What is this called?

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I could die tomorrow,...

The only wrong... is humanity as a whole.

This is totally normal. Everybody has a masculine and a feminine side to their personality. Karl Jung called them "anima and animus" and believed that if you try to repress them, they will speak to you through your dreams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus

Because that's what more people are going to recognize it as.
Popmedia has so meshed the physical sex and socially-constructed gender that most people don't realize they're separate things, so it's usually easier to just use the the words they'll understand.
You can call it an Automatic Teller Machine or Magnetic Resonance Imaging, but more people are going to understand ATM and MRI.

Kind of, but its more not even perceiving myself as a female.........though I am one. so its a very weird feeling to me, as I don't really know what to do with it or why I have it.

Well it seemed like you where forcing that "You're female whether you like it or not!' and its actually kind of a sensitive topic for me believe it or not. So I guess it just seemed kind of aggressive and like 'you're right, I'm wrong' so sorry if that wasn't they way you where trying to come off, I do take things a bit personally sometimes.

I know its normal to have a masculine and feminine side, but i don't think that was quite what I'm describing. I mean I don't even try to repress anything about that I just don't understand the discomfort I feel about being a female specifically, that strikes me as kind of odd rather then normal. But yeah I've worn guys clothes since I was a kid so I don't think I was suppressing any masculinity and I don't try to deny any feminine aspects of myself.

if only things like this where easier to explain...

That is kind of what i was thinking, I mean I am not exactly well educated in this sort of thing, so I really only have the terms I am aware of to work with. I mean just feeling how I feel is confusing enough without trying to describe it without using words like male, female, gender and such.

That's one thing I like about the internet. Most of the time on the internet I don't know other people's genders and they don't know mine.

I don't really feel like a girl but I don't know if I really feel like a guy either.

This is not universally true. Transgender people identify as male or female. We often feel we are trapped in the opposite body so of course we identify as the opposite reproductive sex to our own.



For me, a transman, identifying as a reproductive sex is how I feel comfortable in my own skin. My brain formed itself in expectation of male genitalia, chest, and hormones. And, well, my body went the opposite way. Identifying s male keeps my sanity.



Being a reproductive male (or a transitioned male), you have some secondary sex characteristics that give you different way of expressing feelings and thoughts. For one, testosterone makes it harder to restrain anger. You have to be pumped by both sex hormones to understand this. One also thinks about sex more.



Swatleaf is not a reproductive sex (therefore, why call Swatleaf female? Having female parts is only one aspect of Swatlead). No one is necessarily their reproductive sex. Please don't assume this.

And just because one does not have a penis (or maleness) doesn't mean one doesn't know what it is like. For example, most transmen have a phantom limb syndrome and feel an actual penis there despite having a female anatomy. This is because our brains hardwired themselves in expectation of having a penis. Kind of like how your brain hardwired itself into thinking it had an arm and then, when it gets cut off, the brain keeps insisting it is there even when its not.

I see; however, you are using the word "identify" in a way that is kind of a departure from what it typically means. Therein lies my confusion.




First of all, the secondary sex characteristics that males naturally experience versus the artificially-induced effects of medical transition? They are not exactly the same. Also, this doesn't address what I said, which is still true: There is no other thing called "male" that is about feelings and thoughts. You seem to have trouble telling the difference between what is male by definition, and ways that males tend to be. They may tend to be angry and horny or have whatever hormonal states, but angriness and horniness is not what <i>defines</i> males as males. Thus, the males who are not typically angry and horny are still male, by virtue of biology ALONE, and the females people who may have all the emotions typical to males are still not male, by virtue of biology ALONE. Furthermore, I don't know what you mean by "pumped", but I, and other females ARE driven by both sex hormones. Females have naturally occurring testosterone.




Common English. Saying someone is female is shorthand for saying she is a female human being. It's obvious that having female parts is only one aspect of Sweatleaf, what is the point of such a question? Having Asperger's is only one aspect of her as well (accorging to her), but would you ask me the same if I referred to her only as someone with Asperger's? I can't encompass every single aspect of a person in a single forum post.



