Since the discussions going on the other day RE: Trans* pronouns, and how to approach someone with a question about their identity, I was really struggling with my answers, and trying to figure out where I fit into these discussions.

I find the subject of gender identity massively sprawling,  convoluted, and personally confusing.  It’s something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember, and never really felt certain of how to categorize myself personally.  But I finally feel like I found a term that seems to describe me and help me find where I fit in.

 Although there are plenty of things I don’t like about my body, I don’t feel dysphoria or a need to drastically alter it to fit a mental image of myself.  I feel like a mix of masculine and feminine traits (leaning more towards the latter, and I prefer female pronouns just for simplicity’s sake) But my main mental image of myself is completely separate from gender identity. It’s hard for me to imagine being cis or trans* and having one’s gender inherently tied to one’s sense of identity, especially enough to want painful and expensive surgery. (I’m not saying I judge people who do- I just personally can’t understand that mindset.)

Also, from what I can tell, trans* people generally adhere to gender binary in that they feel they are one gender and need to become the opposite  just as cis people apparently consider themselves strictly one or the other. (Edit: Apparently that’s just what most people who talked to me about it USE the word to mean… but actually it literally means “comfortable in your own body,” so technically non-binary people without dysphoria can be “cis.”  This was extremely confusing to me, because so far I’ve only seen “cis” to mean someone who was born as and is comfortable remaining a binary gender.)  So… I guess I am “cis.”)

 This leaves no space for people who are both, neither, don’t know, or don’t care.  Where do genderqueer people fit?  Can I participate in trans* discussions when the experiences are similar? (Like the harassment I get in public bathrooms/changing rooms?)  I recognize that I have privilege in that I don’t get dysphoria, but it still counts as being misgendered and being harassed, and it’s hard to find other people who understand the stress it causes.

So I tried looking up some things today, and came across some articles about “Androgynes.”

These were some of the parts that really reasonated with me:

Androgynes, like transgenderists and transsexuals who have not undergone surgery (pre-op or non-op), may feel uncomfortable using gender-segregated toilets: while a transsexual identifies as a gender in the gender binary (even if they’re not legally recognized as such) and therefore psychologically accept the toilet that matches their gender identity, an androgyne feels different from men and women and therefore no toilet facility fully matches their gender identity, albeit they usually go to the toilet assigned to their legal gender due to social pressure.

There’s a perfect cartoon I used to illustrate this feeling before, it was from the Muppets.  Gonzo walks past the men’s room, past the women’s room, to the “Whatever” room.  That’s why Gonzo became my favorite Muppet. XD

Some androgynes are comfortable with their natural body, but some may wish to change it with hormones, surgery, or other technological means just as transsexual people do. But more often than not, androgynes accept their natural body and only wish to have had the body of the other sex as well or specific parts of it. This wish sometimes can be severe and can lead to periods of intense gender dysphoria or transsexual feelings. Some androgynes may proceed with transsexual transition and a few may regret it later, while some manage to live with their new body, albeit they may choose not to adopt all characteristics of their new social gender role. The perfect technological body changes for androgynes should be reversible and allow the androgyne switch back and forth between the two sexes.

This!!  I’ve often thought it would be so great to be able to change body parts according to mood.  Why would you want to pick just male or female parts when you could have BOTH (or maybe some days neither? or something different altogether?)

While androgynes may express more femininity or masculinity from day to day due to mood or societal expectations, they generally don’t switch between distinct masculine and feminine personas in the way that bigenders do. An androgyne is someone with a single gender that combines femininity with masculinity, while bigenders have two separate genders (one feminine, one masculine). An androgyne is a third gender distinct from a man or a woman, which can still encompass both man and woman.

I found this info really useful, and a big relief.  For anyone who’s interested, these are the links:

http://androgyne.0catch.com/

http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Androgyne