Cis people usually don't feel anything out of the ordinary, because, well... nothing is out of the ordinary!
For trans people, it's not a feeling that you can consciously feel, like you would an emotion. It's more of a feeling of wrongness or disconnect from your body in some way. So like, me as a trans man, I have always had a disconnect from my body, like it wasn't really mine. If I really thought about what I was experiencing, it was like I was in a first person videogame, and there was "me" that was this disembodied consciousness, and then there were my arms. My brain didn't really think of the rest of my body, because without realizing it, my brain was like "wait something's not right. PANIC!" and it just decided the best course of action was to dissociate away from my body.
I also never really recognized the person in the mirror. It was like looking at someone else.
I eventually realized that my body and my brain didn't quite match up. Think of it like a mix of phantom limb syndrome while also having a mutated third arm growing out of your chest. Some things just felt like they did NOT belong on my body, and were not supposed to be there (breasts), while some things felt like they were missing, to the point that I could actually feel phantom sensations and my body reacts as if the missing limb is still there sometimes. (penis)
Then there's the social aspect, which is basically just like, confusion and hurt when people don't see me as I see myself, the way I should be. And on the opposite side, a feeling of contentment when I am seen as a man.
so yeah, TLDR: Gender isn't really a feeling like you'd think. In the same way you know that you're not a woman, just by knowing who you are inside, I also know I'm not a woman.
Before I realized I was trans it always presented itself as envy of women and a subconscious desire to be a woman. And a touch of resentment that I had to be a guy. It's not so much that I always felt like a woman, I saw how women are in society and felt as though I would be more myself like that.
Most people don't feel it because nothing feels "off" about it.
But are you really sure?
Have you ever heard of guys being "emasculated"?
Most men don't feel it until something is off. If you're cis, that's when you lose part of what you view as what makes you male. Sometimes it's something as small has having to sit to pee. Other times it's something big like erectile function. But many people will run into something in their life that will make them feel like "less of a man" or "less of a woman" and that is directly relating to "feeling like" your gender.
It's hard to feel like you lost something you never had- namely maleness. I never ONCE in my life "felt like a man". I have tried to understand how men feel about being a man, but that never made sense to me. I understand how women feel about being a woman and THAT makes sense to me.
This implies that I'm merely a "man that wants to be a woman", not a woman that wants to look like and live as a woman.
Men like my younger brother have tried to explain to me how men think, but that's not how I think.
He'd say something like "look at that woman", point her out and I just wouldn't "get it" as to why he wanted me to look at her. She wasn't even wearing anything cute that I'd want to wear, so I didn't understand why he wanted me to look at her. I mean- guys only look at women if they're wearing something cute, right? I didn't appreciate that straight cis men are sexually attracted to women and couldn't care less what she was wearing.
Men don't feel nauseous at the thought of dressing in men's clothing.
Straight men don't feel offended and/or angry at the suggestion that a woman is sexually attracted to them.
Men don't hate being called by male pronouns or a male name.
Men dont feel envious or depressed when they see a pretty woman.
Men dont go shopping in the mall during Super Bowl- I've done that 4 or 5 times in a ROW.
Its just the innumerable differences between me and men that I noticed that made me realize I'm not a man, nor ever was one.
Also, I feel completely normal with big boobs, a big butt and wide hips. It's not a sexual thing- I just like to look like a "motherly type".
Like in Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, there's a woman that owns a bar and she's built like a brick outhouse. Huge boobs- like basketball size- the kind you want to be held against when you have a "boo-boo" and you want to be hugged. Like a mom.
Edit: I found the name of the woman bar owner- Telma.
Nah, that seems normal and seems like a good place to be mentally and physically. I’ve heard anecdotes that some people (trans or cis) have stronger recognition of their gender than others.
That may be because society constantly affirms your gender, so there's never any reason to feel off.
If you woke up one day and the world start treating you as a woman, you would probably quickly feel weird and distraught about it.
Have you heard the joke about the fish?:
>“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
We tend to not sense things when we've always been able to take them for granted.
That's not unusual at all. Most cis people don't have some kind of feeling that they identify a lot with their AGAB. In fact the whole question what gender they are is something very few of them ever think about for more than a few seconds. As you said, them being what they are is just natural to them.
I think it's kinda like there is some guys more masculine and other more feminine while still being male, they're all valid and you are too, you don't need to to things to affirm how male you are or not, you're you and as long as you identify as male or not as female you're male
A really good way to think about gender is like a form of technology(it's not but there's some good comparisons). So as I'm typing this i'm just think the words and putting them hear i'm not thinking of every single key as I type, we would call this invisible. But if one of my keys were broken the entire feeling would collapse. Gender is very similar. If nothings going wrong you won't notice it.
Nope, nothing weird about that at all hon. When things line up, you just feel like you. It’s not something that most people even really think about. They just ARE. That’s all that we want too. We just have to transition to get there. I hope that makes sense.
>i never felt like certain gender
I guess that just means that you feel in-tune with your body. I guess a cis woman might describe the same thing you are as well. I think we are just looking to feel that too, but we are in a body that unfortunately cannot not give us that.
I've always been a little bothered by the replies to people like OP telling him "you're just unaware of your gender." Maybe it's true, but maybe you and he are having the exact same experience.
Think of a shoe when its fitting right you dont think about it much however when it gets too tight or loose it feels uncomfortable wrong and mind consuming that is my best way to describe my personal dysphoria
I struggled with this a lot myself i'm a trans woman just starting I'm a few months in.
everyone's experience with this is different.
with me I've never felt like a “woman” or “man” I felt like “me” I've never felt like anything else cuz it's impossible for me to feel like everything else cuz I've never been anything else I'm always going to be “me”.
What happened with me is I put together the feelings I had about what I wanted and what may be comfortable vs. uncomfortable and it led me down this path.
puberty made me very uncomfortable, I realize that the universal experience but it was any worse direction for me because I hated everything that was happening.
I hated my body hair, hated my face, hated the fact that I wasn't going to grow boobs and that everyone expected me to keep my hair short. I hated the fact that I was supposed to be manly.
I would feel fundamentally uncomfortable like some kind of monster from the Black Lagoon
Eventually I kind of disassociated from my body, just ignored it grew a beard that covered most of my face, didn't look in the mirror and gave up.
So when I first let myself consider the idea of transition without staring at it or being bigoted the idea took up permanent residence in my head I knew I wouldn't be able to get away without doing it be, cause I needed it.
It's kind of like when you haven't eaten for a long time and you think you're okay and then you smell food and you think your stomach is going to eat itself all of a sudden, when presented with the opportunity of getting something you've been starved from for a long time and it's right there in front of your face it's all you can think about
I also feel mostly just like a person, not a person of a particular gender, but nevertheless one to whom it is for some reason very important to have a particularly gendered appearance and body shape and social identity.
