So I’ve had this longstanding thing where I don’t really know if I am cis or trans. In some ways I feel that I come across as cis, because I’m DFAB and have no dysphoria and like my body as it is so I’m not doing a physical transition and I use she/her pronouns. But in other ways I feel trans because I’m Butch (although Butches can definitely be cis) and also non-binary and have a lot of boy feelings sometimes. It’s been really confusing. I talked in my video Boi Oh Boi about when I was going to transition to male and how I changed my mind because I still feel like I have a lot of girl in me too. Like there are aspects of femininity I like, like wearing pinks and nail polish and stuff, but also just woman feels and things, and there’s a comfort in having a foot in women’s identity stuff. So staying with the body type and characteristics I have now is totally fine for me. I like my breasts, I don’t really want to bind. I know I give off masculine vibes and lovers are hesitant to touch my chest in case it sets of some kind of dysphoria for me, but that’s really not an issue for me. Sometimes I like packing but not often. It’s just a whatever Butch gender that is pretty fluid and shifts from time to time. Like sometimes I go through really more masculine phases than other times.
But I’m pretty sure non-binary genders fall under the trans umbrella, which means so do I. I’m sure there are truscum who would disagree because I don’t have dysphoria or any intention to transition medically. It seems weird to call myself trans, because sometimes I feel like there are people who have more of a right to that title. And I know some trans people really don’t like non-binary folks because of whatever reasons they have for not liking people who don’t fit in the binary. AND I still use she/her pronouns which seems to go against the fact that part of the time I feel like a man. But I don’t know, it’s weird, to feel like both genders are present and operating together in me. And I’ve been going back and forth between cis and trans because to most people I seem like a masculine woman. BUT I also really think the internal gender stuff I’ve got going on does not fit with the cis label. Which only leaves me with trans.
It’s funny too because the other identity labels I really relate to are two-spirit, Butch, and Lesbian. And sometimes I wonder if those all fit together. I know Lesbian is a sexuality and not a gender, and since I do feel non-binary (and with some definitely female gender stuff) and only attracted to women, it seems to still fit for me. Two spirit fits because of being First Nations AND queer and my non-binary gender. And I think Butch just fits as like, a gender all it’s own. I was trying to change my gender on Facebook to Butch when they brought out the varied gender options a few years ago, but the closest I could get was two-spirit, which was disappointing.
Once I was dating someone and we were walking down the street and she suddenly turned to me and demanded to know if I was a boy. Like it was kind of funny actually, she sounded really suspicious. And I said no I didn’t think so. But you know, for a long time I’ve felt like it just floats through my body now and then. But it’s still not present enough for me to go get hormones or even change my pronouns. People always check in with me to see what pronouns I am currently using and they’re still she/her, but I appreciate that my gender gets noticed.
So anyway, this blog post was just about me finally conceding the fact that I am not cis. I had a friend who I used to talk about this with, and he always kind of suggested that I seemed to land on the trans spectrum. And I was never sure. But transgender isn’t the exact same as transsexual (although they overlap), it’s more of an umbrella term. So yeah. That’s where I stand at the moment.
Like last time, TERF comments are gonna be deleted.
Oy!
Yeah, lots to consider there. Of course you could always ignore labels that others try to fit you into and just be you.
I feel similarly about masculinity. There’s a spectrum there of behaviour styles and such and a lot of it has to do with expectations that a culture has. A man who would be considered “kinda femmy” in some places would in a room full of queens be thought of as “straight acting”.
Oh, and I had to look up DFAB and TERF. Your blog is educational.