Questioning my gender and how to define it

[FeministFox]

Hi! I'm relatively new here and don't know much about gender yet, so I do apologise if I've posted in the wrong place/used the wrong terminology.
In terms of sex, I'm a girl, but recently I've been questioning my old concepts of gender. Probably largely because of the cisnormative culture I live in, I always assumed that I was also female by gender. However, recently having learnt more about the differences between sex and gender, I started to get a little confused about my own gender.
I've never been concerned about using female pronouns for myself, but then, I've never really questioned it. I feel comfortable with my anatomy. I like skirts, dresses, long hair, dancing, netball and many other things which are traditionally associated with femininity. However, I also like trousers, blue, football, martial arts, physics and many other things which are traditionally associated with masculinity. Most of my friends are additionally boys and I have often been labelled a "tomboy" around them. As a feminist, I've always thought I was a girl that broke gender roles. However, when I learnt more about the concept of gender, I realised many people who break as many gender roles as I do identify as transgender because of it. Based on my own current ignorance of these issues, I would currently have an issue with labelling myself as anything other than a girl because girls can like traditionally masculine things, and surely that doesn't automatically make them boys. Please note that I do completely respect anyone who does consider themselves a different gender to the one they have been labelled with at birth, I'm just not sure I understand what gender is if not in terms of biology or gender roles. Can someone please explain, and does this make me agender/bigender/pangender/genderfluid?
Thank you! :0)

[Heather]

Welcome!

I'm simplifying this, but that's because I feel like it's probably the best way to start this with you.

I'd say the answer to this question, the most basic one, is that it depends on who you feel like. Not who you think you should be, and something that is usually more emotional than intellectual for people, and not what other people call themselves.

But in your own heart of hearts -- right now, at this point in your life -- does it feel more right for you, and more like home for you to identify as a woman or girl? To identify as Trans? No identify as nonbinary? To identify, expressly, as a tomboy, if that's been something you have liked? And are there any of those things that, when others identify you as, or you self-identify as, elicit a negative emotional reaction from you?

Even what's masculine or feminine is 100% arbitrary, and usually super-cultural, so in that regard, this is again more about the way masculine, feminine, neither or both feel for you, rather than what you think about them, or what someone else defines them as.

Again, this is about feelings. If that's hard for you to grok with gender, think about other ways you identify yourself based on feels more than thinks, much like sexual orientation. Make sense?

[Alice O]

In addition to everything Heather said, this is a great Scarleteen piece about gender: Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer