Do I have a different gender identity?

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The question of what I identify as, has kind of really been bothering me lately. In ways I can't even say with certainty that I am not trying to be special, except I generally hate too much attention where I be seen as abnormal. I guess from there I can say that I have been mostly okay presenting and thinking of myself as a man, I have a beard and don't feel any dysphoria, and generally come to a conclusion that I am attracted to women. It should have been all a slam-dunk to say I am a cis man, but a number of things have started to come to my attention.

I had been kind of describing myself as feminist for a while. I know some people say things along the lines of male feminists are just trying to suck up to girls, but I can be pretty confident in saying that has not been it. It was more recently that I had been looking into transgender stuff that I kind of came aware that I was not as feeling detached to feminism as I thought as a man I was. Like there is a girl in me that was feeling validated by it. I know that maybe sounds like some mantra of following your inner woman that even man can do, but this does not feel the same. I suppose I will have to explain some realization that I was not as binary as I thought.

I have never been the most masculine guy, and maybe this sounds dumb, but video games where I have always felt like a way to express myself with a custom avatar, I have not been able to make such an avatar where I make myself a masculine man, doing so kind of felt wrong to me. There came a time in an Etrian game where I needed to have a strong warrior as part of team, I already made my standard male character (Dusky) as general debuffer, but the team needed a heavy hitter, they would be a central part of my rep here, but as an expression of me it did not feel right. That was until I thought I would use a female character so I created Duskei the swordswoman alongside Dusky the caster, and suddenly there was feeling of something really right. I know most people have no real reason to create a game character the way they do, or do so to have something to look at, but for me it has always been expression, and Duskei suddenly started to be used in all sorts of games where I could be the masculine warrior I never could, and kind of felt like equal to the Dusky character I always use, as part of me.

I am an open person, but I will be honest that I was not as fully accepting of LGBT stuff as I probably should, that because it kind of made me feel uncomfortable for a long time, and I kind of tracked that reason to the fact I used to be bullied quite a bit, with the insult of people calling me gay. I never felt attraction to boys, so I think my strong reaction was to prove my straightness, but I probably had a number of feminine traits that had me be targeted. My nails have always grown quite long, and I had a preference for them as such, even if I got told negatively about them as a boy, I think that I secretly like when girls told me that they were jealous of them, and that they were pretty. I think that I realised that I had repressed that I liked them called pretty, because boys are not supposed to like that, and although I mentioned above that I have no dysphoria over my beard, I haven't felt them over my nails. I have also surfaced memories that I often thought a lot of what I would be like if I was a girl, and was kind of excited to learn that my name also works as a girls name. At some of my worst depressed moments I have thought that my life maybe would be better as a girl.

Although I have said earlier that it is females I am attracted to, I am not even sure if that is 100% true. Some of my tastes, like a high school crush, had me interested in a girl that another said had boyish features, someone said was not cute, but for whatever reason it made my heart rush. I think I have also had similar feelings over what I learned were boys, but looked feminine, that my mind saw as like girls, which I know sounds like some meme that any guy could be fooled, but I think it might have been more to me. I don't think I can even take it too maybe say I am bi, but I think that I am starting to come aware to an expanded attraction.

Back to how I see myself. I don't really have any desire to dress in women clothing, probably not wear makeup, or something like that. I am pretty sure I would look horrible. But it feels over the last while, I have been becoming aware of a side of me that can feel good if I am expressing myself in certain ways I don't think are really manly. To maybe say something personal, I have been using a singlet that I don't think fit into the masculine side, without I would say quite being a trying hard or crossdressing, and it has kind of felt nice. I don't really know how to explain it, I don't know what I really want out of this since it is not like I am unhappy how I have been. But it is like a side of me that has felt kind of repressed.