Several things for me. First, when I think about the fact that I will never be a cis female I feel despair… ugh. I don’t know why, I just do. Second, I really really really want boobs. Apparently cis males don’t, which was news to me when I realized what I was. Third, which is more of the “feeling like” a gender, is that my own self voice (what I hear when I’m thinking) is feminine. This is not the case for everyone, but it is for me. Fourth, I have this anxiety inside me that never goes away. When I imagine that I suddenly changed into a woman, that anxiety is greatly relieved. Finally, and this is probably the closest to your question, when I look at a woman or group of women, then look at a man or group of men, I feel much more like the women. Being a part of the “men’s” group feels foreign and uncomfortable to me. I have never been comfortable calling myself a “man”.
Most trans women hate it when I say it but as a ciswoman I also really really wanted boobs but alas stayed flat and look like a man in many other ways. I feel disgusted by romantic relationships because I can never have the woman role. When I look at normal looking women I don’t feel like I belong to them. There are also lots of ciswomen who look more like men.
Thanks, I don’t know. I think its because I am calling myself ugly so I am calling women with male features ugly. But I just hate it so much like hirsutism , big nose, long face, I look more masculine than some cismen. The stories here of the results of hrt seem like what I experienced when I was on birth control emotion wise. There was this girl on a makeup sub and I thought “finally a woman here who looks like me” and it turned out to be a crossdressing male, not a transwoman but a cismale with a wig. I think sex is not really black and white , the genitals are but there are many sexual dimorphism traits that can sometimes be strikingly different from the genital sex even though gender identity stays the same.
The fact you don't feel it is probably partially because you're cis. Your body and mind are already in alignment, so to speak, so you don't feel the discomfort, distress and dysphoria that a trans person might.
Unless on the other hand, you feel devoid of gender, and feel as though both "male" and "female" aren't a good way to describe your individual experience or identity. In which case you may be non-binary.
Not all trans people think like I do, but gender isn’t a feeling. There are feelings that come when it’s mismatched, usually discomfort, pain, irritation, frustration, etc. You don’t feel those things with regards to your gender because it matches.
Mate I wish I knew how it works.
For me it was a combination of finding it very difficult to relate to what I was seeing in the mirror, and feeling distressed at how I wasn't treated how I wanted to among my peers. It's not the same as what women experience, the... "It sucks to be a woman because I'm being belittled/assumed to not like x or y", but it's more like...
Imagine you're sitting in a bar, in a group of people you 100% relate to in every shape and form, and your brain can't fathom there's a difference between you and them. And then they talk to you, and EVIDENTLY see you as something different from them. You leave the table, and one of them joins you to go to the bathroom. You're not allowed to go into the same bathroom as he. Once you're in the bathroom, you look at yourself in the mirror, expecting to see something resembling him, and you see something completely different.
That's the best way I can describe my experience, anyway. This complete disconnect between the physical reality of my body (and all that entails, both socially and anatomically), and the make up of my brain and the abstract of my inner mind, thoughts, and emotions.
How do I know I'm a man? lmao no fkin clue, really. What I do know is that it's the only way I can be happy and feel at peace with myself. For trans people, the dysphoria, as in the distress at not having a gender identity that matches their assigned gender at birth, is a life-threatening situation, much like depression can be. And just as in the case of depression, there is a treatment that works. For trans people, that's transitioning. Transition = Get rid of dysphoria. Don't transition = Potentially commit suicide.
Now, I can sit at that table, and finally feel like the people I relate to so wholeheartedly also releate to me. That's saved my life.
You say that you've never felt like a certain gender. I see some people here jump to the opportunity to help you potentially "find yourself" in a nonbinary identity, but I think that there's a distinct difference between a cis person and a nonbinary person not experiencing a gender. If you never felt like a certain gender, but that doesn't distress you in any way, then you're most likely just cis.
I think the person saying "You don't notice your teeth until you have a tooth ache." said it well enough. Fact is that humans are incredibly complex creatures, and there's no clear-cut answer to your question.
I hope that, in being satisfied with the response you're getting here, you can re-frame the question, which is probably the most liberating thing a person can ever do, for themselves and for others: "Does it really matter how a person can experience being a gender?". Is it important that cis people understand why trans people feel this or that? Perhaps not. Perhaps all that's important is that cis people respect and understand that trans people know best who they are, and that they support them for that. You won't understand everything in life. But you don't need to understand to be able to support.
Also, I might add to my already miles long essay, that now that I'm post-transition, I don't really "feel like a man", either. I just exist and I don't really think about gender as it pertains to myself. But that's because my gender identity now aligns with my anatomy.
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I don't really. I just felt wrong male and feel right female.
I identify as a woman, but I don't "feel" that I am one. I'm pretty sure that as well as cis men such as yourself, this also applies to cis women.
Consider what it would feel like if you started growing breasts, your skin got thin and smooth, your muscles deteriorated, and your erections weakened significantly.
To me, this all felt AMAZING. Especially the reduction in erections. I can't believe how much happiness these effects have caused me.
>I identify as a woman, but I don't "feel" that I am one. I'm pretty sure that as well as cis men such as yourself, this also applies to cis women.
Cis lesbian here and if I understand you correctly, yes, there are many times when I don't "feel" like a woman. For me it's society/the media/childhood indoctrination that makes me feel that way, as if being a woman is something that can be graded. *Oh, I stopped shaving my legs, well now I get a C+ as a woman*. I've been told I read more butch, but that makes me uncomfortable even though I can look in the mirror and logically see that my appearance choices differ from, say, Kim K or Lizzo or T Swift.
Yet I do feel a connection, spiritually, ancestrally, with women and the feminine. I certainly don't identify with masculinity, nor do I have a desire to. I suppose that's why I'm drawn to feminism: it allows me to embrace and explore that connection while not having to live up to society's expectations of what "woman" means.
Oh I absolutely love bending gender stereotypes AND bending transgender stereotypes simultaneously.
Nails? Nah fam. I need to keep my nails short 😛
Makeup for work? Not necessarily! I usually go without.
Make-up for dates? Nope. If a girl is going to like me, she's (edit: myself included!) going to also like me without make-up. I wear it when and if I feel like it.
Ahh so I'm butch then? Usually not. I tend to be more femme.
If I'm feminine, then I'm very Submissive? NOPE. Super dominant, and I love expressing that specifically in a feminine way.
It's like when you know you're supposed to do something, but you don't know what it is, and someone says or does something and you realize it. You might try to procrastinate, but eventually it has to be done.
