Important to note: I have OCD, and I seem to have this obsession with the idea of me being transphobic. I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have known this for years, and I try my best to support everyone. I have a lot of trans friends, I love them a lot, and treat them and see them as I would anyone else.
So, I feel like I’m transphobic. Is there any evidence of this? No. I’ve been a vocal supporter about LGBTQ+ rights for years (online), including trans rights, but I’ve recently become increasingly anxious at the thought of me being transphobic.
This likely stems from my questioning of my own gender, often times I feel that I am not quite male, maybe that I’m nonbinary or genderfluid. I mentioned this to my nonbinary friend, and they said “you don’t seem nonbinary”. This sent me spiraling, questioning my own gender and identity, and questioning if I was transphobic for believing that I was nonbinary (or possibly genderfluid, as at times I feel very comfortable being male, but at others I feel a lot more feminine).
At some point, I have to accept the fact that this is delusion, but I still really feel like I need guidance/assurance. I do not really know what to do about this.
(ANOTHER WORRY I HAVE is acting so paranoid and making it seem like I think trans people are going to cancel me and ruin my life if I say anything wrong, like a lot of transphobic people claim and act like. This is NOT AT ALL my intention, but I know I probably come off that way.)
I tell myself I am not nonbinary because my nonbinary friend said so, and them as a real nonbinary person are a better authority on subject than me as a cisgender man. (I know this logic is flawed but I cannot change my thoughts that easily even when I know this is not logical.)
What does being nonbinary mean to you, specifically?
Well, how most people define it as the gender identity that is not strictly the man or the woman.
The way that I thought I was, before my friend told me otherwise, was that I was mostly male but had some not binary elements in the gender? (Apologies for the bad English.) Like, sometimes I feel very masculine and I like looking and being seen as male, but other times I feel much less masculine and I want to wear things like skirts and paint my nails and have the long hair.
So is it about liking different things at different times for you, then? Like, how you feel about your gender expression changes over time?
Also, how do you feel about your body? When you like expressing yourself more feminine, do you mind your body being masculine at all, or is it purely the presentation part of gender?
It changes very often, like some days I feel like a man and some days I feel less like a man and some days I feel barely like a man.
I have never actually expressed myself femininely outside of growing out my hair (which many people in my life dislike.). I do not mind having a masculine body, I would prefer it over a feminine body, I just wish I could express myself differently sometimes when I want to.
Thanks for sharing that, that helps me understand you a lot better!
I’m definitely not trying to tell you how you feel, that’s for you to know for yourself, and you definitely know more about yourself that I do from just reading your comments.
However, that said,
sounds a lot to me like being genderflux - meaning your gender oscillates between one gender (male, in your case) and agender (not having a gender at all) or possibly some other nonbinary identity, depending on what you mean by ‘not a man’, without ever crossing onto the other side of the spectrum.
The fact that you prefer having a masculine body over a feminine body suggests to me that you’re at least masculine of center, rather than transfeminine, but you could still be various forms of nonbinary that are masculine of center - agender, genderflux, demiboy, etc.
And it’s also important to note that gender presentation is not the same as gender identity - you can want to express yourself in ways typically called ‘feminine’ without wanting to have a female body, and without being a woman - if you’re not.
But all in all, these are just guesses, are any of my suggestions helpful in understanding your identity? Do any of those terms resonate with you?
Thank you so much, you have no idea what this comment means to me. You taught me many new words that I will now spend hours researching while I should be sleeping xDDD.
Thank you for your kindness and understanding :))))
Do you know how can I get rid of the feeling that I am being fake because I do not seem nonbinary?
I’ve got to sleep too, unfortunately, but please remind me to come back to this in the morning :3
One thing maybe you could tell me is what you mean by you don’t ‘seem’ nonbinary? Like, you don’t present androgynous/fem enough? To me, what you’ve said about not feeling male all the time seems to indicate that you are nonbinary at least in some form - and you don’t need to look a certain way to be a gender
I am leaving this here so in the morning you can see this.
I searched up some things about genderflux and found a Reddit post asking about it, and the top comment is a long one that explains it a lot. Would you say this is good?
So then I might be genderflux masculine? As in sometimes I am more masculine than other times? I do not have the exact vocabulary to describe what it is when I feel less masculine, I do not know if agender is the right term or not (absence of gender I think is the description?)
Also, I am thinking, should I talk to my friend about this and what they said? I don’t think they even remember saying it or me mentioning that I feel that I may be nonbinary. I don’t think they would disagree that I am nonbinary if I talk to them about this, considering they know more about genders than me.
Also, another question about vocabulary that I have is that can transgender and nonbinary be used together? My friend (like me maybe) identifies with multiple labels such as nonbinary and also transgender and gender qu–r (I don’t know if that is the good word to say, if it’s not, I will delete it.). They identify and present more masculine and nonbinary. As the comment on the post I linked says, nonbinary is an “umbrella term” that can incorporate any gender that is not just male or just female or that is not male or female (if the information is accurate, which upon further research, it might be.) Can transgender and nonbinary then be co identitys? (Sorry if that made no sense.)
Talking to people here made me feel really much more confident and comfortable with the idea that I may be not just or not entirely or not always a man (still researching vocabulary), and I am very very grateful that I did this and can get these supports :)))
I present entirely masculine, and have my whole life. The only experimenting I can do, really, is with the hair and maybe wearing lighter colors. I don’t want any body in the real life to suspect that I may be transgender (this is not out of my own transphobia but their).