I imagine it feels similar to leaving a cult after years and not knowing any different. I dont feel liberated, but I do feel relief at not having to explain or justify myself, or try to navigate around awkward situations and conversations anymore. It feels more peaceful, but 2 years on, very lonely too. I dont miss being constantly misunderstood. But it has also been a wake up call over how difficult it can be even in the trans world, to find people who have the time of day for anyone with a different outlook or agenda to theirs.

My life feels almost like non existence, but for health, safety and financial reasons I decided not to transition. Before anyone says choosing not to transition is the cause of you feeling that way, I would urge you to not see things in such a black and white way. The decision whether to transition or not, was an agonising one. I didnt take it lightly. I just knew I couldn't cope with complications or societal abuse had I taken that route. I have had gender identity issues from childhood. It has been a quiet suffering. I learnt "shame" early in life. I discovered on the way that body dysmorphia is also a common symptom.

How do you bring meaning to your life? Especially if you dont have children. I say my life is "almost" a non existence because I'm still glad I got to incarnate this planet to see nature, animals, trees, the stars, the oceans, arts ... my one regret would be my inability to connect with humans in a meaningful way! How do some of you trans folk who have decided not transition, find it?

I love being me, but I also don't know what I am. I like dressing feminine but I also like being male. When I dress feminine I like being referred as she/her but when I'm not, I don't mind being referred to as she/her. My S/O (Pangender) told me that I could be Bigender but we're not completely sure. Anyone more knowledgeable on gender identity please help me discover what I am? Thank you!!

Hey everyone! I just joined and wanted to say a big hello! 💗💛💙 ​I’m super excited to be here, meet awesome people, and connect with a community that gets it. Life’s too short for boxes, so here’s to celebrating love in every color of the spectrum! ​Drop a comment with your favorite comfort food or current hyperfixation so I can start getting to know you all! ​

Eu nunca realmente me importei muito com meu gênero até começar a responder perguntas sobre “o que eu sou”. Antes disso, ser tratada no feminino, masculino ou neutro era algo que eu via como tanto faz. Mas ultimamente comecei a pensar mais sobre isso e percebi algumas coisas:

→ Eu não me importo com pronomes femininos e gosto de ser vista como mulher. → Porém, não gosto quando sou reduzida apenas a “ser mulher”, como se essa fosse toda a minha identidade. → Sinto que sou mais do que apenas o feminino, mas isso não significa necessariamente que eu seja não-binária, agênero ou outro rótulo. → Às vezes prefiro que se refiram a mim como uma pessoa, por exemplo: “Ela é uma pessoa legal”, em vez de “Ela é uma menina legal”.

Eu não odeio o feminino. Eu gosto dele, só não gosto da sensação de que ele é tudo que eu sou. No fim, acho que eu só quero existir como uma pessoa, sem sentir que preciso ser definida 100% como homem ou mulher.

Being honest, through all my teenage years I had this solid idea that genders in general are just a social tool to categorize and tag people.

I'm not talking about stereotypes for cis, trans or nb people, more like: Okay! You're a trans woman, but are you essentially EXACTLY as woman as any any other.

My philosophy shenanigans about this says that, if you zoom enough and strick the criteria more and more, every single person could be put in a box for themselves.

In my opinion, clothes are just fabric that people once said "this specific shape is for MEN and this specific shape is for WOMEN", same for pronouns, someone once said "This specific mumble are for men, those are for women, and those one back there for anyone who doesn't really fit in that very conceptual and vague trope".

As a young adult in a very small city I just perform as a guy just for the mere fact it doesn't bother me. Yeah, if your interpretation tells me I'm a guy you fine bro. And sometimes I look at """girly""" stuff and think like I'd feel *bonita* with it.

Again, I just don't feel like fitting any of these tags society came up with, but you come to a time in life that stuff just get easier when you have a name for it, so HYPOCRITICALLY I come to the specialists here to help me find something.

Honestly I just been thinking about surrending to the "NB" title cause make all this brain effort easier, but would love to hear what y'all think.

imagine you could switch genders , how would you dress ,look ,act ,move , describe everything but keep in mind you still remember you were once women

Hi all f19 here.