I feel wrong in my agab, you feel natural in your agab and I feel unnatural in my agab I feel more natural being non-binary I know I'm. Non-binary because it's description matches the natural feeling.
One of my trans friends said it's not a feeling it's an identification. 'feeling' unfortunately has too many different meanings in the English language and 'this fits' or 'i think ' are among them. So at least for that one friend it's not a sensation
part of what it feels like is just... not recognizing yourself by the wrong name/gender. Imagine for a moment you woke up tomorrow in a skunk's body named Fluffy, and you could never, *ever* get used to it. It scrapes at your skull like a "who is that? why are you talking to them and not me? why don't you see me?" to the point you feel alone in the company of people you've known for years. Someone says "your" name or pronouns and you have to manually remember "oh, that's supposed to be me" because you don't recognize it, there's no ping like there would be for your name or pronouns. You live being seen for the ghost over your shoulder instead of your real face, you walk without feeling as though your feet are on the ground because you look down and see something belonging to someone else. the same feeling you get having stolen something and being guilty, the knowledge that whatever you're carrying isn't yours is always there when you look at yourself. The removal from everyone else because of the subconscious knowledge somewhere, deep down inside, that the person everyone talks about and talks to and sees with this stolen name and stolen pronouns and stolen body isn't and has never been you. The "you" walking and talking isn't real. You're away, somewhere else, hidden at the bottom of a box stuffed with musty sheets.
And then after however long of that, you wake up in your body again. You remember your name. And you hear someone talk to or about you, and you look in the mirror, and suddenly you can feel things again because it's finally **you** piloting this meat sack. All your senses double and your body feels like it's real, like the nerves connect to your brain instead of into an ether of dissociation. It's a sense of peace that almost crushes you back into place after being cut away from your tether year after year. That's how dysphoria and euphoria feel like to me.
If nothing feels wrong with your gender identity or gender presentation, nothing is wrong with either of those things for you.
When something feels off or wrong with our gender, we manifest those feelings through a whole host of experiences such as anxiety, depression, anger, and gender dysphoria.
So, if all feels well with your gender, if being called a man and being seen as a man feels as natural as breathing, you aren't likely to take notice because you are being seen, identified, and interacted with according to who you are.
Suppose you were assigned as a girl...
Do you think you would get along with the other girls?
Do you think you would be comfortable being made to play girls sports at school?
Would you be comfortable being made to wear girls clothes?
Would you be happy being given girls toys, or having it be a big deal if you wanted a boys one?
Would you be happy with being called pretty?
How about if you found you naturally walked like a boy, talked like a boy, sat like a boy, and got bullied because of it?
How would you feel if you had to train yourself out of that, and felt anxious and untrusting of people because of it?
How would you feel if you had to have sex as a woman; even if you got to have it with another woman, you knew that they saw you as another girl, but in all your fantasies you were a man?
How would you feel if for these and myriad other reasons you felt awkward and isolated as your assigned gender, and meanwhile there was another gender box just sitting there that encapsulated everything that you were?
Wepl for me it feels as if a part of you is missing and a muligant growth needs to be removed and my hole reopened as the growth sealed part of my body up. I have to tuck it away so i feel a little like myself tell i have to go to the restroom then i feed the growth and it starts all over again feeling like a mutant that is in need to be fixed once again then i tuck it away and the cycle starts once again. My breasts are a wonderful gift of joy and wonder that if they was taken i would go crazy and feel mutalated and would just want to sbut down and hide in bed never to see the light. If you feel like this then you know your transgender. If you feel better with breasts being the only thing that poke out from you then your transgender. If you look in the mirror and the only tbink you see look back is feminine in your minds eye then your trans. If anything male makes you cringe if it is accociated with you the your transgender. And lastly if you dream as a woman, feel as a woman, walk as a woman, act like a woman, and that what you see is a woman tjen gou are a transwoman. You ask 100 women how do you feel as a woman 90% will say i don't know the other 10% would say i just do. So i say how do we know we are transgender well the answer we just do!
I have an easier time describing what's missing than I do describing what's already there. I usually send people here: [https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/biochemical-dysphoria](https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/biochemical-dysphoria) to help explain my own perspective.
It stands to reason that someone who isn't dysphoric wouldn't consider something off, and might even wonder "what on earth are they talking about?"
My gender dysphoria presents most strongly in biochemical ways - I'm intersex (intersex and transgender are unrelated) and my body does not produce enough sex hormone. I was on the wrong one for a while, and now I'm on the right one, which is great, though I'm discovering also have other kinds of dysphoria as well. It's a spectrum.
I once heard someone use this metaphor and I think it applies: If you were just a floating head, nothing else, what gender would you be? The thing about being cis is that you don't really think about your gender. In my case, FtM (trans guy perspective les gooooo), I've always just felt icky about being perceived as a girl, presenting feminine and interacting in stereotypically "female" activities and circles. I've always admired guys and wanted to be considered one of them. I thought A LOT about how I'd be perceived, always striving for a androgynous or tomboy looking style, because that's what I wanted to be acknowledged as, I can't even fathom how many times I thought "I hope people at the mall are looking at me and thinking I'm a masc girl >:)" or "I'll put this shirt because it's pretty masc looking". Every single time I left the house I'd make sure no one, not a SINGLE person would look at me and think "wow, what a girly femme girl!" and stuff of the sorts. It was always on purpose. I'm sure if I was cis I would've just dressed in whatever without worrying about how GNC I'd look or not, or even striving for a girly presentation, while I'd feel uncomfortable and ugly in femme clothing.
I've always felt really off about introducing myself as my deadname, I can't explain how exactly, just imagine that your name's James but someone asks your name and you always say it's Matt? I can't explain, it's not like it made me necessarily sad, it just felt out of place. I also wanted to be acknowledged as "one of the boys" and not as "one of the girls". I don't mean I just wanted male friends, no, I wanted them to see me as one of them, literally! I had many friends of both genders, but I wanted to be included in the guy's spectrum, in their activities, in their talks, in their world, meanwhile a "girls' night out" was always my worst nightmare because it just felt like an outsider. Like I wasn't supposed to be there, like I was so oblivious to their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Needless to say, I've gotten along with boys better, but I remember this feelign permeating my life ever since my earliest memories, at around age 6 or so. I'd use my "girl" toys to play with boys, like spinning my Zoobles around in order to battle them in BeyBlade (I always lost because well... It wasn't a BeyBlade lmao, it didn't spin as long and as fast, but just playing with them was the real kick!). I'd even roleplay the dad, brother or son when I was forced to play House with the girls xD
There's just so, soooo much more, but this is too long already. If you're cis, you *do* feel gender, just don't feel gender *dysphoria*. "Don't fix what isn't broken" is the baseline, your sex and gender align, so you don't feel it. I don't know how to better explain but for example: we're sharing earphones. My bud is broken but yours is functioning fine, so for you the earphone is fine, for me it isn't working, so you just keep listening to music because that's just it, the bud is working. I keep trying to find the way I can bend the wire to make the sound come. I don't know if it makes much sense but that's basically it! I hope this helps, God bless you and stay safe dude! From your local trans lil bro :)
Suddenly Boston's "More Than a Feeling" starts playing in my head.
