What gender are you?

[Luca]

Female but have pretty fluid/neutral identity and I’m also a lesbian.

My gender expression varies a lot in terms of appearance, I have long hair and I love wearing dresses and makeup but I also love wearing men’s athletic clothes and sneakers.

I would say that most of my interests are at least neutral but a lot skew towards stereotypically male interests.

I have struggled with gender identity a lot because it’s really hard to fit me into a specific box.

 

[MildredHubble]

Oh seriously same.

Back when I was in elementary school, I seriously thought that one day I'd just wake up and be a girl and just start going to school like that.

I remember even imagining explaining it to my teacher and telling her that I just woke up like this.

I also went so far as to look up and try and cast magic spells online that said they'd turn me into a girl.

They didn't, so instead I'll be stuck with hormones and all that stuff that takes a long time rather than the instant transformation of my childhood wishes.

This is so much like what I would picture in my head too! I'd just wake up, or I'd be unwell and in my mind a doctor would diagnose that I was just morphing into my true gender. I'd get a note to take with me to school and that would be that.

 

[Ella Spell]

I'm a floating consciousness with billions of sensory receptors.

Otherwise known as human.

I consider my brain non-binary.

I don't feel like my brain has a gender, and I never really did.

I accept that my body is female and I'm fine with that, considering I've had babies.

I'm only attracted to men as partners, but I know orientation is different than gender.

 

[Progster]

Biologically female, but mentally I don't identify with any particular gender, it's not a 'thing' for me. I'm just a person, just me.

 

[VictorR]

I apologize that I didn’t read any of the previous posts. But I wanted to share this because it’s hilarious:

Recently there was a grown nan who worked/works at Google. He said he identified as a ‘Cat’ and demanded that he not only wanted his own gender-neutral bathroom, he wanted Google’s management to provide him a litter box to use when he needed to ‘go’.

I appreciate that a person’s gender can be more complicated than just male/female, but that’s ridiculous!

I’m going to tell my boss that I identify as a dog, and file a grievance with the Union whenever I finish a project on time and he fails to give me a bone and call me a ‘good boy’.

That story is an hoax / urban legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax

 

[VictorR]

Biologically female, but mentally I don't identify with any particular gender, it's not a 'thing' for me. I'm just a person, just me.

I also prefer to see myself simply as me.

I am usually perceived as male and so I go along with that to keep things simple since I don't mind too much.

I generally describe myself as gender non-conforming.

I was watching a YouTube video (I think it was by Mia Mulder) where she was referring to studies that have shown that there is likely a far more diverse spectrum of sex chromosomes than conventional wisdom might suggest. She said that rarely is someone's biological sex actually tested genetically. It was interesting to consider that sex chromosomes are usually just assumed based on physical appearance.

I wonder sometimes if maybe I have XX chromosomes and I just got damn unlucky that my genes didn't express themselves normally. I know it's probably very unlikely of course. It's kinda something I daydream about at times, like I will get my XX chromosome certificate and it will be official and I will kinda have permission to drop the mask.

So there's Klinefelter (XXY) as noted, which a lot of those with the condition don't realize unless they were tested (or are experiencing fertility issues).

Klinefelter syndome, like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, is a condition that has a high co-occurance rate with autism.

To make things more complicated, someone might be mosaic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(genetics)
Someone who is mosaic Klinefelter (XY/XXY) would have less apparent signs of being different compared to XY and so it's quite unlikely that they'd find out unless they were tested.

I'd be interested in getting testing done myself if it were straight forward and easy to get done since regardless of what the results are, it would provide some guidance on what medical concerns that me (and my doctor) may want to watch out for - someone who is XXY or XY/XXY, for example, is at heightened risk of conditions that are most commonly associated with XX, such as osteoporosis and breast cancer.

 

[kenaij]

The results actually surprise me. I would have thought the trans and neutral options would have a much higher percentage. Especially taking into consideration how much mention there is of gender connected to autism.
Personally I am a biological male. And therefor I say I am a male in gender. I have a very classical view on the matter. Having said that. There are a lot of qualities I have that are normally considered to be more female traits. Like how I can take care of babies/children and my role in housework and such.
I personally think that gender roles are for the huge part BS. The only roles specific to gender are being able to impregnate someone, giving birth. Being able to breastfeed. Something the other sex/gender(classical) cannot do. No matter how hard they would try.
I also think it is a very logical fact so many autistic people seem to be non-binary or identify as the gender not linked to their sex. We are generally so different in how we think and act. It is quite logical for a man to not feel the same as the men around them. Thus coming to the conclusion you probably aren`t a man.
Again a lot of behaviours about me could be considered female like how I can hold a grudge almost indefinetly or how I just assume people understand what I need without me having to tell them. These are not things men usually do. But it are autistic traits, since I have seen them pop up in autism tests all over the place.

