consistent struggles with my gender, feeling tired of it

[cuboided]

Hello everyone, i’m cuboided.

Since I was a little kid I’ve had a weird relationship to my gender. When I was younger, this was mainly because of my consistent gender-nonconforming behavior and being othered by my peers because of it. In the beginning of high school I started questioning if I was nb/not cis. Long story short, through spending a lot of time online, I noticed that I really enjoyed being this genderless identity on the internet+using they/them only online.

In my mind, I honestly see myself as a genderless form and I fantasize about living in a world where I am perceived as genderless in daily life. I do a lot of creative work and project this feeling into roleplaying games/characters that I draw and write about. When referring to myself in my head, I freely use any pronoun for myself because I know what these pronouns mean to me/what they acknowledge about myself. When I see myself in the mirror, I see an ungendered person looking back at me. I honestly feel nameless too.

I’ve noticed though that acting out on my desires in real life doesn’t feel correct. I’ve experimented with different pronouns for almost four years now, and I even changed my name socially when I went to college. Partially, the only reason this has gone on for so long is because it’s hard to hear your pronouns when people are talking to you, and because people would not try other pronouns unless I removed my AGAB ones from the acceptable list. I never declared a specific gender identity, but people perceive me as generally queer and I also have a lot of guilt from that and interacting with other trans/nb people. I kept going further and further with different pronouns and changing my name hopefully just to find that “aha, this is right” moment, but honestly this has just made me feel more unstable in general.

AND despite all of that, being referred to as a woman/feminine/my legal name just feels icky and gross, especially by anyone who isn't close to me. But this only happens sometimes, which is incredibly confusing. She/her fits with the shell I am on the outside and feels natural for others to perceive me as. However, a good portion of the time, an honest pang of anxiety and discomfort goes through my stomach, like I didn't give them permission to use that on me. It even happens with family, who I haven't been open about with my questioning. I don’t know why. It’s a different kind of discomfort from the other pronoun sets, which are more of a distant/off feeling.

My feelings on pronouns/who says them overall can shift rapidly, it’s exhausting, unstable, and unpredictable, and I’m tired of it. However, if I go back to using she/her, I’ll be perceived as cis again and I dislike that.

The way that I could comfortably describe myself is agender and gender non-conforming. If gender non-conforming was generally-acceptable terminology for a gender itself, I would totally jump on it. It’s not that I’m a GNC woman, but that I’m GNC itself? I don’t know if that makes sense. I know that gender nonconformity does not mean you’re nb/trans, but I just don't feel connected with extremely gendered terms/expectations/etc. Anyways.

I’m realizing that I obsessively seek reassurance on reddit to try to identify anyone with similar feelings to me and calm down my uncertainties. I don’t think it’s helping me because I do it daily, stressing over my gender literally as soon as I wake up and when I go to sleep. I honestly don’t know if the daily repeat reassurance thing is indicative of a larger problem; I’m hesitant to say so because I could be wrong about that and make a fool out of myself. Throw in a mix of wishful thoughts that come up whenever I see cool masculine/androgynous people—“I wish I could be like that/I wish my name was that/I wish people could refer to me like that” despite trying it out and feeling dysphoric from it—you get a really, really confused and conflicted person.

I feel like I’m too old to be continuing to do this whole questioning thing. I’m tired of basically living a double life between my social life and my familial life. I feel like I’m withdrawing from interaction with my family to avoid my unpredictable anxiety/irritation at being gendered, and it's hurting our relationship a lot. I just want to put this to rest for good, it genuinely causes me so much stress in my daily life because I’m so hypervigilant about how I’m perceived by others. Right now I just wanna self-isolate and not be perceived by anyone.

tldr: I’m agender and struggling a lot with dissonance between how I perceive myself vs. how others perceive me, dissonance between gender online vs. irl, and consant reassurance-seeking to prove I’m not cis.

[Latha]

Hi there, Cuboided - welcome to the boards!

I’m sorry you’re struggling with this - it does sound completely exhausting. I have a few thoughts on what you’ve said so far. While I don’t think it can cover everything, I hope it will help you feel a bit better.

You don’t need to prove that you are not cis. Your experiences don’t need to match anyone else’s for you to be trans enough. Nor do you need to choose a set of pronouns and stick to it. If you identify with a gender that is different from the one you were assigned at birth and you are comfortable with the term, you simply are trans. Definitionally. I understand why you might want to have a more secure sense of your gender, but there is nothing wrong with questioning at your age or questioning for as long as you have. It’s okay if your feelings on your pronouns change from time to time. You can change your name and pronouns as many times as you want. You could do so for the rest of your life, and there still wouldn’t be anything wrong with you.

I wonder if this has something to do with the guilt you mentioned for being perceived as queer and interacting with other trans and nonbinary people. You know, you are not stealing anyone’s valour. If you want them, these terms are for you and these communities are yours.

I know it might be difficult, but if you can, try to take a break from this cycle of reassurance seeking. There are definitely other people with experiences like yours, but comparing yourself to them every day will not give you feeling of certainty that you’re looking for. You are trans. This is just something you’ll need to internalize with time.

