Question: Sudden Identity Changes

Avery asks…

In the past three months, I’ve gone from identifying as a cisgender girl to maybe genderfluid, and now I have no idea. I wonder if I might be transmasculine. I didn’t know identity could change that much in just a few months. What are good ways to try and actually figure all this stuff out?

Please post your response in the comments below.

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Posted by on June 10th, 2011 at 04:00 pm

Category: questions 10 comments »

10 Responses to “Question: Sudden Identity Changes”

  1. Light.

    Avery, it’s like you reached inside of my head and pulled out my thoughts.
    I’ve gone from cisgender girl to possibly fluid gender to androgyne, and now I don’t know.
    I like what androgyny means and is. I think I am this, but I’m not sure.
    Maybe we have to spend some time not overthinking it. To just sit and be. Maybe it’ll come to us when we’re not searching for it.
    I hope we find out soon, though.

    [Reply]

  2. radical/rebel

    “Fuck this always nonsense! How could I always be anything? I’ve been constantly changing and growing and adapting since I was born! Isn’t that what humans are meant to do? Every piece of information, every experience, has served to mold me into who I am at this moment just as what I am undergoing in this moment is shaping who I will be tomorrow. The only thing I have always been doing is growing. Who cares whether we have always been this way? Let us instead say:

    I have always been becoming what I am right now.”

    -from Gender Outlaws

    [Reply]

    Dimmie replied:

    This. Bornstein rocks my socks.

    [Reply]

    Anonymous replied:

    Yeah…

    [Reply]

  3. Lumbergill

    My counselor helped me when she told me that not knowing how to define my gender was OK. I feel a lot more settled for being told that. I guess the fundamental message is that we should not become overly concerned with putting a lable on ourselves. After all, why should we limit ourselves to a fixed identity?

    [Reply]

  4. Anonymous

    Not having a label or knowing “what” gender we are is kinda scary…but ultimately in any system with only two options, when applied to the multitude of expressions which is humanity…there’s no way that anyone is ever exactly one or the other expressions, because these two words mean different things to different people and are only approximations of what it really feels like to be alive, expressing uniquely our identity.
    Remember those small-kid-times…like maybe one where you were sitting on some porch steps eating a pop-sickle? What gender were you then? There’s not really a great, clearly defined answer. You just have to feel whoever you are and say, huh…yeah…I’m kinda like that. Then do what you need to do to feel comfortable in your own skin…and then just enjoy being here.

    [Reply]

  5. Anonymous

    Maybe you could try dressing and acting reallllly stereotypically masculine and see how that feels, then try the other extreme and see what feels good and what doesn’t for you. Just a thought, not that you couldn’t be a transman and super femme or all sorts of combinations of femme and masculine, but experiments like that help me.

    [Reply]

  6. Anonymous

    Give it time. Experiment. Don’t be too eager to find words for yourself. They’ll come to you in time.
    Or maybe they won’t. That’s okay, too. Who says we need words for who we are anyways?

    [Reply]

  7. Sean

    My gender sometimes changed by the hour. It’s been pretty consistent since December though.

    [Reply]

  8. Jessica

    Do I dare
    Disturb the universe?
    In a minute there is time
    For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

    http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html TS Eliot

    I am myself the least certain of individuals, for certainty is always the telltale of human error and I no longer with to be in error as to who I am. And if I told you yesterday a different line, I am admittedly inconsistent and without any apology, for if I were consistent, I would be done. I am not done, not even close to done. In death I will be done. Until then, all bets are off.

    [Reply]


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