Oh Hey, I'm Genderfluid

So we're getting a little personal today, but yes. I'm genderfluid.

What does that mean? It's different for everyone, but essentially it's how it sounds. My gender is fluid and changes/fluctuates all over the gender spectrum.

The best way I've seen this, and honestly gender in general described, is via this venn quadragram someone made that I saw online:

I've seen other diagrams, like grids and such with notations for presentation, but I really liked this because it went into compound gender/agender and masc/femme dichotomies and spread them apart, which I think is the most comprehensive, and the ability to shade in areas that include multiple.

Below you can see how I filled it out.

So as you can see, I do still tend towards the femme side, but even at my most feminine, I still don't feel 100% femme/woman. Often the gender I feel most in those cases is either "cute" or "hot" lol. Even when I had long hair and looked/dressed more traditionally feminine, it still felt like... I was somehow on the outside looking in on everyone else who presented as femme/woman. But I also didn't identify strongly as a man or boy, even when I felt masculine.

Mostly I felt and feel in a flux between those two ends of the spectrum. Okay with my body and what came with it (for the most part) but feeling that a combination of femme and masc best fit me. In fact, I used to think this was how everyone felt. Why else was there a yin-yang? Wasn't that supposed to represent both the feminine and masculine energy in everyone?

I went to go look up the yin-yang to see if I was correct. Turns out, it's actually supposed to show two separate entities that still work with each other, or cannot exist without the other? So more of the differences and dualism? In either case, it seems female/male is more the division, as separate people, and the traits as such within (although a woman could have more yang energy and vice versa). So... I guess not the same as how I thought.

But still! The fact that I saw a yin-yang, heard it represented balance and both men/women, and interpreted that as "oh, so everyone should have a little of both in them to be balanced" probably... probably spoke a lot to how I viewed my own gender as a kid and a teen.

My ideal state, as I mentioned above, is firmly in androgyny. A little bit of both, mixed together. I definitely partake in this via presentation and expression. But again, it fluctuates. As a child I think I felt pretty firmly as a girl, or at least I didn't have much conflict until I went to school and was met with Baby's First Sexism. And the way I lived and practiced "girlhood" wasn't too out of the ordinary. I liked pink, playing with dolls, dresses, flowers, long hair, I hated getting dirty. But things changed after 1st grade. And they've kept changing. I didn't really question my assigned gender since I didn't know there was any other option, and I wasn't entirely uncomfortable in it either. Again, I thought my view of yin-yangs solved everything. But there were hints. I often wondered how I'd look as a boy (and also wished I was a boy at times since life seemed easier as one) fantasized about having short hair, and my alter ego characters were all relatively androgynous and had boy-short hair. My favorite sailor scouts had short hair, and I was really drawn to Sailor Uranus without knowing a large part of her arc was her presenting as a guy. I liked stories of girls who disguised themselves as boys. I didn't like extremely feminine clothing, and I cross-dressed for the first time for a drama project in 10th grade and loved it. But again, I still enjoyed stereotypically feminine things as well. So I didn't question my gender. That didn't start happening until after I'd graduated college, when I first read about non-binary. I remembered reading a post where someone described how they could feel a different gender on different days. I initially didn't understand how this could work or happen. But it stuck with me, clearly, as I still remember it years later.

Shortly after learning about non-binary genders and what it meant, I remember looking up, with a mild sense of panic, androgyne as a gender. Taking quizzes to see if that's what I was. Asking my friends if having both feminine and masculine attributes, like being assertive, competitive, loud, and enjoying the outdoors, made me not entirely a girl. I was reminded of a thought experiment in college where I had asked my first mistake what he would do if he woke up in a girl's body, and would he still have sex with me if I was suddenly in a boy's body. I didn't have a problem either way, but he seemed put off by the latter which I didn't fully understand. After all, it would still be me. (this honestly should have been a clue to my bisexuality as well but that's for another post).

I ended up dropping the gender-panic after being told I could still be a girl with masculine attributes, and I rationalized that to myself for the next five years. I was just an androgynous woman. A gender-nonconforming woman. A balanced person with both femme and masc traits and attributes who didn't like wearing makeup everyday. I wore men's clothing because I thought it suited me more. The first day I tried on shirts from the Old Navy men's section I was elated with the fit, and my friend complimented me by describing me as genderfluid, but I didn't view it as a gender, more a presentation. I kept getting my hair cut short, and when I finally got it boy-short and buzzed on the sides, that elation hit again. Finally, like this was how I was supposed to look. How I was meant to look.

But I still viewed myself as cisgender. And I didn't start really questioning it until I started having conversations about gender with a close friend of mine who ended up coming out as non-binary, especially around the societal view of gender. And in the past year in particular, I spent a lot of time mulling it over. Thinking about my gender and gender overall. What did it mean to be a woman? Or a man? Or non-binary? Why is a masculine trait masculine? What makes femininity feminine? Weren't these just regular character traits? Why did they have to be gendered? And did people really stick to such gendered traits so rigidly? I think one of the benefits of feminism is the encouragement of any and all types of women, including masculine women. But I also remember reading about people who wished that heroines weren't stripped of their femininity and were still allowed to be badass and stereotypically feminine, and I remembered thinking... but I can't relate as much to that. And so much of feminism has iconography revolved around makeup and heels and dresses and wine and pink and purple and long hair. And while those things are all good and well... they didn't feel representative of me and how I felt and expressed myself.

Ultimately I came to the conclusion that gender was fake and socially constructed. We invented masculinity and femininity. So we should be allowed to innovate it. I found the label that best described me was genderfluid. It didn't invalidate the part of me that still identified as girl, but it still made space for when I felt more androgynous, or more masculine, or maybe neither and not really anything. And it didn't invalidate my history as well. I find the label offers me more flexibility and room to fully be myself however I want to be, and I've been the happier for it.

So there you have it. Pretty much my entire gender journey and identity, or at least a summary of it. My pronouns are they/them and she/her, and while I'm still fine with she/her, I do strongly prefer they/them. And while labels aren't necessary to validate your gender identity or experience, I do enjoy having one.

Hopefully though they will invent a concise word for my real gender, which is invoking confusion and arousal simultaneously in as many people as possible.