[kraken1851]

Many threads here deal with the question of labels - how do we label/identify ourselves when we fall outside the heteronormative gender binary? Those binary labels can be hurtful and limiting, but I believe that if we get creative with the labels that we give ourselves this can be very empowering and help us to feel part of a community .

I'm a big fan of the Identity Project (The Identity Project) and I thought it might be fun to start a thread where we do something similar (minus the photos): share the labels by which we define ourselves at this moment. For me, these change a lot, so I expect I'll be posting a few more as time passes .

So here goes.

Queer Dandy Boi

[doppeling]

One lable that I got and all my friends know me for is "Changeling"
Changelings are mythological cretures that change their forum to look like someone and feed off the love and emotions of the person's partner.
My friends gave me the lable "changeling" because I am a doppelgänger... (thus my name being doppeling.) I'm a doppelgänger because I look EXACTLY like a popculture celebrity. I said maybe im just a changeling disguised as him... And thats why my friends call me a changeling!
However, I call myself a changeling for a different reason... Because I totally want to change what I look like... I want to look like a girl... And not be the character of this mask life gave me.

[NanuConfused]

Today I was a girl, tonight I'm a boy, and who knows what I'll be tomorrow!

But really, I like to play off my genderfluidity on the outside, but on the inside my soul has no gender.

I am label-less... generic potato chips... no identity... unoccupied space... a vacuum...

[TheSeamster]

I am an androgyne. In my mind my masculine and feminine traits are one in the same, and to deny either would be to deny a part of who I am. So I am both male and female. A combination of the two that creates something whole and new!

I'm a bit agendered as well. Some of me is just wibbly wobbly gender feelings of nothing specific. :3 And that's how I like it! I am me. I am not a girl. I am not a boy. I am me. I am genderqueer. I'm too queer for the binary.

[seikerpsyker]

Um, let's just say I'm in the middle of questioning but strongly leaning towards boy(with feminine traits).

[kraken1851]

I definitely continue to question my identity, and I'm leaning more and more towards identifying as male. But there are some male characteristics that I definitely don't want for myself, most notably the "bottom parts" and facial hair. But I'm wondering if there are any of my female characteristics that I really like.
I'll never be cis, that's for sure

Today I am the enlightened one... the Buddah is within me...

I'm pretty much always genderless or genderfluid but my dysphoria really goes up a notch when I see a woman. I feel pretty fine on the inside, but not on the outside.

[OutofTune]

Same as every other day. A lost soul trapped inside a stranger's body.

And that Identity site is so cool, but seriously... "Cisgenderqueer Feminist Butch Queen" ...the hell is this cis-trans hybrid label? I must be getting old. Hits me in all the wrong places.

[kraken1851]

That label is certainly interesting. Only the person who chose it can tell is why and what it means (for them), but for me such a label would probably be an attempt to counter the cisnormative construction of binaries - such as the gender binary, but also the binary between trans* and cis. I assume many cis people would define themselves as "not trans", thereby drawing a very clear line and carving out a neat, clear cut identity for themselves by saying what they are not (basically, making a distinction between self and other). If we were capable of breaking up this binary, this either/or thinking, that would actually be quite an achievement in my opinion.
These are are the associations I get when I see "cisgenderqueer". I may be totally off...

[OutofTune]

Oh, I think I get it now. A person who identifies as genderqueer but not trans, maybe? I don't get how you can be cis AND trans. The two kind of rule each other out.

[kraken1851]

I agree, they do in a way.

But then I totally believe a person could identify as cis one day and trans* or genderqueer on another (or in different phases of their life). I think what I like about the label is that it doesn't posit being trans* or being cis as an absolute. And it emphasizes that we can identify however we see fit, even if others say we can't. To me it's playful and it provokes me to think about my believes and views I suppose, but not in a threatening way.

[kraken1851]

And see, we're having this cool discussion about it now

[OutofTune]

I don't want cis people calling themselves trans. That is harmful and threatening, especially if they want into trans safe spaces. Gender non-conforming and genderfluid don't always mean trans. That's why I'm glad that person admitted to being cis rather than trans. I think it's important that cis people question gender norms without necessarily identifying as trans.

This is mostly hypothetical as I am not the person in question and have no idea how they connect to their labels. Just guessing around.

[kraken1851]

Yeah, there certainly is a disconcerting side to this as well. And I'd never have this discussion with a cis person, I suppose, or in a space that I don't feel safe in as a trans* person.

When I say I believe it's possible that someone identifies as cis and trans in different phases of their life I don't want to imply that I could be cis if only I tried hard enough. So yeah, there definitely can be this aspect as well.

I remember someone identifying as trans (here on pc I think) saying that all they really wanted was to transition and live as, ultimately, a cis male. I had to think of this in this context.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Sorry if I got carried away.

[OutofTune]

Makes sense. Thank you for being civil and open-minded. Unfortunately I've had this conversation on other sites and it hasn't gone so well... I don't mean to police anyones identity, but sometimes I have to wonder with these new labels. I'm just trying to learn.

[kraken1851]

No, thank you .

Like I was saying, I got carried away a little. Part of me loves the idea of all the (good, playful) things you can do with language. But I'm just as hurt by the way it's often used. I totally believe that language is often used to maintain power and that it can be (and is) a means of oppression.

I haven't been on pc for too long, but some of the most fervent and hurtful discussions I have seen here were on the subject of language.

[kraken1851]

As I try to learn who I am and how I "really" identify, I'm realizing something weird.

I definitely feel more male than female. But the more I think about it, the more I understand that feel like I'm really more of a boy or teen "inside". I mean I know that often how old a person feels doesn't correspond to their biological age , but this is so strange to me. I'm a 38 y/o female-bodied person. How is it I got "stuck" at such a young age? I think that this is one of the reasons that I don't want to fully transition to a man's body. Or why the idea of having facial hair just freaks me out.

I know there's nothing wrong or too unusual about feeling this way, I'm just seeing that I will never ever be able to reconcile these different aspects of myself. I'm also wondering if my "inner boy" will grow up someday?

Having read back through all of the posts in this thread (including a couple of mine) I wanted to jump in here again at this point. Being that I am older than dirt, discussions regarding labels, pronouns, etc., are pretty-much lost on me. It's not that I don't see the value or think it's not important. It's simply that it's foreign to me. It's sort-of like my computer. I know how to accomplish what I want to do with it, but I really have no comprehension as to why or how it works!

I'm transgendered, & more specifically transsexual. I have a male body & a female psyche. There is no in-between for me personally. But, at the same time, since I couldn't be 100% female, my back-up wish, I guess, would be to be 100% male. (It's really the "split persona" that kills me.) I don't have anything against being male. I don't dislike my male body (except that it's now getting old.) In fact, if it were someone else's body, I'd think it was pretty fine... given it's age. It's just that it doesn't in any way match what's inside (my psyche, as I've termed it.)

There have been times in my life when I've been able to repress my female psyche & function more successfully as a more-or-less cisgendered male. However, beneath the surface, my female psyche was always present too. And also following every period of time when I was functioning as a more-or-less cisgendered male, at some point, my female psyche would come roaring back stronger & more demanding than ever.

Perhaps, had I been born at a time when gender fluidity was more known about & discussed, I would have been able to find a comfortable place to rest somewhere between the two extremes. However, since I grew up at a time when the two extremes were all that was acknowledged, that's how I learned to view myself. Perhaps the culture we grow up in has some impact on how we come to view ourselves in terms of our genders.