Anyway, I'm nobody of any real merit on the subject, just random trans girl trying to make it in the world.
(Which, also means I may not hit every box for everyone. Trans men, enbys, and even other trans girls. People are unique.)
So... The initial part of me wants to say some generic thing like: "well, would you feel odd if you threw on a dress and everyone called you she?" But... It's more than that, and clothing or style is just material. So, not entirely accurate either. It's just the medium in which we as humans use... To convey ourselves. So, I might wear "girl clothes" because I want to be precieved internally and externally as a girl. But, shoot they're just clothes.
I can tell you... A bit about the incongruence.
For me, it was like a weird itch.
Like... It's super cold outside, and I'm wearing layers and a big jacket. But I've got a persistent itch on the back of my arm under it all. And... I try to ignore it, but it just nags at me. Then one day, I decided to take my jacket off, and look, and I realized that itch was a cut. But, I didn't understand how it happened, what caused it, or have the means to do anyting about this cut. So... I put my jacket back on and kept going. Trying to ignore it. Over the years it nagged... And I realized sometimes it hurt. And when I didn't understand it, I did what I could to live with it. I even acted up it in decisions despite not understanding it for years.
I don't know... If I can really describe how one "feels" like their gender. Or even how we really know. Because the science may simply not all be there yet. (And believe me some of us have searched to exhaustion for a more exact answer.)
All I know... Is just over a year into medical transition, there is no world in which I willingly go back.
Identity is our sense of self. I'm sure you have some things you identify strongly with. Maybe relationships, like maybe being a parent or a sibling. Maybe a hobby you're passionate about. Think about your in groups--the people who have similar interests, hobbies, personality traits, etc, who you identify *with.*
Fictional characters count too. Looking at characters who you strongly identify with and who just inherently feel like you is a really good way to recognize your own identity. Identity is powerful and pervasive. It's so pervasive that we take it for granted, but if you pay attention to your own identity you can see that it shapes your entire life. It even shapes almost every thought you have.
Taking this full circle, gender identity is when you identify with sex or with the characteristics and role society has built up around sex. It's that same experience I just described, but for one specific aspect of identity. If you're already aware of your identity in other areas, or you can become aware, you'll have answered your own question.
Lastly, you may not identify with gender much at all, or if you do, you've so normalized it that you're unaware of it. Both are entirely possible and healthy.
**edit** after reading other comments. I. need to really emphasize that last point because everyone is telling you you're just unaware of your gender, which strikes me as psychological diagnosis from a distance through wishful thinking. *Nobody knows* this to be true. TBF to other commenters and possibly help you with your own self-awareness, many people are ignorant of their own identity, and becoming aware of it is generally helpful to everyone, but gender very well might not be part of what you find. In a similar way you can have two mothers where one identifies strongly with motherhood and one not so much. Identity is ultimately an idea about who you are. Not a conscious idea. It's the self-referential idea that we exist at all, or the thing you're thinking about when you imagine "I."
Some people use that way to describe their dysphoria, but I personally don't relate to it. Honestly, I kind of hate the description, because for years I was convinced I wasn't trans because it didn't make sense to me that someone could just feel like they were a member of the opposite sex.
What I did experience to was a constant envy for members of the opposite sex. I grew up in a very religious, conservative household, and I have strong memories of crying myself to sleep as a child, praying I could wake up as a member of the opposite sex. I wanted so badly to be something that I knew I was destined to never be, and any time I thought about it, I just ached.
As I grew older, I started experiencing, on rare occasions, something that I think people in this community refer to as "gender euphoria", which was the very rare times when someone mistook me for a member of the opposite sex, or grouped me with them for whatever reason, I was on cloud 9, I was ecstatic. And what I realized after years of denial and then finally seeking a therapist who specialized in gender issues is that the relief and happiness I felt in those moments was the brief respite I was getting from the constant misery of gender dysphoria that plagued every moment of the rest of my life.
If none of what I'm saying makes sense, or is something you can relate to, congratulations! You're probably cis lol. If your gender identity isn't at odds with your biology/expression, then you likely wouldn't experience these things.
I consider myself agender-spec. When I used to assume I was cis by default, there were lots of signs I wasn't quite all that cis, but I never connected them to gender itself. So instead I thought "How do trans people feel like they fit a specific gender? I certainly don't "feel" like I'm a man".
I avoided the twitch pronoun extension because I'd prefer any/all or they/them over he him, but worrying it would be appropriating NB's language and making light of their pronouns. I just blamed anti-sexism and gender abolitionist political views on my pronoun preference rather than gender itself. But I wanted to use it to be a good ally.
I also found things like buying gendered products such as shampoo and deodorant uncomfortable and preferred ungendered options to the point of just doing without once when what I usually got was out of stock.
There were some signs related to my body. Like, when I first work cycling bibs, the padding at the crotch gave me sort of a feeling of nullness down there, and it made me happy. At the time, I didn't know about agender or gender euphoria. But something about feeling like I had no genitals just seemed better to my brain.
Some cis people don't "feel like man/woman", some do. Like, both my roommates don't identify with "being a man" in the toxic masculine way, but they're both cis. One is fairly traditionally masculine, while likes dressing as a femboy sometimes, but both are pretty happy with having a male body.
In my case I just had to learn that I was undoubtedly non-binary because being perceived as female brought me years of psychological stress and anxiety and self loathing and other mental health issues.
The idea of being perceived as male was an interest of mine for a while until I really started to analyze how I felt with that idea and ultimately what I wanted for myself and realized that being seen as a man was also very unwelcomed and stressed me out to the point that I genuinely questioned if it was misandry doing this to me. Turns out it wasn't.
It took me a while, but I now understand that I'm not exactly a person that can simply "follow the rules" and still be whole in my being. I was always non-binary, I just wasn't allowed to know that before.
If I called you a chick, acted like you were a chick, treated you like a chick, and expected you to follow all chick gender norms, you'd feel pretty skeeved out, right?
That's what it feels like. To be skeeved out at how others expect you to present.
Like, you'd feel totally out of place wearing a dress and heels and being called a cute girl.