 

[dyl]

I like to think of myself as a manchild. Male, but acts childish.

 

[MildredHubble]

I'd be interested in getting testing done myself if it were straight forward and easy to get done

This is why I like techy things. If I have a hypothesis that something is happening with a device, I can check. There's no one in a white coat gate keeping the truth or trying to manipulate it. I can take off the lid, open the hood, or check the source code so to speak.

The device isn't emotionally attached to a particular ideology or outcome. It won't hide things from me.

I wish that there was a simple "self test" kit you could do for both ASD and Genetics. I suppose there are options if you have the money, but again, you never know what the people involved are doing to influence the outcome.

It's been a life long problem I have had, that people hide and obfuscate important information from me "for my own good". In reality, it's always been to my detriment.

If I could open some sort of service panel on my arm, hook up a RS232 cable, open a diagnostic shell, and read my own firmware, that would be so useful! I would just have my answers without hassle or having to massage the ego of someone who might prefer for me not to know the truth.

I know that this may sound a bit paranoid to people reading this, but this has happened so many times (and I have the receipts!) I simply don't trust people in these sorts of positions of power not to abuse their power for their own personal motivations.

 

[AspieChris]

That story is an hoax / urban legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax

Holy crap… you’re right! I read it on google. I guess I’m just gullible.

 

[AspieChris]

This is why I like techy things. If I have a hypothesis that something is happening with a device, I can check. There's no one in a white coat gate keeping the truth or trying to manipulate it. I can take off the lid, open the hood, or check the source code so to speak.

The device isn't emotionally attached to a particular ideology or outcome. It won't hide things from me.

I wish that there was a simple "self test" kit you could do for both ASD and Genetics. I suppose there are options if you have the money, but again, you never know what the people involved are doing to influence the outcome.

It's been a life long problem I have had, that people hide and obfuscate important information from me "for my own good". In reality, it's always been to my detriment.

If I could open some sort of service panel on my arm, hook up a RS232 cable, open a diagnostic shell, and read my own firmware, that would be so useful! I would just have my answers without hassle or having to massage the ego of someone who might prefer for me not to know the truth.

I know that this may sound a bit paranoid to people reading this, but this has happened so many times (and I have the receipts!) I simply don't trust people in these sorts of positions of power not to abuse their power for their own personal motivations.

Not paranoid at all. It happens to me too. And I’m exactly the same with techy things.

Maybe we both identify as robots.

 

[kenaij]

I am a woman. Born female.

Softness or toughness are just personality traits. People can project to the world, and to themselves, whomever they wish to be. We are all unique, an creativity is the spice of life. But still, every cell in the body is the gender that a person was born with. I'm going to be unpopular when I say this, but biology doesn't lie.

I fully agree with you.

 

[Gerontius]

Male, and I guess I like to identify with the "old-school manly man" idea of things, but you'll probably laugh here:

This is the first time I've shared it but I used to wish I was a girl when I was little. They seemed to have a nicer concept of how to do things. I realize that the dominant/submissive binary creeps me the hell out, whether that is sexual or societal or whatever.

I have a serious problem with all the expectations of Being A Male, which takes the fun out of simply being male. I get really tired of being told who to hate or who to boss around, because I'm a man and I don't let people push me around either.

So I browse fly-fishing catalogs and smoke my pipe tobacco, work on the car-engine and polish my shotgun collection and sleep outdoors when I'm adventurous, but I don't want to be The Male of patriarchy or injustice. I fight for chivalry and the underdog if provoked, which is funny, because classical chivalry is first and foremost a deeply feminine space, albeit idealistic and overly romanticized.

Asexual orientation definitely didn't help puberty. Unfortunately it's almost like I'm going through puberty a second time (girl I met last year is still around and we intend to try to get married one day.) So I fell for her pretty hard but that doesn't automatically turn me heterosexual. It does, however, turn out to be annoyingly intense.

The whole gender/sexuality situation is really hard for me to figure out and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to read what everyone has written down. The chance to see the human experience without having to read past the sticky handshakes and oleomargarine voices of religious apologists is most welcome. All this allowed me to come to terms with this more, and it let me lose some weird hangups and fall in love.

Which, considering my ingrained conservative past and a religious fervor as intense as it was immature, was a minor miracle.

So thank you all.

 

[MildredHubble]

I am a woman. Born female.

Softness or toughness are just personality traits. People can project to the world, and to themselves, whomever they wish to be. We are all unique, an creativity is the spice of life. But still, every cell in the body is the gender that a person was born with. I'm going to be unpopular when I say this, but biology doesn't lie.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but biology does indeed lie. There are people that look perfectly cis female, but they are genetically male. There are people that look entirely cis male and possess female chromosomes.

