I am currently going through a lot of gender questioning, and I want to know how you all discovered your gender identities, or if you are still questioning yourself. I think that I am probably not cis, but as we all know, gender isn’t black and white. I’m identifying as non-binary right now, but I have had a lot of times throughout my life, including now, where I may have wanted to be more feminine, or even a woman. Especially after lurking on this site and looking at the trans megathreads, I find myself relating to a lot of what is being said. Overall, I recently feel like I have either hit a wall or just opened up a part of myself that I thought I had already solved, so I think that the experiences of others might help me figure myself out.
P.S. I don’t know if this is the appropriate comm, it made a little more sense than the trans comm, since it said it was more of a meme comm, and this is not a meme. Mods, please take it down if it’s the wrong comm; I’ll repost if I need to.
I personally was stuck for years on trying to find a label because I used it as an excuse to not try anything. I really think gender exploration is in the doing. Every new thing you try, you now have more data on how it makes you feel and you can put in some time to figure out the question of “why?”
You also reach a point where there really is nothing that can prove you’re trans or prove you’re cis. Cis people do not get asked to prove their gender identity, generally, and tend to be very bad at it. Meanwhile, there’s no objective measure of transness where you can determine you’re trans and then act accordingly. That’s backwards. At some point, it is an assertion you make about yourself to guide your actions and state an intent. It’s your identity. It’s personal. It’s something to be taken hold of.
I started being comfortable calling myself trans by referring to myself as trans in my head and with safe people. Eventually, it stopped feeling like I was taking up space where I didn’t belong or like I was lying to myself. And it took way longer than most people would probably deem necessary from the outside. I know because I have plenty of friends I’ve watched transition and they will be living full time with new name and pronouns, looking at HRT and still be like, “what if I’m actually cis though?”