As things stand, I don't think I can quite say that I am cis, when I think that it kind of feels like I am being mislabelled. I have not really felt dysphoria, but as I am thinking of myself as just manly 100% all dude, there is this sort of detached feeling that makes me feel sick, and I think that matches up to what people say is dysphoria. I starting to wonder if I am non-binary, but even looking up what other say, I don't even know what that might mean. I think that the best I have been internalizing it is if to imagine a bunch of people that represent parts of me, kind of like Inside Out, some of those would be male like would be normal, while other parts would be female. I don't know if it was a choice of broad appeal or something in that movie where parts of Riley's emotions looked like different genders as opposed to her parents, but something about that felt like it had a connection to me. Maybe I am wrong and that is just normal for a cis male or something, I haven't really seen any definitions that feel right so far.

Say you didn't have your gender displayed and someone on here were to ask if you're male or female, would you be able to answer?
Do you feel like you have to pick a side but it could go either way?

I feel mostly male, it is what I have been my entire life, and I don't feel wrong being addressed in the general way. Of course people have to pick a side, at least that is what society does, I don't want to make excuses to try and but into spaces for a gender I am mostly not. But the question of going either way has been something I have been struggling with, I don't want to transition or anything, but it kind of feels like after watching a lot of testimonies of people who said they don't feel comfortable in their skin and the wrong bits, it kind of feels like I would not be as effected if my body suddenly changed.

Of course there I could not really know since trans people seem to face a lot of problems with being in a different body than they feel. But it feels a bit like I am largely defaulting to my biology and how I look, yet I have been feeling less one sided.

Idk, to me you sound like a male becoming aware that he has a feminine side, which every male has to some degree, if you don't alternate between feeling male and female or feel like you're neither gender or both.

There are nonbinary people who don't fit into either the male or female genders.

The issue for aspies is that socially, we don't fit into society. So there at least two layers to deal with.

That sounds a little like I never was aware of such things like a feminine side. It is not like I have been a toxic masculinity person my whole life, as contrast I have always been the less act manly than my brother, where I would often get annoyed that it be expected the boys have to do the manual labour. This doesn't entirely feel like just acknowledgment of just more feminine side.

I would say that it has been some years that I was quick to show some approval for the sliding scale of gender, that a man could have some feminie traits, and a woman some masculine traits, you might have a bit of what is associated with the other, but still can as a whole be put in one. So I should have mostly be unconfused if that is just what this is, but this feels really confusing. Like that should feel like the simple answer, and should supply some other simple answers that there really isn't anything me to change. I don't know exact fractions, but it kind of feels like I have been ignoring maybe a quarter of who I am. Maybe that is just a dah, that is just a man becoming aware of their feminine side is. But would that mean I was lying up till now?

I suppose that I am hoping for something that will feel satisfying, of which there is probably nothing. Is it normal for a male to feel like if the parts of his personality were broken up into people that represented those parts, that some of those feel like they would be female, like it would come from some alternate reality where their gender would be flipped?

"Effeminate straight male"

It is looking at my avatar that makes me ponder on what connected me with it. It is from an anime called Monthly Shoujo Nozaki-kun, which is about a teenage boy who makes a manga (comic) aimed at teenage girls, and as an author gives an image of being female. Although he doesn't actually actively try to hide his part, no one seems to believe him, since he is a big silent and stoic kind who although listens to problems of girls, doesn't really gives off any feminie vibes himself. The scene in particular is where he is asked to play the role of a girl to help his male friend have some practice for going to a mixer, with the irony despite his occupation, his idea of being feminine is to just wear bunny ears.

Always thought that part as funny, where in the face of that he still manages to hurt the feminine pride of a girl who has a crush on him, by outdoing her in certain ways. The segment ending with the one meant to be playing the part of the guy gets jealous of the other two to excuse themselves for girl talk, and also wants to be involved, because despite his appearance, or even his geek side, in ways he is kind of the most feminine character in the show. Going so far as to be given a cutesy girly nickname by the female character, and being the inspiration for the heroine in the titular character's work. The show including a number of other characters that are genderbent into inspirations of characters, that otherwise seem typical for the genre, like a princely character who flirts with all the girls, despite being a girl herself.

That particular show from 2014 really struck a cord with me. Understanding the ideas of masculine of feminine sides should be baked into the premise of liking it, and I think that I was drawn in by how it gender a bit. Yet I feel more introspective right now than I did when I was really into that show, and not the same as I would have just accepted those characters.