These conditions are considered rare. But as it has been pointed out. It's rarely tested for, so we have no way to know how prevalent this is in the general population.

You are female, and you would still be female as far as I'm concerned, even if you turned out to have a Y chromosome.

 

[Aspychata]

I always wished to be a male, as my body always seemed to grab attention as a female. Like it never stopped anywhere l went. I thought there would be way less restrictions on me in life if l had been a male. I still feel l battle these same set of restrictions even as a older female. It would be nice to just take out the parts that make me female, so there wouldn't be any bias in my life. Yes, l identify as a female.

 

[selena]

Those options aren't right. Sex and gender are two different things. Male and female are sexes, man and woman are genders. I do not think anyone really refers to themselves as a trans male or a trans female, but if we were to accept that format then the first two should be Cis Male and Cis Female. There should also be an "other" option because this poll really forces you to accept that there are only two genders (with "gender neutral" being a half-half thing).

 

[MildredHubble]

Those options aren't right. Sex and gender are two different things. Male and female are sexes, man and woman are genders. I do not think anyone really refers to themselves as a trans male or a trans female, but if we were to accept that format then the first two should be Cis Male and Cis Female. There should also be an "other" option because this poll really forces you to accept that there are only two genders (with "gender neutral" being a half-half thing).

As far as I interpreted the options the "cis" was implied in the "male" and "female" options. The "trans" options I think are to keep things simple. I don't think any offence was intended. I think the intent was to try and be inclusive.

I know of a lot of people online on various forums and on YouTube who refer to themselves as "trans" as shorthand for the long form "trans male or trans female. I think it's a very commonly accepted term amongst the trans community.

 

[selena]

The results actually surprise me. I would have thought the trans and neutral options would have a much higher percentage. Especially taking into consideration how much mention there is of gender connected to autism.

Surprised me also, but this forum has always leaned conservative (it's the number of users who are Christians for me) and denying gay people the right to marry each other was still a thing in mainstream US as late as 10 years ago lol.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but biology does indeed lie. There are people that look perfectly cis female, but they are genetically male. There are people that look entirely cis male and possess female chromosomes.

Wasn't it a thing in the past for a newborn with a penis that was too small to have the penis cut off and be raised as a girl, and to later be injected with hormones after the breasts never developed and the monthlies never arrived?

 

[Misery]

I was going to say some stuff here, but... ehhhh. I'm gonna bow out of this one, I think.

As much as I absolutely love this forum I find I'm... a bit less comfortable on this topic than I was before. It's why I aint exactly been posting much in the way of updates about it or asking for help with it publicly despite it being like, THE main issue in my life right now.

I'm seein' and feelin' some red flags already as it is, so... yeah, I'm in no sort of mental state to deal with that if this goes south again in this particular topic. Fuel is low, defenses are cracked, and I've definitely got that "I shouldnt have clicked that" feeling right now.

So... I'll see y'all later, I'm gonna get away from the PC for awhile and go do absolutely any other bloody thing.

 

[MildredHubble]

Wasn't it a thing in the past for a newborn with a penis that was too small to have the penis cut off and be raised as a girl, and to later be injected with hormones after the breasts never developed and the monthlies never arrived?

I don't believe I've heard it described exactly like that. But I have read that in cases of intersexed births, it was common to raise kids as female in this case. This lead to a lot of people who began to identify as male later in life having the gender of female enforced with hormones.

It's very like the pattern of behaviour displayed to homosexual people. They were often described as degenerates who were indulging in a sexual perversion and therefore by definition had a mental illness.

You don't have to go very far back in history to see gay people being described as "pervs" and "predators" in newspapers. Sadly though, there's a lot of people around who still use these homophobic slurs. But at this point, the same sorts of slurs are regularly expressed towards trans people.

The human race can be really disgusting.

It seems so ridiculous nowadays to read about state prescribed hormones being administered to (in particular) gay men. But it happened.

Certain elements of society are trying very hard to repeat history with trans people now, particularly in the US and UK.

A few years back, I had started to feel brave enough to talk to a psychiatrist and potentially a therapist about my gender identity, but their behaviour concerning other things about my mental health basically terrified me back into silence.

I feel a bit more brave again but I probably won't do it unless I feel I can 100% trust the people involved. I don't think that will happen any time soon unfortunately.

I read about trans people having their feelings invalidated by psychiatrists etc. They get told they don't identify as they claim and then get pathologised into some other diagnosis that is essentially an act of abuse against them.

We are a long way from being truly civilised in my opinion.