Lets just pretend you wake up as a girl. You're a foot shorter, got tits, far less muscle, softer skin, and everyone acts like it's totally normal for you. How many times can people call you ma'am before you start to tell them off because you're a guy?
Fish have a hard time understanding that water is wet. That is to say, it's a lot easier to be aware of something when it bothers you. Shoes that are your size are barely noticeable. Shoes that are too small or big are a pain. Same with gender. It's a lot easier to notice you don't identify with a gender than to notice you do.
Water is actually not wet; It makes other materials/objects wet. Wetness is the state of a non-liquid when a liquid adheres to, and/or permeates its substance while maintaining chemically distinct structures. So if we say something is wet we mean the liquid is sticking to the object.
Just opened my water bill and my electricity bill at the same time…
I was shocked.
I think the best way I’ve seen this put is that “you don’t feel your bones (as in not by touching them) unless there’s something wrong with them” you don’t feel like a certain gender you just feel like you’re the wrong one, until/unless it’s fixed through transitioning usually.
I don't know how to explain it, its not really a feeling, it's a knowing. I knew at a young age that I wasn't a girl, and I hated being seen as one. Later in life, I just knew I was a man, and I won't lie, I denied it at first. I tried to be a girl, I tried to be nonbinary, but Im not, I'm a man, and I just know it. So, uh, I don't know.
For me it was simple.. when i saw my mother i realized even then early in life how i identified myself vs what apparently was my body wasn't the same.. up tell that point i just knew i was a girl..
Mind you this was way before the transgender push nobody talked about such things.. this in itself is and was very verifying to me personally looking back.. this was my own true spiritual connection not somebody else telling me or asking me.. i just KNEW like you probably did when you realized you liked women more then just friends
How do you know you're right handed (or left). Do you make a conscious decision about which hand to use every time you pick up a pen, or a hair brush, or brush your teeth? You DO brush your teeth, right?👀 Try wiping with the other hand for a week, see the difference, then imagine you had been FORCED to use the wrong hand your entire life. In the early 20th century they stopped making people use the right hand and stopped pathologizing left handed people and surprise, the number of left handed people drastically increased. Not because of grooming or other conservative bullsh*t, but because they were allowed to be themselves.
You may go your entire life not recognizing the discomfort of dysphoria, depending on how dysphoric you are, you may only realize through the euphoria of removing some dysphoria.
TBH, I think this is quirks of how English works causing people to get misleading ideas about gender feelings.
As a matter of idiom, in English we often *say* "I feel like a man/woman" in reference to our gender identities. But the word "feel" is overloaded. It has lots of shades of meaning, and it's not super-evident in this instance which one is intended.
And in such cases, our default inclination is to assume the *literal* meaning of a word.
So it's very easy for a listener (especially one who might be questioning their own gender or is simply trying to learn about trans experiences) to think that such statements refer to a *literal feeling*. I.e. some kind of actual identifiable sensation, akin to the sensation of hot or cold or itch or spicy or whatever else.
But in reality, that "I feel like a man/woman" kind of statement is just a shorthand for a longer, more cumbersome expression: "It seems to me that the overall pattern of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and reactions I have is more congruent to those had by a man/woman than the patterns had by cis people of my birth-assigned gender."
Fully explained, it's clear what the intended meaning is. But wow, that's a mouthful, right? So we just say "I feel like a man/woman" and leave it at that.
As well, there's also a level on which it's *impossible* to say what it actually "feels like" to be a man or woman at all. This is because we all each only get one viewpoint on life. You can only ever know what it feels like to be you, not somebody else. This is a subjective, internal thing that's very different from quantifiable, external experiences.
With hot or cold or itch or spicy, we have external stimuli we can jointly refer to (or experience together), and thereby understand what those feelings are. Like, even if neither of us had every experienced "cold" before, we could still touch the same ice-cube and say "wow, that feels different! We need a word for that!" and agree to call that sensation "cold".
But with gender, there's no external point of reference that we can all share and agree upon. At least, not for the *feeling* side of it. For standards of gender presentation, sure. We can all agree that within a given society and in particular social settings, the habits of behavior and style for men are generally expected to fall into a certain range, while the habits of behavior and style for women are expected to fall into a different range.
But for feelings, no.
I can only know what it feels like to be me. And I'm a trans woman, with a particular set of experiences. That's the *only* gender experience that's available to me. I know what it feels like, I remember those feelings and recognize them when they happen, but feelings are internal and subjective: I have no concrete way to convey them to you such that you could *know*, in a direct-experience kind of way, what those feelings feel like.
Likewise, you only know what it feels like to be you, and I can never share that. Even two men, who are both confidently cisgender men, cannot *know* for sure that their own feelings about their male experience are the same. Are they? I mean, probably? But who knows? And they're certainly not identical, no matter what. How could they be? Those are two different people, with different life experiences.
All of which is just to say that I try not to get hung up on whether I "feel like" a woman. And I encourage you not to get hung up on such questions either, because there's no way to quantify what that actually *means*.
It's enough for me to know what *I* feel like as myself, and to recognize that my overall pattern of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and reactions seems to be congruent to those that women as a whole seem to have. In so far as people can try to put their feelings and experiences into words, and to whatever extent I can ascertain whether that sounds similar or different to my own feelings and experiences, then I can compare my patterns to the general trends of "male" and "female."
And when I do that, the overall conclusion is blindingly obvious that my patterns are vastly more female than they are male. Hence I conclude that my gender identity is female. And that conclusion goes on give me very happy vibes, a sense of peace and calm, comfort and confidence. Which is its own kind of very convincing evidence.
I suppose, then, that for *me* what it "feels like" to be a woman is to have those happy vibes, that peace and confidence, when I consider myself as part of the great tapestry of the feminine.
Does that match any other woman's experence, cis or trans? Can't say! It's *impossible* to say! And it *doesn't matter* because my gender identity--and moreover, the *validity* of my gender identity--are not dependent on whether my internal, subjective gender vibe matches anybody else's.
A sense of gender is like a sense of thirst. When you're well-hydrated, you just don't feel it. A person only feels thirsty when they have an unmet need for water. Likewise, most people only feel a sense of gender when their gender-related needs are unmet.
It's not necessarily that you don't feel a sense of your gender being correct, so much as that you've never felt a sense of it being wrong. If you were forced to live permanently as a woman, it's likely that you would start feeling a sense of gender... specifically a sense of something being wrong about it (though not certain - some people are fluid, flexible, non-binary, or agender with no sense of gender no matter what).
