My Confusion over Gender

Hi, I'm 24 years and from England. I don't want to use my real first name, so I'll use a name I quite like, Alex. I quite like the name Alex, and so I use it online for certain sites. My own real name is far more masculine, but Alex is gender-neutral, and in a way is far more suited to me than my first or middle names. Alex is the person I want to be in real life, and the idea of myself in the future as a more androgynous being, who has gotten rid of the male-female inbalance and lives like a human being.

I have had confusion regarding my gender identity for a few years now, and in the last year or so I've really begun to think about it, but I still don't have a clear idea of where my gender identity lies. I don't even know much about my sexuality, although I'm fairly sure I'm at least attracted to women. Whether that is coupled with attraction to men or whether I might even be pansexual I don't know, although with all the slash fanfiction (I quite like the mpreg stories, where a male character becomes pregnant) and gay erotic stories I like to read online I'm probably at least bicurious.

I think over the past few years I've really begun to understand myself more. I suppose I've always known that I was never that similar to other boys, but I was also never really that similar to the girls either. Maybe in a few years time I will finally be able to know who I am - I know the labels aren't important, but I want to understand myself, and it seems as if I'm detached from everyone else in so many ways, and it annoys me that society is so stiff, so scared to let people be something other than what society thinks they should be just because of their plumbing. Why is it so important to society that I have to be masculine and not allow my feminine side (and we are all partly masculine, partly feminine aren't we?) to be expressed to the full extent that I want it to be? I don't want to be 100% male or 100% female, I want to be a human that is both and neither at the same time.

I was born male, although due to a birth defect I can't produce my own testosterone, and due to a related problem I now only have one testicle, which was brought down when I was little (the other one was removed when I was in my late teens). I'm fairly masculine in appearance, and I suppose my behaviour is within the normal range that society expects for a male, but inside I have a real confusion about what my gender is. At this moment in time, if I had to give a percentage - 0% being female, 100% being male - I would probably put myself somewhere between 50% and 60%.

I don't think I'm a transwoman, but then again I can't personally rule that out. Sometimes I do feel that it's a definate possibility, but most of the time I believe that I'm transgender but not transsexual. I think rather than changing my sex, I would prefer to have a more feminine body and a more genderless persona - I would love it if people could change sex whenever they wanted with ease and people would see you as the gender you currently were.

I think I would prefer to have a more feminine body, and I'm lucky not to have grown too tall (I'm average height for my country), and I don't have much bodily hair, although I do try and shave as much of it off as possible (I would like to be hairless apart from my pubic hair, hair on top of my head and eyebrows if they count). I have quite a flabby stomach that I would like to slim down quite a bit (It's around 41in, but I think I can, in a healthy way, get it down to around 35in). As for clothes, I don't like wearing formal clothes, and I'm often wearing a t-shirt, pants and trainers (what we call sneakers). If it was more socially acceptable, I would love to wear a skirt made for men.

As for my personality, I'm very introverted and prefer to spend time alone reading, writing, listening to music, browsing the Internet or even just daydreaming (I have a paragraph about that which I would like to share). I've not very competitive and I've never been in a physical fight or anything like that.

When I daydream, I used to daydream about myself, but now it's almost always about a character I created for fanfiction, and I like to daydream many different scenarios through him, often as stories involving the programme he is part of the fanfiction for. In the fanfiction, he is slightly feminine, but in my daydreams he is often very feminine, and I've even daydreamed scenarios where he has a sex change, or somehow swaps bodies with a female.

Although it has been pointed out to me that these memories may not be real or may be distorted, I have a memory from when I was about eight where I seem to be thinking of myself as a girl, called Jessica. I don't know much more of this memory, but as far as I can tell I didn't exhibit any sign of gender dysphora when I was a child. there were a few incidents, also around that age, where I actively tried to remind my mother that I was her little boy, although I think having three younger brothers was probably the cause of that.

In my teenage years, I had this rather strange idea that people thought I was someone else, even though I knew it was irrational. This someone else would often be a television character or someone famous/in the news, and it would often be a woman. Such thoughts have disappeared now, but I found it to be rather bizarre. Nowadays, I have something similar where I imagine favourite characters or real life people are with me as if they were stood or sat next to me, and I talk to them, although always in my head. I know they are not really there, but it's something I like to do and as long as I know it's not real, I don't see it as a problem.

This is quite long, so if you read it all I greatly appreciate that and if you wish to comment on anything I've said, I would love to have some feedback.

You seem to be quite confused, as the title suggests! Sorry, that wasn't the most intuitive thing to say by me at first. To put it a better way: You seem to be at a crossroads right now, where one way leads down a route where you get more and more in touch with your feminine 'side', while the other continues down the route that you've already been following. This second route is of course one where you fail to be yourself and feel shunned by people/society, right? One must never feel that way, but it happens to so many of us. For the record, I don't believe that there is anyone who is 100% male or female. The only things that differ between the sexes is the X or Y chromosome. Also, not many know this, but in the first few months of birth, every foetus develops as a 'female'. It is only after a certain time-frame that the male 'genes' are switched-on. This is why males have nipples.

So, where do you want to go to from here? I think you know what will make you happy in life, so don't be fearful of pursuing it. As much as it doesn't seem to be the case, society IS actually more tolerant of differences these days. It is not 100% accepting, but we are getting there.

I helped a user whom I met here to do what he realy wanted - i.e. get a sex change and confess to his parents that 'he' is actually a 'she', deep down. I still talk to [now] her to this day, and her parents and siblings were fully supportive.

Kevin

Thanks for the reply.

I did forget to add a few things that may be relevant to my post -

* When I was a teenager I wore women's clothing sometimes when masturbating, but this was only a few times and I've not done this for years. For many years, I've had sexual fantasies of being female.

I don't know for sure what I want deep down, but the fact is, I wouldn't hesitate to exchange my male body for a female body. The problem is, I don't feel like a woman nor do I have any real urge to transition, whilst at the same time I certainly don't fit in with most men and tend to often be envious of women in many ways.

Well, I'm heterosexual now (and happily male) but in the past I had fantasies about being a woman too; and I had homosexual fantasies too. I never looked too much into them though. If something feels good then why not do it? I cannot possibly imagine being with a guy in real life, but I do enjoy having those fantasies every now and then.

If you talked to a counsellor about this, do you believe your mind would become more clear about what you want?; or what if I tried to put you in touch with the person i used to talk to? I can ask him (now a her, effectively) if she would like to talk.

kevin

Chucky wrote:If you talked to a counsellor about this, do you believe your mind would become more clear about what you want?; or what if I tried to put you in touch with the person i used to talk to? I can ask him (now a her, effectively) if she would like to talk.

kevin

I think my mind might become clearer if I did, but it might also be helpful if I talked to your friend.

Okay, I will ask her and then get back to you. If you fail to hear from me, then please send me a PM.

Kevin