23 year old AMAB. All my life, I’ve considered myself cisgender, but recently, I’ve begun questioning that. I’ll sometimes see posts like “if a potion/pill/button existed that could turn you into the opposite sex, would you use it?” and think to myself “Yeah, I’d be down to at least try that.” I know that doesn’t automatically make me trans, but it does make me question.
At the same time, however, I get a lot of euphoria from presenting as a man. When I start questioning my gender, I’ll look in the mirror, or at pictures of myself, and think “I look good with this masculine hairstyle”, “I like getting dressed up in a suit and tie”, or “I want to try growing a beard”. And the idea of being a father someday does bring me a lot of joy.
I’ve done a bit of research already, and based on my experience, I think I’ve narrowed my possible identities down to two options.
- Cisgender male who is just curious about the female experience
- Demiboy with a secondary identity of female
The thing is that I’m not sure where to go from here. This isn’t exactly a problem, since I feel no dysphoria when presenting as a male, so am comfortable living as cis in the meantime. But I would like to figure this out at some point, ideally sooner than later. Do any of you have any suggestions?
Side note: I’m currently living with my parents, and while they’re generally nice people, they hold some pretty transphobic views. I do expect to move out sooner than later, but anything that would require a totally safe physical space might have to wait.
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“if a potion/pill/button existed that could turn you into the opposite sex, would you use it?” and think to myself “Yeah, I’d be down to at least try that.” I know that doesn’t automatically make me trans, but it does make me question.
There is no minimal requirement to call yourself trans. I think it would be perfectly acceptable to call yourself trans even if you decide to do nothing about it. Also there is a pill to turn yourself into the opposite sex. It’s generally called HRT. It took me years to realize that.
As far as labels, for me at least, their use is mainly to communicate with others and explore yourself. They do not actually define who you are. You can even use multiple labels that seem mutually exclusive with each other. There are no hard and fast rules.
For where to go from here, explore how you want to present yourself. Do you want a more feminine or androgynous haircut? Get one and see how it feels. Different clothes? I can tell you there are androgynous clothes in the women’s section of stores that fit well on male bodies. The real point to to liberate yourself from others expectations and present yourself how you want to. That takes times, self-reflection on why you don’t do things you want to do, pushing your own boundaries and discovering yourself.
Thanks so much for the advice. I’m thinking I’ll hold off on exploring my presentations until I’ve found a better space for that, but I definitely will give it a try. In the meantime, I’ll try not to sweat over labels, and I guess kind of go with the flow.
I’ll confess, I knew about hormone replacement pills when I wrote this post, but they weren’t what I was thinking of when I mentioned pills. I was imagining some kind of fantasy pill where you take one, and you wake up the next morning in an entirely new body, complete with different organs. That’s kind of on me, though lol.
I audibly laughed, because yes, there is indeed a pill that does that. :)
So, I know this is an old post but I just want to say that this comment made me feel very valid. Thank you :)
This sounds familiar, I’m kinda the same way, I describe m’self as male as I happen to be that way, but if’n it changed tomorrow? Sure, why not, in fact several of my online characters are intersex, specifically the ones that I would be most happy becoming.
Yep, the ones that feel most right are a little from column A and a little from column B.
When it comes to sexuality, I’ve given up trying to figure that out, and simply refer to m’self as queer, since I think that and my gender are a bit mercurial, so an umbrella term that basically means not ‘normal’/traditional/standard seems best.Best I could say is do what makes you happy, and be patient, it’s a journey, sometimes one without an end, sometimes with, so just explore and enjoy.
Thank you. I’m definitely not trying to rush, because I realize this is something to handle delicately.
On the subject of sexuality, that’s actually something I’m quite certain of. I’m attracted to women and only women. Labeling that might be a little difficult if I do end up being NB, though.
Maybe “femme presenting people” would be a more accurate term than “women”?
I’m in a similar place to you in many ways, AMAB, cool with being cis but not really sure about it, mostly have my sexuality figured out (I think I do anyway). I personally say “femme people”, “femme bodies”, or the first example I gave to describe my sexual attraction, though I haven’t figured out other aspects like romantic and sensual attraction, still working on establishing those concepts in my mind.
I wouldn’t worry too much about getting labels exactly right, this is a messy conceptual space and English isn’t great for understanding it. Lots of terms that are common today were invented pretty recently online, and there are some weird linguistic quirks and assumptions that cause issues still (easy example: ‘they’ being a 3rd person singular pronoun still causes confusion among some people). I imagine our collective understanding of gender and whatnot will improve over time in new and unexpected ways, and as that happens the meaning of labels might shift too, or new ones will be created. Then again, if labels are important enough to you go ahead and worry about it.
Good luck on your journey!
Gender identity and expression are different things, but they can be hard to differentiate if you don’t have a strong sense of gender identity. It sounds like that’s the case for you. If you find it useful to call yourself a demiboy, like if you want to signal that you’re not super attached to man, go for it.
In language, the rules are made up and people don’t really care about the fine details anyway, so don’t get too stuck on technicalities of definitions. Demiboy or not, good luck on self discovery!
I’m also AMAB, but have recently started to question as well. I’ve been gravitating towards non-binary. There’s not much I generally like that much about being a man. But I don’t also want to be a woman, per se, although I do enjoy some feminine things. I’ve spent my whole live being shoved into boxes I don’t necessarily like being in and now I’m at the point where I want to define for myself, what want and where I stand.
As far as gender expression goes, my best friend has helped me find the courage to try different clothes that express myself more. I’ve gained quite some weight over the years, which has resulted in a lot of body dismorphia, more than I already had. I do want to wear some more feminine clothing, but that does seem to intensify that. And started new medication since those years that partly caused this and I’m too depressed and have too little energy to do much about it. But I’m making small steps.
Apart of feeling shame of what men are generally responsible for in society. This more explains why I’ve always been more or less uncomfortable being a man in any sense of it.
I’m also terrible insecure and really need to find my identity in the broad sense of the word. It’s the only way I’ll be able to find some footing.
I hope you find what you’re looking for. The journey is interested nonetheless.
Oh and the thing about attraction. For me now it’s generally femme-presenting people. There is an encompassing label for it, nb people liking femme-presenting people but I mean nobody knows it and I’d have to look it up haha.
We’ll get there :D.
Hey I’m a transfem and as I’ve dove more into practical styles? A LOT of the women’s looks I like are so masculine and so tomboy that these women are literally wearing men’s clothes. Lmao. It’s like horseshoe theory but for gender.
A genre of look that’s been liberating for me is “Visibly Queer” - this is someone who, well for one doesn’t avoid transphobia, but is wearing something prrtty atypical. Beard + skirt, or masculine look + makeup, manbun, feminine shoes. Hell even past mainstream looks for men, like skinny jeans + oversized tee. And I’ve started at what is obviously queer and kind of… shaved that down into something I would say “yeah a man would never wear this” … but they have, and some do. Sometimes really subtle items can calm my dysphoria without making a problem for transphobes over my presentation.