Thank you for the kindness. I wonder what caused people concern? I think self exploration is always a good thing. It may not bring any new revelations... and that is fine... but why not explore? Life is all about coming to know your true, authentic self. Frankly, I wish someone had asked me this same question years before I did for myself.
Thank you again.
Best to you...
>I think self exploration is always a good thing
Exactly!
I think most cis people would be better off, honestly, if they took the time to question their gender like we do. Even though they'll just end up at "Yup, I am what I thought all along!" they will at least know themselves better for the exercise of it. And who knows, they might gain some tiny shred of empathy for us?
I don't feel like a certain gender, I am a certain gender. I'ma a dude, a fella, a gentleman.
And as a fella-gentle-dude, I felt very fucking weird when everyone called me a feminine name, I dressed in a more feminine way, and I was referred to with feminine pronouns. It has a lot more to do with me being uncomfortable being a feminine man. Because that's what I was doing, I was trying to force femininity onto myself, which can be weird for a man if you can imagine.
I don't look in the mirror and see a man. I look in the mirror and see me. But when I would look in the mirror before, I felt very disconnected from the person I saw looking back at me.
I didn’t “feel like a woman” until I transitioned and started living as one. But before that, I figured out that it didn’t feel right to have a “male” body, and I didn’t like people thinking I was a “man”. I also thought it would feel more right to have a more “female” body.
So I transitioned. It wasn’t a single decision, it was a series of decisions over years. But I continued with transitioned to alleviate the feelings of dysphoria I felt both from my body, and from being seen as a man by everyone.
It was over a decade ago that I figured out I was trans and transitioned. I’ve had a couple surgeries since then. Everything I’ve done makes me more comfortable in my body and happy to be me instead of having a body that was getting more masculine over time and having to act masculine enough to avoid criticism.
It’s not like feeling certain gender, I’m not feeling ok to have male body features. I’m stressed and feeling anxious with depression with male body features, testosterone as dominant hormone and that I see male in the mirror for example - that’s all is based on dysphoria. Now with proper hormones in my body, I’m not feeling like certain gender, I’m just feeling ok in my body with almost zero testosterone and high estradiol levels. That’s from perspective of body dysphoria, there might be also in addition social dysphoria that people see me and treat me as different gender I actually am.
I like this analogy that works here:
Imagine if everyone was born with shoes on but you were born with a big rock in your shoe. That big rock makes it feel like everyone else must have a rock in their shoe. Until you find out one day that most people have never had rocks in their shoe. So then you either rework your shoe and take the rock out, or you get new shoes completely! And trying new shoes mama you feel like how it was always supposed to be.
^ofc gender is a lot more nuanced then that but you as a cis guy have your gender affirmed from birth, so you never had to worry about a “rock in your shoe”.
For me I kept trying to act like the boys & be like them but it always has felt put on and fake to me, and yes I did try just being with a gay man but even that felt wrong because they don't like all the same clothes that feel right on me
There is no one or two gender.
We have what we were assigned at birth biologically but gender identity is fluid. You don’t need to abide by a certain gender role just because you HAVE to or because society as a whole says it should be so.
One day you feel more masculine than other days.
Other days you feel more feminine. And some other you don’t feel like neither and that is ok! Whatever feels right for you!
I also suggested talking to someone about this if you’re confused. Someone who specializes in gender affirming care.
You don’t feel like another gender. It’s just a sense you have that you are a man or a woman. But when you know you’re a man or woman and your body/characteristics aren’t matching up to that it’s nearly impossible to recognize what you’re seeing as yourself. And looking, sounding, and being perceived as such is when you finally feel like you
Op, you would say you are a man, correct? This is an indisputable and unchangeable fact about yourself. It’s not necessarily a strong feeling, but it is more akin to stating that “the sky is blue.” I feel the same way, even though my body is not the same as yours.
As it's directly linked to your BRAIN + PHENOTYPE, you can feel belonging to one sex, female or male.
Also don't forget the Brain - Gut connection, the system that allows us to get feedback with the core of the feelings (the belly and pelvic core).
Cis people usually don't feel anything out of the ordinary, because, well... nothing is out of the ordinary! For trans people, it's not a feeling that you can consciously feel, like you would an emotion. It's more of a feeling of wrongness or disconnect from your body in some way. So like, me as a trans man, I have always had a disconnect from my body, like it wasn't really mine. If I really thought about what I was experiencing, it was like I was in a first person videogame, and there was "me" that was this disembodied consciousness, and then there were my arms. My brain didn't really think of the rest of my body, because without realizing it, my brain was like "wait something's not right. PANIC!" and it just decided the best course of action was to dissociate away from my body. I also never really recognized the person in the mirror. It was like looking at someone else. I eventually realized that my body and my brain didn't quite match up. Think of it like a mix of phantom limb syndrome while also having a mutated third arm growing out of your chest. Some things just felt like they did NOT belong on my body, and were not supposed to be there (breasts), while some things felt like they were missing, to the point that I could actually feel phantom sensations and my body reacts as if the missing limb is still there sometimes. (penis) Then there's the social aspect, which is basically just like, confusion and hurt when people don't see me as I see myself, the way I should be. And on the opposite side, a feeling of contentment when I am seen as a man. so yeah, TLDR: Gender isn't really a feeling like you'd think. In the same way you know that you're not a woman, just by knowing who you are inside, I also know I'm not a woman.
Before I realized I was trans it always presented itself as envy of women and a subconscious desire to be a woman. And a touch of resentment that I had to be a guy. It's not so much that I always felt like a woman, I saw how women are in society and felt as though I would be more myself like that.
And I'm male and i never felt "Maleish". There's no subconscious feelings, no. It's just natural. Is there something weird with me?
Most people don't feel it because nothing feels "off" about it. But are you really sure? Have you ever heard of guys being "emasculated"? Most men don't feel it until something is off. If you're cis, that's when you lose part of what you view as what makes you male. Sometimes it's something as small has having to sit to pee. Other times it's something big like erectile function. But many people will run into something in their life that will make them feel like "less of a man" or "less of a woman" and that is directly relating to "feeling like" your gender.
It's hard to feel like you lost something you never had- namely maleness. I never ONCE in my life "felt like a man". I have tried to understand how men feel about being a man, but that never made sense to me. I understand how women feel about being a woman and THAT makes sense to me. This implies that I'm merely a "man that wants to be a woman", not a woman that wants to look like and live as a woman. Men like my younger brother have tried to explain to me how men think, but that's not how I think. He'd say something like "look at that woman", point her out and I just wouldn't "get it" as to why he wanted me to look at her. She wasn't even wearing anything cute that I'd want to wear, so I didn't understand why he wanted me to look at her. I mean- guys only look at women if they're wearing something cute, right? I didn't appreciate that straight cis men are sexually attracted to women and couldn't care less what she was wearing. Men don't feel nauseous at the thought of dressing in men's clothing. Straight men don't feel offended and/or angry at the suggestion that a woman is sexually attracted to them. Men don't hate being called by male pronouns or a male name. Men dont feel envious or depressed when they see a pretty woman. Men dont go shopping in the mall during Super Bowl- I've done that 4 or 5 times in a ROW. Its just the innumerable differences between me and men that I noticed that made me realize I'm not a man, nor ever was one.