Genderqueer then.
It covers everything.

Sounds like you're just a man who's more feminine than the average who has feelings of not fitting in with other men as a result. No need to complicate it any more than that imo

In my opinion, I believe biology dictates gender. If you are born male then you are a male and vice versa. I don't understand the trend of feeling like you are the opposite sex. I know transgenders say they feel like a woman, but I curious as how it's possible to feel like another gender. If you associate having feelings and being emotionally sensitive as feminine, in my opinion that is incorrect. Both men and women have feelings and can be emotional. Like me for example, most things the average person finds interesting in my location is very boring to me, I don't like sports or cars, hunting or fishing, I dislike shopping. I can be very emotionally sensitive and am very shy because I pick up on negative judgment of me everywhere I go. I am most certainly a male, because feeling do not define gender. I thing it's wrong to label sensitive guys as having feminine qualities, women aren't all sensitive. To me it's human qualities. We are the same species, and gender plays different roles in different species. There are even some species that do not have gender. If you are a man and are still sexually attracted to men, that still doesn't change your gender, to me, gender is biologically determined, to question it is to question confirmed science. Though, a man can be born as a female in very rare situations, im no expert there, but have heard that we are all females at first, then for males the testicles drop. I would have to look it up to explain better, perhaps someone that knows what im trying to explain can pitch in and give an accurate description. Its hormones that cause our male vagina to drop testicles and become a penis. Chromosomes dictate true gender. The fertilizer and the egg carrier. Male and female.

There is a biological test. Give a mtf transgender estrogen. For some, the affect on mental health is "amazing." Exactly what an anti-anxiety drug should do, but never did for them.

This is an issue with autism and anti-anxiety drugs in that they don't fix the root cause of the anxiety, that there is a constant social problem of not fitting in that the drugs don't address.

Last edited by BTDT on 25 Jan 2019, 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

It still does not determine gender though. Females are able to be fertilized and give birth to a human baby. Most importantly, you can pump a male full of any chemical you desire and it will not cause them to loose their Y chromosome.

Please don't mistake that as being against personal choice. If someone that is an "adult" wishes to transform themselves, they have all the right in the world to do so. MtF is still a biological male as far as science is concerned. Science is a very important thing, it would be foolish to insist it's not needed.

You start to go down a very slippery slope if you start trying to define strictly by some of these biological things. If you go by the fertilization thing, then you are pretty much saying every woman who can't give birth is now a man, like those that go through menopause, or really someone who for all intents or purposes has been female their entire life, but just seems unable to give birth. These women often can have it bad enough already before they start being told they fail some test that makes them a woman. And even chromosomes really are not a 100% to body parts.

In ways I don't know how much I can fight against your point in ways, because I honestly felt like that way for a while despite considering myself open to many things. It was more recently that I really came open to looking at recounts of people who say they are going through, and not just cliché of people just trying to look special. A big source I came across lately were YouTube channels like Contrapoints. Which I am sure the natural response is to think "Oh great, some left snowflake who just has to try and twist facts to fit the narrative they are trying to create". But that really is not an accurate fit for them at all as they actually act pretty even handed in going after either side that can be a bit BS, and hatred for groups that have their heads up their own ass by trying to be philosophical with things that don't really mean anything to anyone. I honestly thought that most videos on the left that had to defend their points could not truly be critical of their own side. I encourage checking out the bellow video that was done on specifically what is gender, and then afterwards maybe the one done on Gender Dysphoria, and finish off with the video on Autogynophilia where she challenges points against trans people just being perverts.

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I am sorry if it just looks like I am throwing videos at you, but I feel like arguments would be better said by someone smarter than me. And I promise they are not just videos that try to twist things to simply fit some agenda. I think that it is a good point to get to the idea of gender not being as one sided as we are lead to believe while growing up.

Slippery slope indeed. Is there anyone on this forum who has been conclusively determined to have autism by a biological test? If the government decides that biological testing is necessary for SSDI benefits due to autism, won't that impact a lot of people here?