am_i_a_girl_or_a_boy looking for a name tell me. I can tell you about me, if you like. first: this is the part that is kind of hazy. we'll talk 0-10. I don't really remember what happened. I was a girl, I guess, though I don't remember how much that had to do with it. I had short hair (my choice or my parents'? not sure.) and no friends and kids sometimes teased me about my androgyny. second: oh my god puberty. oh dear lord high school. I only remember feeling embarrassed most of the time. I wore a skirt for two years (coercion) and felt kind of awkward about it. At my elementary school graduation my mom made me wear this dress thing and I only remember feeling awful. I guess you are supposed to grow out of that sort of thing, but I can still sympathize pretty heartily. Maybe for me to become a good girl, someone was supposed to tell me how to use makeup and go shopping with me and buy me clothes and tell me What to Wear? someone bought me nail polish and a dress or two when I was 13 and I never wore any of it. so basically the entire thing was a disaster in terms of Girl Training. I like boys. really a lot. They don't like me probably. Never asked. I am shy and terrified. third: so at this point I'm 18, more or less girl-identified but pretty unhappy about this girl thing, everyone I meet thinks I am a boy, and I like boys. so I turn to a decent-sized library of gender studies books. I read Bornstein's Gender Workbook, I read Stone Butch Blues, I read... more or less everything I can find, I think. I everything about and by transmen and butches I can get my hands on and think about it for a while. Maybe three years or so. I am really fascinated and intrigued, and really fucking hoping there is a place somewhere in this mess of identities for me. mostly I am hoping I will turn a page and somebody will tell me who I am, which in retrospect is a silly thing to hope for. I still do it, though. so I think maybe I am trans? but I want to be a boy even less than I want to be a girl. and i try to find other things, but I think they are not really there. I have a crush on a gay boy. This ends up with me dating a girl for two years (not the same person). We break up, for reasons unrelated to anyone's gender. She doesn't like that people read us as a hetero couple. I am not sure. I mess around a bit. An auto insurance company thinks I am trying to impersonate myself because I fucked with my pronouns on an application form, and give me a hard time. these days: Everybody I meet thinks I am a boy. Everybody I know thinks I am a girl. I don't feel completely okay about using public washrooms. I haven't shaved my legs in five years and feel okay about it. I've never worn makeup. I don't own any nice clothes because they are so gendered, and I am not sure what to buy. i identify as bisexual but am mostly into guys. People mostly think I am a lesbian. I am not sure what I think, these days. I feel like if I told this story to the Cultural Norms Jury, they would decide that I needed some good hetero-girl training, and once I got over some really extended adolescent awkwardness, I would make a really good Girl. So that sounds like a sort of problematic appraisal, and I want to dismiss it as bullshit, because this whole talk of being a Girl really does make me really uncomfortable, and I'm really strongly opposed to pathologizing gender discomfort (trying to 'cure' trans people etc). i am terrified that this appraisal is correct and I would be happier with some sort of magical Girl training. I don't know what that means. I do not really see the Girl Training sticking, though. mostly I am looking for ways to feel okay about my gender. also I don't feel okay about talking to people about this so I guess I am talking to blather. 090714 ... looking for a name oh my, that was longer than I thought. sorry, blather! 090714 ... jane i've not gone through it to the extent you have, but you should know that there are others out here who can relate on a broad level. before i tell you my story i want to say something very important to you: gender is an illusion society has created to compartmentalize people. i believe there is an infinite number of genders; not just "male" and "female." even with sex, we have more than just male and female, especially on a chromosomal level. keep this in mind. ever since i was a child i knew i was different. i knew i wasn't straight or gay before i even knew what these things were. this made growing up complicated because i was also a very sexual child, and it's not easy to express that sexuality at such an age. i have done my share of experimentation and identified as bisexual for years now. i came out to my parents when i was 13 years old. i found out that there are many girls/women that consider themselves bisexual but not to the length and timespan that i had. these days i find it easier to identify as queer. but that's the beauty of it, of all these terms - instead of trying to mold myself to what the definition was, i was able to find a term to better suit me. and maybe there isn't a term that suits you enough, but you can make one up. maybe there's one you haven't heard yet (gender-queer? i just learned about that one in the past year). but don't be stuck in this box just because you feel you must. how about just being yourself, and if you want to be with someone, then they will love you for you. i can tell you honestly without knowing you that i admire you for your introspection and self-awareness, your striving for knowledge on issues that affect you, and your pursuits of self-betterment and understanding. hopefully that will make you feel a little better about where you are. and if you ever want to discuss more about it, let me know. i'd be happy to converse with you. 090715 ... hsg we're like 99.999999999% human_beings and like 0.000000001% male_female i think that's why people get confused. cuz we're told that guys wear this and girls wear that. that guys can't cry and girls can't fuck. differences are exaggerated (to an unnatural and unhealthy point) divide_and_conquer but rome fell and we're not all that different. i've met many gender_other people who are a LOT more comfortable w/i themselves than most people are who try to accentuate the differences. 090715 ... Lemon_Soda http://www.misfile.com/ Start from the begining 090716 ... minnesota_chris I'm liking what jane wrote. Anyone who is trying to tell you how all men or all women should behave is not a good friend. 090716 ... becks i am anatomically a boy. and most of the time that's fine. but sometimes I fantasize about being a woman. Some of my earliest fantasies, when I was going through puberty, were about me being a woman. The other day (i'm in my mid/late 20s now) I went onto a chat room and talked to a 15 yo guy who was horny. I pretended I was a 21 f and I gave him a nice explicit description of what I'd like to do with him. He loved it, bless him. So for me it's not so much about gender as sex. I don't feel like a girl trapped in man's body - I like being a man! I work out, I don't fancy boys, I don't dress like a girl. Although sometimes I've worn womens underwear when I'm horny. I love going down on girls, a submissive side of me I think. But I also love fucking. I don't see boys as attractive, but I love the idea of sucking cock. I think just because that fantasy reinforces the idea that I'm a woman, plus it's submissive so it hits two buttons. I agree with jane (lovely post by the way) that gender is a sliding scale. I really have no idea where I fit. and like I said, this side only comes out occasionally. most of the time I'm just a normal guy, checking out womens asses and watching porn. But other times idk. it's just a fantasy I have. 090717 ... . "consider two seemingly non-lethal effects of these environmental hormone-mimics, attention deficit (Jacobson, Chanda, Perea 2002) and hyperactivity disease (over one in ten children has this today) or infertility (which has risen over 50% in the last two decades). Or consider much more subtle symptoms which are counterproductive for society, such as the inability to handle stress, uncontrollable violence, increased mental disease, decreased intelligence, drug addiction, schizophrenia, gender confusion and the loss of normal parental instincts. Environmental hormone mimics, with plastics and pesticides at the top of the list, although not the sole causes, have a huge impact on the developing child, as well as his parents. The financial and social burdens of this filters to all of society." http://www.lifestylelaboratory.com/articles/rogers-ch1pt4.html 090721 ... silentbob I am xy, identify as hetero male (not at all attracted to dudes) but do not at all identify with masculinity in almost any way and get really annoyed when anyone looks at me strange for acting like a girl at a beatles concert about my obsessions (indie twee pop, romantic comedies, rejection of sports). 090728 ... Ouroboros I have a friend who refuses to identify as a male or female- my friend is (self- described) gender neutral/genderqueer and embraces the characteristics of both sexes that fits who they are, without identifying with one or the other. 090729 what's it to you? who go blather from