What you are saying makes no sense, but I guess I shouldn't expect it to since you seem to use words to mean whatever you want them to. Sweatleaf herself said she was female. That's how I know, and I merely repeated the fact to make a point.



Yes it does. Goddess, you are confused or something. Or saying these things to keep your sanity, like you mentioned above.


First of all, phantom limb syndrome is something experienced by people who have had a body part and lost it, not people who never had it to begin with. Again, you are making up your own definitions for terms. Second of all, there is no way to truly know the visceral feeling of having body parts one has never had. Transmen may think they are feeling what males are feeling, but they have no way of being sure of that. Experiencing the presence of a body part and feeling as if one should have that body part are not the same thing.

That is a really bad analogy. ATM is just another way of saying Automatic Teller Machine, but masculine is not just another way of saying male, which is part of the point I was making earlier: that reinforcing the false equation of maleness and masculinity is reinforcing the same idea that gets the non-masculine males beaten up for being "sissies" and "fa***ts." It is an evil idea, and anyone who would use it is the enemy of all gender-nonconforming people. It may be easier (although I doubt that because most people are going to be confused if a female tells them she identifies as male, regardless of what she means), but that is no excuse.

And you are mixing up gender roles and gender identity, imho. Biological sex, gender identity, sexual orientation and cultural gender roles are four entirely different things. Most people have a clear gender identity / body image and strongly identify as either male or female, which doesn't always match their biological sex. They might reject traditional gender roles, as most people do nowadays, but they nonetheless feel either feminine or masculine.

People without a clear-cut gender identity are referred to as genderqueer, which is an umbrella term for bigender, genderfluid, other-gendered, and agender people. Bigender people identify with both genders. Genderfluid people go through frequent gender identity changes and might feel male today and female tomorrow. Other-gendered people have a gender identity outside of the gender binary, such as the Indian and Pakistani hijras or the Thai kathoeys (the Western equivalent would be a pre-op transsexual who is happy with his or her intermediary state and doesn't desire GRS). And agender people have no gender identity at all.

I have been waiting to find out the meaning of "gender identity." Will you enlighten me?

[quote="starkid"][/quote] You completely misunderstood my comparison. Intentionally, I expect.
The point I was making wasn't that ATM and automatic teller machine were different.
My point was that it's easier to use the words people understand.

Your gender identity is the sexual aspect of your mental self-image or body image. Most people aren't aware that they have a gender identity in addition to their biological sex, because the two are usually identical. But the existence of a gender identity is undeniably evident in people with GID (gender identity disorder). Differences between sex and GI can cause extreme distress, to the point that many children with GID threaten or attempt to mutilate themselves.

I've talked to a trans woman in Second Life who compared GID to depersonalization disorder (DPD). People who suffer from DPD feel that random parts of their anatomy are foreign objects that don't belong to their body. They might look at their arm with utter horror and think "this is not my arm, I don't want this thing on me". That's exactly how many trans people feel about their breasts or genitals. They are foreign objects that aren't part of their body image and simply don't belong there, whereas other parts that should be there, according to their mental self-image, are inexplicably missing.

Techn0teen's phantom limb comparison rings very true in this context. Phantom limb sensations have been described by people who were born without limbs and had never experienced what it's like to have that missing arm or leg. In very much the same way, a penis or a pair of breasts can be a part of a person's self-image, despite the fact that the person doesn't possess these anatomical characteristics. People with GID literally have a brain that belongs to the opposite sex.

This has nothing to do with gender roles. I've always rejected male gender expectations. I'm very emotional, I cry when I watch sad movies and romantic comedies, I have no interest in sports, cars or technology, and I've experimented with crossdressing when I was younger. I feel very restricted by male fashion and dress conventions, and I always pick female characters in computer games because I like to wear pretty clothes. And yet my gender identity is 100% male. When I think about sex, I think about thrusting instead of being penetrated. And if a crazy person came at me with a pair of scissors, my first impulse would be to shield my genitals instead of my face. My mind is very certain that the dangly bits between my legs are not only supposed to be there, but are of vital interest to me and even more important than my hands or my eyes. That's gender identity in a nutshell.