Do gender-variant people experience personality splits?

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Hi, I am an aspie/autie (whatever the hell they call us now...) who identifies as gender-questioning (kind of similar to transgender but more fluid) but leans towards female. I am without real-world friends, but someone I used to work with and take the same bus home with has been making friendly overtures towards me over the phone. It's a guy friend who is probably old enough to be my father, but we talked a lot on the bus when we were on it together, and we talk well together. Anyway, I feel like when I talk to the guy, and, historically, to other guys who have made friendly overtures to me, I feel like I have to pretend to be a lot more masculine than I really am. He talks about his war movies and adventure movies and I have to pretend to feel like enjoying them to, I pretend to accept when he talks negatively about his wife, I pretend to enjoy sports (like stock car racing and boxing) that, quite frankly, I stopped caring about long ago...basically I pretend I'm someone I'm not. I have a totally different personality when I talk to women who've made friendly overtures towards me and have allowed me to somewhat express my feminine side, but I have to pigeonhole myself into this extra-feminine personality which tends to make me feel guilty afterwards. (Different personalities exists around gay men and lesbian women as well, but they're kind of complicated so we'll skip them) By myself, my personality is also different. One day, I want to show that personality to someone who I feel really close to. That will be the day I'm happiest. Until then, everyone (including my mother at times) forces me to hide it, so I have to keep fooling myself by showing these false selves.

First off, is this a typical behavior among people who are on the gender and autistic spectra? Second off, is this an okay behavior to exhibit? It feels very wrong to fake it so often...and yet, I have this sinking feeling it may be slightly necessary to do so. Third off, regardless of the answer to the previous question, what things can I do to comfortably show off a truer self to people who wish to make friends with me? I worry that, by being truer, I risk losing potential friends (which is probably why I've gone into this dissociation issue to start with).

Does this make sense? If it does, I'm just wondering what to do and whether these feelings are typical for those on the autism spectrum. That's all, thanks for reading.

Don't hate me, but I have to ask: Do you have the parts of a male or female? I'm a gay male who is known for female mannerisms now and then. I've learned to control it so straight people won't pick on me. Then again, maybe they can tell but they're just not saying.

I'm not hating you at all. Perfectly rational question. I was born with male parts. (I still have them.) But I've taken hormones for 5 1/2 years so I have breasts too. People ignore those and just see me as male...probably because I'm not comfortable with using razors everyday. Of course, I do know people who see me exclusively as female (even with a beard) and people who've seen me exclusively as transgender (back in the days where I actually liked the word before the transpeople in my town started showing their ugly personalities and I disassociated with them).

I'm uncomfortable with all of my stereotypically male likings...sports, heavy metal and classic rock, video games, and other minor things. I would just as soon be rid of them. Yet I'm uncomfortable showing many stereotypically female likings in public. I do have a pink shirt I wear sometimes, but that's the extent of it. Of course, even before I was some gender-variant title, I worried about looking feminine in front of people. In high school, for example, I was made fun of for listening to the Spice Girls at school. Since then, I've put up this increasingly masculine front. The shirt is my attempt to rid myself of it, but it doesn't do much, if anything.

I've really avoided a lot of people because I'm afraid of repeats of a lot of things that have happened...being made of for liking "girly music", being insulted for not passing as a woman, etc. The older male who I mentioned in my post is someone I tried to avoid a number of times...one time I didn't avoid him, I foolishly gave him a telephone number. Oops! He's not a creep or anything, but I don't think he's the kind of friend I want right now because I can't be my true self around him. In fact, I think I'm trying to be a character or something when I'm talking to him, a person who is much more...I hate this word...redneck to go along with the masculinity (minus the accent). He does have the accent for it and various interests that resemble such, so I'm trying to adapt to the various interests, many of which I don't care about but I instead try to play them up so that I don't make him angry.

It's funny, I don't even want to be this person's friend, and yet I'm going out of my way to try it. It's probably out of desperation due to a complete lack of real-world friends. I guess if someone wants to talk with me, I'll play friendly with them.

I just wish I could feel comfortable with those actions...

