Question: What was your process to discover your gender?
Kris asks…
Hey guys. So… I don’t know how to word this so sorry if it comes out really strange…
I am a person who is very deeply questioning my gender and I’m starting to think I might be transgender. I’ve never talked to a transgender person before about being trans, though, and I’m feeling totally lost.
My question is, for older people (like mid 20s and up) who didn’t know their whole life they were trans, what was your thought process that you went through to figure out where you found your gender to be? What kind of questions did you ask and what process did you go through to find your answers?
Please post your response in the comments below.
» Ask Genderfork «
Posted by Freiya on February 7th, 2015 at 08:00 am
Category: questions 4 comments »
February 8th, 2015 at 12:48 am |
One thing that helped me was to try to pcture myself in five years, in ten, in 30…and I tried to imagine myself at the ae of 80, sitting in the park. Am I sitting there as a gandmother or am I seeing a gandfather? Can I imagine myself in my future as a woman or do I see nothing there?
For me it was very easy because I had no Image of myself as an older women. I was born female, but that is not the form I can grow up in. I am 33 now and I can not picture myself in a future as a woman. I can`t. It is like Vampires on a photograph. Like….I can only grow up and be an adult and take responsibility for my life when I transition into the Person I should have been all the time.
Don´t know if that helps you, but..picturing yourself…it was one of the many many things i tried and that helped me.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2015 at 8:50 am |
On a similar theme to Anon, one thing that’s helped me (though I wouldn’t say I’m out the other side of the thinking process) has been to think about situations I often find myself in (e.g. a day at work) and imagine experiencing that situation while being a different gender from my assigned one. Imagine being perceived differently, everybody using different pronouns towards you – how does this differ from how the situation is now? Which aspects of the imaginary situation (if any) are better than the status quo? How might you move closer to the better, imaginary situation – what steps would you have to take?
Another thing, which may be less applicable to people other than me, I dunno – but I’ve done quite a lot of thinking about the people/characters/situations I’ve always identified closely with in my life, and asked myself why that is.
Totally happy to answer more questions if it helps, though I definitely can’t promise to have all the answers! Good luck, though – I wish you all the best :)
[Reply]
February 10th, 2015 at 1:35 am |
I’m 43 and have recently discovered a deeper sense of gender, so thank you for sharing your story and helping me to to feel less alone as a ‘late bloomer’. I suspect that for some genderqueer people, the non binary nature of our gender means that we might struggle to understand our place outside of a binary system and therefore come to an understanding very late on ?!?! Anyhow… I listened and connected to a lot of trans stories and used to joke about my connection to ‘female’. Then one fine, scary day I decided not to joke so much and to give permission to myself to think about gender variance. Before, I’d just ignored such concepts as ‘impossible’ or ‘not for me’ (as I have with many other aspects of my life). It’s a very vague, grey tale but I guess that’s OK. I’m still on a road to understanding and it’s frightening to have one’s place in the world turn upside down so quickly… but I’m probably a bit Aspergers, which makes a bit more sense to my struggles. You are on a tough ride late on and it might he harder to have a sense of inner validation for these strong things that you are feeling inside, as it might not he a common or typical trans* journey (!?!?). We’re all different, I guess so be kind to yourself… and I will try to take my own advice. :)
[Reply]
February 19th, 2015 at 8:15 pm |
I reflected a lot on my past (I just do in general) and noticed that a lot of the time I dressed in what could be considered unisex clothing much of the time.
That is what started the questioning, which carried over into internet searches featuring androgyny and gender questioning. This happened after I answered the question of my sexuality and pieces of my life are finally starting to fit together and make sense.
[Reply]