The feelings of instability and confusion that you have described seem like a pretty natural response to feeling misunderstood and unrecognized by other people. I understand your urge to self-isolate in response - while I wouldn’t recommend it, I think it could be helpful to take some time to yourself. It might allow you to focus on what you enjoy without being confronted with how other people perceive you.

This isn’t a strategy that can work on its own. One approach that you could use in your situation is to cultivate some distance from the ways in which other people perceive you. Many people find it hard to escape thinking in gendered terms — this doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. Instead, you could try to focus your energies on people who actually try to understand and respect you.

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of how your gender would work in an ideal world, but your efforts don’t seem to work out in the real world. When you feel dysphoric after trying something new, are those thoughts focused on a specific aspect of what you are doing? If it doesn’t feel right, what is it exactly that feels wrong?

I honestly don’t know if the daily repeat reassurance thing is indicative of a larger problem; I’m hesitant to say so because I could be wrong about that and make a fool out of myself.

I certainly don’t think there is anything foolish about asking if your feelings about gender are connected to some other issue. It happens, so it is a valid question. Do you have any thoughts on what this larger issue might be?

[cuboided]

Hey, I wanna genuinely thank you for your reply, I made this post when I was really stressed out and took a bit of a break afterwards, which did help.

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of how your gender would work in an ideal world, but your efforts don’t seem to work out in the real world. When you feel dysphoric after trying something new, are those thoughts focused on a specific aspect of what you are doing? If it doesn’t feel right, what is it exactly that feels wrong?

Currently, the dysphoria that I feel is “offness” surrounding pronouns— using pronouns opposite to my AGAB just feel like referring to a different person. They/them sometimes feels distant and impersonal, but I like that it acknowledges another side of my gender. However, overuse of AGAB pronouns, especially when combined with its honorifics, also feels pretty bad. I suspect that the social circumstance matters, but maybe it’s also an issue with balance? Right now I’ve barred off my AGAB pronouns to force others into immersing me in my pronoun experiment. It could be that a part of me is not being acknowledged anymore, which is causing distress.

The dysphoria could also be accelerated by the fact that people started perceiving me as transmasculine--and this next part is silly but true--I didn't expect that, haha. I experimented with he/him simply because it is a more traditionally "direct" pronoun if that makes any sense, and I was hoping to get something more personal than they/them.

I feel like I could really own those pronouns in another universe (corny haha), but it just feels wrong when anyone besides myself uses these sets on me. I think I’ll just have to accept this for now and let it go.

Throughout my life I’ve generally struggled with the thought of how people perceive me—especially when I was younger, I felt frustrated because I couldn’t shake the feeling that others saw only a caricature of me, rather than *me*—and I acknowledge that it’s something I need to work on.

I do want to note that I have surrounded myself with understanding and lovely people, which is honestly wonderful for me. A lot of my fear is fabricated, especially taking into consideration that I haven’t always been immersed in such accepting environments before. What this all hinges on is likely my ability to communicate what I need without fear of judgement. I plan on talking to my friends about switching it up again, and I trust them with my honest feelings. It’s my own fears that are holding me back from making changes currently.

I certainly don’t think there is anything foolish about asking if your feelings about gender are connected to some other issue. It happens, so it is a valid question. Do you have any thoughts on what this larger issue might be?

My sibling struggles with anxiety and OCD and it appears to run in the family. While I don’t think I have either necessarily, I feel I ruminate over memories/events, reassurance-seek on the internet, avoid certain situations (ex. talking to other queer people in my life) to prevent possibly triggering stressful thought patterns (ex. imagining that they are calling me a faker when I’m not there because they can “tell” based on my behavior, which leads to the reassurance-seeking). I have difficulty discerning what I feel are ‘real feelings’ from ‘fake feelings’ and trusting myself. Again, while I don’t believe I have anything specifically and diagnosis on the internet is pretty unrealistic/unhealthy, I still think it would do me good to take better care and watch out for these habits. I waste a lot of time in my life doing these things when I could be living a fuller life without having these worries.

There’s a lot going on that I should visit my school’s counselor/therapy service for, but I haven’t got the courage to schedule anything because of the real/fake thought thing mentioned prior. I think I'll force myself to go though, because I would like to have a bit more peace of mind.

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. It’s pretty scary to ask for help sometimes and I’m grateful for your response. I think I’ll be alright to continue on now!

[Jacob]

So glad to hear this ^^

In case it helps with you feeling more confident to approach the counsellor/therapist, I'll say that part of being a therapist or counsellor is making it your professional duty to treat the things in people's minds as important, real and vital, whatever those things are.

In a way, all or our thoughts are "fake" because they're in our heads! They're also all REAL because they make us who we are! And that's how a therapist will treat it.

[cuboided]

So glad to hear this ^^

In case it helps with you feeling more confident to approach the counsellor/therapist, I'll say that part of being a therapist or counsellor is making it your professional duty to treat the things in people's minds as important, real and vital, whatever those things are.

In a way, all or our thoughts are "fake" because they're in our heads! They're also all REAL because they make us who we are! And that's how a therapist will treat it.

That's a framing I haven't heard before, it does help! Thank you so much