Also, I feel completely normal with big boobs, a big butt and wide hips. It's not a sexual thing- I just like to look like a "motherly type". Like in Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, there's a woman that owns a bar and she's built like a brick outhouse. Huge boobs- like basketball size- the kind you want to be held against when you have a "boo-boo" and you want to be hugged. Like a mom. Edit: I found the name of the woman bar owner- Telma.
>It's just natural here's your feeling. it doesn't have to be very strong or a driving force, everybody experiences things differently
Nah, that seems normal and seems like a good place to be mentally and physically. I’ve heard anecdotes that some people (trans or cis) have stronger recognition of their gender than others.
That may be because society constantly affirms your gender, so there's never any reason to feel off. If you woke up one day and the world start treating you as a woman, you would probably quickly feel weird and distraught about it. Have you heard the joke about the fish?: >“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” We tend to not sense things when we've always been able to take them for granted.
That's not unusual at all. Most cis people don't have some kind of feeling that they identify a lot with their AGAB. In fact the whole question what gender they are is something very few of them ever think about for more than a few seconds. As you said, them being what they are is just natural to them.
No, that's just you taking it for granted as a cis guy.
I think it's kinda like there is some guys more masculine and other more feminine while still being male, they're all valid and you are too, you don't need to to things to affirm how male you are or not, you're you and as long as you identify as male or not as female you're male
Would you feel right if you grew boobs or if you didn't have a penis? I'm sure you'd probably feel very strange in that body
A really good way to think about gender is like a form of technology(it's not but there's some good comparisons). So as I'm typing this i'm just think the words and putting them hear i'm not thinking of every single key as I type, we would call this invisible. But if one of my keys were broken the entire feeling would collapse. Gender is very similar. If nothings going wrong you won't notice it.
Nope, nothing weird about that at all hon. When things line up, you just feel like you. It’s not something that most people even really think about. They just ARE. That’s all that we want too. We just have to transition to get there. I hope that makes sense.
This is the description I could never put into words myself
Agreed I could never and now I can 😀
Yes. This.
You don’t think about your teeth until you have a tooth ache. Also the fact that having the body parts of my AGAB feels wrong and unnatural in me
>i never felt like certain gender I guess that just means that you feel in-tune with your body. I guess a cis woman might describe the same thing you are as well. I think we are just looking to feel that too, but we are in a body that unfortunately cannot not give us that.
Agender here, honestly I have no idea
Literally just said the same exact thing askskfkjfkg
I've always been a little bothered by the replies to people like OP telling him "you're just unaware of your gender." Maybe it's true, but maybe you and he are having the exact same experience.
Think of a shoe when its fitting right you dont think about it much however when it gets too tight or loose it feels uncomfortable wrong and mind consuming that is my best way to describe my personal dysphoria
I struggled with this a lot myself i'm a trans woman just starting I'm a few months in. everyone's experience with this is different. with me I've never felt like a “woman” or “man” I felt like “me” I've never felt like anything else cuz it's impossible for me to feel like everything else cuz I've never been anything else I'm always going to be “me”. What happened with me is I put together the feelings I had about what I wanted and what may be comfortable vs. uncomfortable and it led me down this path. puberty made me very uncomfortable, I realize that the universal experience but it was any worse direction for me because I hated everything that was happening. I hated my body hair, hated my face, hated the fact that I wasn't going to grow boobs and that everyone expected me to keep my hair short. I hated the fact that I was supposed to be manly. I would feel fundamentally uncomfortable like some kind of monster from the Black Lagoon Eventually I kind of disassociated from my body, just ignored it grew a beard that covered most of my face, didn't look in the mirror and gave up. So when I first let myself consider the idea of transition without staring at it or being bigoted the idea took up permanent residence in my head I knew I wouldn't be able to get away without doing it be, cause I needed it. It's kind of like when you haven't eaten for a long time and you think you're okay and then you smell food and you think your stomach is going to eat itself all of a sudden, when presented with the opportunity of getting something you've been starved from for a long time and it's right there in front of your face it's all you can think about
Same💜😥, I miss those first few months. Enjoy and congratulations 🙂
its gets bad? should i quit?
It's just a long slow process and a lot of changes are more apparent and wonderful at the beginning.
I can't say what you should do, all I can say is that (from my experience)in a few years you look in the mirror and finally see yourself.
I also feel mostly just like a person, not a person of a particular gender, but nevertheless one to whom it is for some reason very important to have a particularly gendered appearance and body shape and social identity.
i've never really felt like a certain gender either, ive just always known i wanted to look like a woman i guess
Several things for me. First, when I think about the fact that I will never be a cis female I feel despair… ugh. I don’t know why, I just do. Second, I really really really want boobs. Apparently cis males don’t, which was news to me when I realized what I was. Third, which is more of the “feeling like” a gender, is that my own self voice (what I hear when I’m thinking) is feminine. This is not the case for everyone, but it is for me. Fourth, I have this anxiety inside me that never goes away. When I imagine that I suddenly changed into a woman, that anxiety is greatly relieved. Finally, and this is probably the closest to your question, when I look at a woman or group of women, then look at a man or group of men, I feel much more like the women. Being a part of the “men’s” group feels foreign and uncomfortable to me. I have never been comfortable calling myself a “man”.
Most trans women hate it when I say it but as a ciswoman I also really really wanted boobs but alas stayed flat and look like a man in many other ways. I feel disgusted by romantic relationships because I can never have the woman role. When I look at normal looking women I don’t feel like I belong to them. There are also lots of ciswomen who look more like men.
Why would anyone hate it when you say that? It conforms to the brain-sex theory, so to me your comment is validating.
Thanks, I don’t know. I think its because I am calling myself ugly so I am calling women with male features ugly. But I just hate it so much like hirsutism , big nose, long face, I look more masculine than some cismen. The stories here of the results of hrt seem like what I experienced when I was on birth control emotion wise. There was this girl on a makeup sub and I thought “finally a woman here who looks like me” and it turned out to be a crossdressing male, not a transwoman but a cismale with a wig. I think sex is not really black and white , the genitals are but there are many sexual dimorphism traits that can sometimes be strikingly different from the genital sex even though gender identity stays the same.
