I feel like a fake

[Hel]

So I'm genderfluid, and I'm still really confused about my gender. I'll just give some info on how I normally feel - or at least, have felt in the past.

Last year, I'd say 60% of the time, I felt like a female/fem, 30% like nonbinary/neutral/agender, and 10% like a dude/really masculine.

Then there were like, three weeks when I felt either completely like a guy, or on the masc./nb spectrum.

And now, ever since moving, I've felt really female. Like, super fem. It's really weird. Does environment have to do with it?

I really wish there was more scientific research on my gender. I mean, I know there is some, but I wish my gender came with a manual or something.

I feel like a girl so much lately it's really weird. I feel a bit like a poser. I mean, I know I'm genderfluid because I have been a guy, and I've been nonbinary/agender, and I've been feminine. But every time there's a week or longer period of time where I feel one gender, I invalidate myself.

Can someone just confirm that genderfluidity is real, and it can be like this? Do genderfluid people have really long periods of time where they're one gender?

Please help, I'm so confused.


Any articles, research, wiki pages, anything that validates me that comes from the scientific community would really help... thanks so much!

[Heather]

Oh, Hel, I'm so sorry to hear you're feeling this way.

I promise -- I promise, promise, promise -- there's no "right" amount of feeling like one given gender or NOT feeling like one given gender to "count" as being genderfluid. All there is is that just feeling like the identify that feels right for you at a given time.

I want you to think about what fluidity, as a term means. Really, it just means having the ability to flow, to move, to be not settled or stable, to be able to change. There's no for exactly how long or not, or which way to change or not, there's just the having of that ability. And I'd say that's absolutely what is usually meant by genderfluidity. Alas, this is exactly the kind of gender that doesn't come with a manual most of all (though none can, truly).

So, even if you want to wholly embrace feeling like a girl, femininity, and it is also the same as your assigned sex? You can do that, and doing that doesn't take away your being genderfluid any more than it say, takes away someone's being bisexual to have a partner of a different gender than them. Make sense?

It's also okay, by the way, if you ever find that it doesn't feel right for you and something else does: it doesn't have to feel like the right identity or term forever, and if it ever doesn't, that doesn't mean it wasn't real at the time. So much of all of this stuff changes: you know, when I was growing up, we didn't have any of these terms or frameworks, and I absolutely was a kind of nonbinary, agnder/genderqueer person like I am today. But because we didn't have them, I found ways to try and make what we did have work for me, I tried to figure out how to be a woman as the person I was, and while this certainly fits a lot better, that fit well enough at the time, and for all I know, down the road, something else may fit better still. It's impossible to say because terms and frameworks change and evolve and so do we as people.

[Hel]

Thank you very much. Your reply was exactly what I needed to hear. I really appreciate it - I am feeling much more valid now.

[Heather]

So glad I was able to help. <3