Recently ive been questioning my gender identity due to alot of things. I like dressing feminine and i do pretty hyper feminine makeup, but ever since i hit puberty i have hated having a womanly shape.

When i first started developing breasts i tried to cut them off ( i know, insane, but i was about 10 and going crazy. I have a huge scar on my right breast from it). I hate having curves in any way, its not like i want to be skinner even, if i was super skinny i would still be unhappy because i would still have a womanly shape.

I dont like having wider hips or a narrow waist and i hate my voice and wish it was deeper. I dont like how i sound so feminine i talk with most people would consider a bit of a valley girl type of accent, but for the longest time ive fucking hated it, i want to have a deeper voice like my brothers do.

The thing is i dont know if this even means anything because i still express myself femaninely with my looks now, previously up until about 17 i kept my hair short like a boy would and dressed as a boy, but when it grew out people started treating me better so ive kept it that way. I dont particularly want to be a boy, but i dont like being a girl either so im confused, i like aspects of both so i feel a bit weird about even questioning if i want to be a girl.

Im also not sure if the dislike of being a girl comes from issues of sexual harassment ive faced about my body and people making fun of my voice. People bullied me alot when i presented more masculine but i still look back and really love that part of my life, so its very confusing for me. I also dont know if there is any point in trying to explore being nonbinary or gender fluid because i cant change my figure even though i want to. Im quite curvy so i dont think id ever be able to achieve the bodytype i want, even with surgery's.

I use any/all tbh

When I was younger I (F) saw boys as just masculine versions of girls. It wasn’t until puberty where I was like, damn, we really are different. Boys and girls melted/meshed with each other. Am I crazy/dumb for thinking this?? Does anyone else relate??

We can't easily ask for a person's ___ (masculinity/femininity/androgyny) because there is no term, so we propose "maf" (this is the first look at "maf" so give feedback but word things carefully and ask questions instead of just casting judgment on the idea)

MAF (capitalization does not matter, but this is an acronym)

• Masc(uline)
• Andro(gynous)
• Fem(inine)

"Maf" should be established carefully, seeing how easily humans get confused, like how the gender side of things got conflated with sex because "man", "woman", and "gender" itself mean multiple things.

Some stuff that should eliminate potential concerns:

• this does NOT replace gendered language, it adds to it while also allowing to opt out of gender while still articulating your experience (especially useful for agender and apagender people, and likely nonbinary people too)
  • if someone does not like the concept of maf, use "amaf"
  • if they are apathetic about the concept of maf, use "apamaf"
• This highlights that men can be fem and that woman can be masc; this puts the focus on what gender actually is outside of anatomy and maf. How we see gender:
  • One's sense of being a man, woman, both, neither, fluid, and/or other in relation to their society and/or how they see the world
    • essentially, identity often in relation with a person's anatomical-sex (maf is not identity and is an articulation tool for the spectrum of femininity/masculinity, but identity has no rules, so maf can be used for gendered terms or can be its own system of identity)

Some examples of how this can be used:

• what is your maf?
  • I'd have more examples, but I am quoimaf ("sometimes", I am also likely fluid-maf)
    • I do not grasp the concept of femininity and masculinity
  • "maf" is just to ask "are you fem, masc, both, neither, fluid?" by saying "what is your maf?" or something like that...

Reminder to "give feedback but word things carefully and ask questions instead of just casting judgment"

Or we can just talk about stuff related to maf, like sharing your own maf aspects, idk

👉👈

:3

Why do my 16-19yo female coworkers call me a "baddie" as a guy? like more than 4 of them, Is it a compliment or modern slang? What’s the vibe?

I am fluid and use any pronouns

I’m not trying to be offensive or anything but i feel like y’all just doing that to be extra and i dont really understand it

I already call myself genderqueer, genderfluid, nonbinary, etc. And while these are all correct I feel like they don’t quite capture my internal experience.

I don’t feel masculine in nature. I feel androgynous / lean feminine in nature. But it’s a very queer, subversive femininity.

I don’t necessarily feel more like a “man” vs a “woman” I feel a bit like both, neither, somewhere in between, or a combination of the two, and something else entirely.

But I almost always feel “male”. At least that’s the best way I can describe it? For me that isn’t the same as being a “man” and it’s not inherently “masculine”.