I'm transgender (FTM) and genderqueer, and do not experience personality splits. But from what you described, it doesn't really sound like you're experiencing personality splits in the typical sense, either (though maybe there's more you're not describing, or maybe I'm misunderstanding). It's normal for people to express themselves differently around different people or different groups, and I think it's especially normal for trans people who are perhaps not totally comfortable with their gender expression or how other people perceive them. When you said this,

I saw your issue as more a lack of confidence in how others will react to your "real" personality. It sounds like you're acting in ways that feel safe but inauthentic around certain people rather than actually suffering from multiple personalities.

But that's just one person's interpretation of the little bit you wrote. If this is concerning you, it might not be a bad idea to see a therapist about it.

I shared this issue with a few people and they mentioned how this personality "splitting" is kind of normal. I do have a lot of confidence issues with people finding out about the real me, and I'd rather try to placate people instead of being myself since I don't know how they'd take the real me. Of course, an issue is that I don't even know who the real me is at times. Gender is irrelevant here; I merely have no clue who I'd like to be.

Believe me, I'm getting way more therapy than I probably need...this will definitely be the subject of my next session with my counselor. I know it's not a true multiple personalities thing because that would be a little more serious than what I've described. (I had to be careful not to word my subject in such a way to imply that gender-variants have them.)

Although I do mention it to a few friend-type persons every now and then, I'd rather not share my gender. However, now that I think about it, I realize I'm not sure what I'm more scared of...people finding out I'm gender-questioning or people finding out I'm on the autism spectrum. Regardless of whether I identified as transgender, no-gender, freak, or gender-questioning, I've tended to feel more ashamed about the idea of a person finding out that I'm autistic. Gender is typically the first thing that gets revealed, though (because it's kind of obvious sometimes), and I worry about people judging a book by its cover.

I don't know. Maybe this is something for another forum, seeing how this fear of outing myself as autistic is worse than outing myself as gender-questioning.

Nevertheless, thanks for your response; I found it very productive and thoughtful.

I know you probably won't believe me but this is common for MANY people.

Aspies in particular do have those "personality splits", it's not unique to them though.

And I personally don't believe you require a label for the gender issue you're experiencing.

I'm getting the sense you're biologically female, if you uncomfortable around this person when you're forcing yourself to be more masculine then you're almost forcing yourself to identify as gender questioning, too.

Nothing wrong with it, I just don't think people realize that folks who identify as cis-genedered experience these same things.

Oops, I didn't see your earlier post.

Sorry. That would have applied if you really were female.

If you identify as female I wouldn't try to forcing masculinity, unless you're just experimenting.

I see nothing wrong with being trans but when you (as in people) try to be everything to everyone they get...terribly confused, and I don't blame them.

Thanks for your postings, Expecially. Yeah, one of the things I was made aware of when talking to the few people I'm close about this is that it is normal for other people to feel that way.

I don't quite know how to respond to your postings, but I do know they are making me think and making me uncomfortable. Maybe at some point I'll be able to figure out how to feel okay with responding to them. Don't take the discomfort thing personally. It's just that sometimes I'm not used to opinions like that.

I didn't realize before that you were born male. Because of that and because you've taken hormones you are transgendered to me (although you can still identify as whatever you want to).

I was thinking you were a biological female who felt uncomfortable acting masculine but was still questioning their gender. I know I sounded like an as*hole anyway but honestly I see this kind of thing a lot and I personally do not view this kind of person as experiencing anything that different from what many people do. This was something that wasn't discussed for so long, people think if they experience any form of gender dysphoria they need a label or they just adopt one because they want to.

But I view your case as legitimate, I won't pretend I view everyone else's that way but I do apologize for making you feel uncomfortable.

Well I am bigender with a female and male personality that are seperate.

Heya Im also a Trans Aspie.

Yes its typical because you have a lot to deal with in a society and to a much lesser extent world
that dosnt recognize 1st gender people.
Yes its wrong to be fake... in our lives we don't have the luxury of being friends with everyone although we know we could be if we didn't have the specialities that we have.
To be a Trans Aspie is to unintentionally live in a glass box but not really care, Live your life with integrity and you will find someone who can live in your box and others who can live outside.

XOXO

I'm an FTM Aspie, and I didn't realize how exhausting it was to pretend to be female for so many years until I took the steps and transitioned.

I never experienced personality splits, but transitioning was a huge new world of learning who I really was. As a female, I felt like I was constantly acting.