closet, as I'm living with my ex-boyfriend-now-only-friend in a tiny flat due to financial reasons and I know he's very repulsed by the idea of transgendered people I can't wait to have at least my own room, it'll happen in August if all goes well.

[alex]

for me nothing really happened until middle school. my childhood was normal, i played with star wars action figures and legos like the other boys (although ive always hated sports and i knew i was bi at that point, but thats a whole other story) it was some time around middle school when i really started hating the "male stereotype" that you have to be strong, athletic and a asshole. i still acted "normal" but i do have memory of watching what not ware and project runway. some time in my sophomore year of high school i came out as bi and when i was looking at gay websites i came across cross dressing and it just sort of clicked. so i did what most cross dressers did at this point i stole a dress and some other stuff from my sisters closet and it just felt right. so now i i have both genders clothing with a preference for girls and i am thinking of telling my doctor about it to start on the path of hormones. but i still haven't told my parents but my friends know and have been very supportive.

[notentirely]

I hope it’s OK for me to share here, even if I’m more of a gender neutral than androgyne.

Neither of my parents were strongly gender-presenting, they were just hard working to keep the family going, and my mother was the strongest of them, carrying most of the weight of the family. I was brought up in a radical political environment, where the women’s lib movement was strong. Girls tended to have strong gender role models to look up to and a sense of collective identity (at least it seemed so) which I at least didn’t find for myself (I shall not speak on behalf of other boys). I had far more girl friends than boy friends. In the senior classes, I was wearing a women’s lib button in school, part of my deliberately aberrant image (I was aberrant in several other respects too). I had a strong aversion towards sports and other boyish interests, but also towards typically feminine interests, as most girls in my environment were rather androgynously-presenting. I hated male company and boys’ sexist jokes. I liked girls both in the sense of getting in love with them, and in the sense of wishing to be like them, they were the unachievable ideals of both lust and identity. I have always avoided looking in the mirror other that for some concrete need, as shaving or for dealing with some acne or something. Clothes were never a topic for me, as both girls and boys dressed very much the same in my environment – unformal, worn clothes, and all kind of explicitely gender-specific clothes, both male and female, felt alien. I had a kind of very sleepy self-awareness, not reflecting much about myself, just experiencing life passively and following its turns, even if I was clever at school and having a very active life with a lot of music and other activities. I had a strong feeling of life as just happening to me, without much control from my side. As regards girls, I had the same feeling of just happening to get together with them, into mostly rather long relationships. This way I got married and got two kids, whom I love very much. It was about that time when my first serious non-maleness crisis occured. When people asked me how it felt to be a father, I could get desperate with the feeling ”I don’t know what it is like to be a father, but I know I’m a parent and I love it very much”. I could also get furious about remarks about me ”helping in the kitchen” (what? it’s MY kitchen!) or ”babysitting” (those are MY kids, I’m not babysitting!). I began to think a lot about why I reacted so emotionally, who I am and what all of this means. Had I possibly a intermediate gender identity? Or did I feel like a lesbian woman? Or was I just a male hating gender roles? I read that fathers sometimes felt envy towards their kids over their wife, but I felt exactly the opposite: I felt envious towards my wife over the kids. I still have problems saying ”I am the father of NN”, it feels as I’m invoking a gender I cannot subscribe to, although when my kids call me ”father”, it’s alright – when they say it, it feels just as a second given name or nickname. When spending time with other young families, I was much more comfortable with discussing diapers with the mothers than discussing sports or work with the fathers. But as the years went by, the number of difficult experiences went down, and I kind of settled down with the things as they were, although I constantly felt that I was not the way other people seemed to be. Only in the recent couple of years has the unrest began to rise again, and this time I have tried to find info about gender on the internet.

As I now understand myself, I’m a cis-presenting (but avoiding strong cis-signals), ”functionally heterosexual” (it doesn’t feel exactly heterosexual, as I don’t place myself at one of the gender poles), gender neutral person (biomale). Am I in the closet? Difficult to say, as all which is aberrant about me is inside my head. I feel like my closet is one of the most inconspicuous or transparent in the world, almost as nothing to get out of. I suspect that there should be more people like me, but that people either don't realise it for themselves or keep it to themselves, as it most of the time is possible without much effort. I have never met anybody like myself. If I am myself, people rarely notice anything very strange. But lately I have had a steadily stronger experience that my ”strangeness” is a kind of genderqueerness, not just a matter of style or views, and that sooner or later I will have to begin telling people about me being queer, both because it feels the most ernest thing to do (also for myself) and to avoid people supposing that I am a male and trying to include me in that gender. Some persons know. My wife knows, she is also relatively gender neutral inside, although more explicitely cis-dressing, and in general I seem to get much better contact with people in the gender neutral or androgynous middle part of the spectre than with strongly cis-gendered or cis-presenting people at either of the two ends, who tend to interpret me as a cis-person and make me uncomfortable.

I don’t know how interesting all of this is to others, but then when I judge by the interest with which I myself read these accounts and how precious and valuable they feel (it’s generally so extremely difficult to find people who are saying things about gender which makes sense!), perhaps my story may be useful to somebody… And maybe it is of interest also for people differing from me to understand how a mind and identity like mine works...

[Edge]

When I did I realize I was genderfluid? Only recently. I have wondered if that means I'm going through a phase, but considering it's probably part of my other thing and that's been consistent, I'm inclined to think not. Well, brains can rewire themselves anyway, so it's not like it matters if it is. A few years ago, I would have said I was completely female. Looking back, I am not sure if I always was or not. One thing I have felt for a very long time is something that felt like loneliness, like there was a part missing. I longed for a male partner. What I figured out was that I was really longing for a male me. Once I realized that, I thought about it some more and realizes that I wanted to be the male me. It's just that I also want to be the female me. Sometimes, both at the same time and, often, I'm somewhere in between. Anyway, I think that's how my genderfluidness expressed itself until I could learn about it and accept it properly. It confused me at first, but then I realized it was just an extension of my other thing and I think I'm fine with it now. Since I've accepted it, I've been feeling like that part that was missing is now with me where it belongs. I still wonder if I'm fooling myself and I just want to be male because I really like males, but I only wonder that when I feel female or neither. In short, I am still sorting this all out.
Oh yeah and I was raised androgynous in a city where girls are freaking vicious, in a generation where "girly" seems to be an insult for some reason, and the other thing, so my experience with gender roles means I have never understood them. I kind of wish I did so I could understand people better, but my friends say it's a good thing. It pisses me off when people assume that, when I am referring to gender, I am referring to gender roles. I do not believe in gender roles neither do I understand them enough to rebel against them even if I wanted to. (I don't, btw, because I believe that rebelling against them is just another way to reinforce them.)