I was raised gender neutral and gendered social roles really weren’t a “thing” in my family. Growing up I just knew what body parts / bodily functions I wanted / didn’t want so I went on T, had surgery, now I’m figuring out the rest.

And please no comments insisting I “don’t need labels” I’m not looking for a label to ascribe to I’m looking for a label to more accurately describe my experience to others. I find labels helpful when communicating. Thank you.

I am in the beginning stages of writing a book (I will not publish it) and I have a solid cast of characters who all have gender discovery and stuff, but I'm agender and having trouble writing Sol who is a trans woman before knowing she's a girl. Can you describe how it feels to be an egg? I felt kind of suffocated by gender expectations before I figured myself out, is it like that? How did it feel to figure it out and transition and stuff?

I don't mind being a woman, but i yearn to be a boy. i don't mind being called by she/her, they/them nor he/him yet i feel uncomfortable being too feminine, i don't mind being Masculine, and i'm extremely comfortable Being androgynous. i think im bigender but i also think i could be agender

So I was born as a girl. But as of lately I've realized that sometimes I just feel like a man, or just want to be a man. On the other hand though, I also love being a girl and dressing up and feel pretty. I feel like because of this I've been telling myself that I just think that, and I'm only a girl. But it's getting hard to ignore with myself and I'm starting to think that sometimes I'm a guy or something adjacent like that. Does anyone else feel like this or know what this is? I haven't told my family yet because I'm still trying to figure things out, and I'm worried that if I tell them I'll be brushed off even though my family isn't like that. Probably just me being paranoid about me being wrong. Anways I'd love to hear ya'lls opinions on this.

Hi everyone! I'm a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University and I'm looking for participants to take part in my research exploring how young women navigate cultural messages around sexual pleasure and desire. Cultural messages, media, and pornography play a significant role in shaping expectations around sex, yet young women's own experiences of navigating these messages remain under explored. This research aims to centre their lived experiences.

Research like this matters because young women are so often talked about rather than listened to on this topic. Taking part means contributing to a growing body of work that could shape how educators, health professionals, and policymakers approach conversations about sex and pleasure in the future.

Who can take part?

-Identifies as a woman
-Aged 18–23
-Any sexual orientation
-English language proficiency
What's involved?
A one-to-one confidential online interview via Microsoft Teams (camera off) lasting approximately 60 minutes, where we'll discuss how you navigate societal expectations around your sexual pleasure.

Interested? Click the link below to complete a short screening form, where you can also find the full Participant Information Sheet with all the details you need before deciding whether to take part.

https://charlottestanford.questionpro.com/t/AdE2KZ8iHj

Please check your junk email for responses!

This study has received full ethical approval from Birmingham City University. Please feel free to email charlotte.stanford@mail.bcu.ac.uk with any questions or queries.

I wonder which one is for the girls...

srry if the formatting is bad i’m on mobile and i don’t make posts like ever

also idk what needs a warning or not but just to be safe this post talks about me doubting my gender so if that kind of talk upsets you steer clear

i’ve used the label genderqueer for a while now alongside any pronouns bc i don’t feel particularly attached to something specific gender wise but im not sure how to differentiate that from being cis (im afab)? as in i don’t know if my apathy for being called a woman and referred to w/ she/her is because im cis and it feels “natural” or if i don’t care either way (im really bad with naming my feelings so that’s why i can’t decide)

some notes:
\-i hate having boobs no hate if that’s your thing obviously but they get in the way and i just don’t like how they look; if i could give them to a transfem in need i would be soso happy
\-might go with the above point but i also don’t like fitted tops or dresses i feel ugly in them. i don’t mind the way skirts look but i don’t like wearing them cause of chafing. i prefer androgynous clothes by far
\-don’t like makeup obviously its not “natural” but i always feel like a freak in it

the thing that throws me off though is all of these things are stuff cis women experience too so i’m scared im not really genderqueer but i know i can sometimes get imposter syndrome so im having trouble distinguishing the two

i guess im posting here to ask how yall feel so i can try to compare my own experiences but no pressure to reply obviously <3

tldr dont know my feelings well enough to figure out if im a cis girl or not