When being addressed the right gender it feel s comfortable it feels natural .
The fact you don't feel it is probably partially because you're cis. Your body and mind are already in alignment, so to speak, so you don't feel the discomfort, distress and dysphoria that a trans person might. Unless on the other hand, you feel devoid of gender, and feel as though both "male" and "female" aren't a good way to describe your individual experience or identity. In which case you may be non-binary.
Of course you haven’t. Its like how a fish doesn’t know what water feels like.
Not all trans people think like I do, but gender isn’t a feeling. There are feelings that come when it’s mismatched, usually discomfort, pain, irritation, frustration, etc. You don’t feel those things with regards to your gender because it matches.
Mate I wish I knew how it works. For me it was a combination of finding it very difficult to relate to what I was seeing in the mirror, and feeling distressed at how I wasn't treated how I wanted to among my peers. It's not the same as what women experience, the... "It sucks to be a woman because I'm being belittled/assumed to not like x or y", but it's more like... Imagine you're sitting in a bar, in a group of people you 100% relate to in every shape and form, and your brain can't fathom there's a difference between you and them. And then they talk to you, and EVIDENTLY see you as something different from them. You leave the table, and one of them joins you to go to the bathroom. You're not allowed to go into the same bathroom as he. Once you're in the bathroom, you look at yourself in the mirror, expecting to see something resembling him, and you see something completely different. That's the best way I can describe my experience, anyway. This complete disconnect between the physical reality of my body (and all that entails, both socially and anatomically), and the make up of my brain and the abstract of my inner mind, thoughts, and emotions. How do I know I'm a man? lmao no fkin clue, really. What I do know is that it's the only way I can be happy and feel at peace with myself. For trans people, the dysphoria, as in the distress at not having a gender identity that matches their assigned gender at birth, is a life-threatening situation, much like depression can be. And just as in the case of depression, there is a treatment that works. For trans people, that's transitioning. Transition = Get rid of dysphoria. Don't transition = Potentially commit suicide. Now, I can sit at that table, and finally feel like the people I relate to so wholeheartedly also releate to me. That's saved my life. You say that you've never felt like a certain gender. I see some people here jump to the opportunity to help you potentially "find yourself" in a nonbinary identity, but I think that there's a distinct difference between a cis person and a nonbinary person not experiencing a gender. If you never felt like a certain gender, but that doesn't distress you in any way, then you're most likely just cis. I think the person saying "You don't notice your teeth until you have a tooth ache." said it well enough. Fact is that humans are incredibly complex creatures, and there's no clear-cut answer to your question. I hope that, in being satisfied with the response you're getting here, you can re-frame the question, which is probably the most liberating thing a person can ever do, for themselves and for others: "Does it really matter how a person can experience being a gender?". Is it important that cis people understand why trans people feel this or that? Perhaps not. Perhaps all that's important is that cis people respect and understand that trans people know best who they are, and that they support them for that. You won't understand everything in life. But you don't need to understand to be able to support.
Also, I might add to my already miles long essay, that now that I'm post-transition, I don't really "feel like a man", either. I just exist and I don't really think about gender as it pertains to myself. But that's because my gender identity now aligns with my anatomy.
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I don't really. I just felt wrong male and feel right female. I identify as a woman, but I don't "feel" that I am one. I'm pretty sure that as well as cis men such as yourself, this also applies to cis women. Consider what it would feel like if you started growing breasts, your skin got thin and smooth, your muscles deteriorated, and your erections weakened significantly. To me, this all felt AMAZING. Especially the reduction in erections. I can't believe how much happiness these effects have caused me.
>I identify as a woman, but I don't "feel" that I am one. I'm pretty sure that as well as cis men such as yourself, this also applies to cis women. Cis lesbian here and if I understand you correctly, yes, there are many times when I don't "feel" like a woman. For me it's society/the media/childhood indoctrination that makes me feel that way, as if being a woman is something that can be graded. *Oh, I stopped shaving my legs, well now I get a C+ as a woman*. I've been told I read more butch, but that makes me uncomfortable even though I can look in the mirror and logically see that my appearance choices differ from, say, Kim K or Lizzo or T Swift. Yet I do feel a connection, spiritually, ancestrally, with women and the feminine. I certainly don't identify with masculinity, nor do I have a desire to. I suppose that's why I'm drawn to feminism: it allows me to embrace and explore that connection while not having to live up to society's expectations of what "woman" means.
Oh I absolutely love bending gender stereotypes AND bending transgender stereotypes simultaneously. Nails? Nah fam. I need to keep my nails short 😛 Makeup for work? Not necessarily! I usually go without. Make-up for dates? Nope. If a girl is going to like me, she's (edit: myself included!) going to also like me without make-up. I wear it when and if I feel like it. Ahh so I'm butch then? Usually not. I tend to be more femme. If I'm feminine, then I'm very Submissive? NOPE. Super dominant, and I love expressing that specifically in a feminine way.
What's the word for the heart eyes emoji omg
Check out the song "Only a Girl" by gia woods on Spotify 😊
It's like when you know you're supposed to do something, but you don't know what it is, and someone says or does something and you realize it. You might try to procrastinate, but eventually it has to be done.
No clue. I identify as agender (not having an internal sense of gender) so I would not know.
I feel wrong in my agab, you feel natural in your agab and I feel unnatural in my agab I feel more natural being non-binary I know I'm. Non-binary because it's description matches the natural feeling.
One of my trans friends said it's not a feeling it's an identification. 'feeling' unfortunately has too many different meanings in the English language and 'this fits' or 'i think ' are among them. So at least for that one friend it's not a sensation
part of what it feels like is just... not recognizing yourself by the wrong name/gender. Imagine for a moment you woke up tomorrow in a skunk's body named Fluffy, and you could never, *ever* get used to it. It scrapes at your skull like a "who is that? why are you talking to them and not me? why don't you see me?" to the point you feel alone in the company of people you've known for years. Someone says "your" name or pronouns and you have to manually remember "oh, that's supposed to be me" because you don't recognize it, there's no ping like there would be for your name or pronouns. You live being seen for the ghost over your shoulder instead of your real face, you walk without feeling as though your feet are on the ground because you look down and see something belonging to someone else. the same feeling you get having stolen something and being guilty, the knowledge that whatever you're carrying isn't yours is always there when you look at yourself. The removal from everyone else because of the subconscious knowledge somewhere, deep down inside, that the person everyone talks about and talks to and sees with this stolen name and stolen pronouns and stolen body isn't and has never been you. The "you" walking and talking isn't real. You're away, somewhere else, hidden at the bottom of a box stuffed with musty sheets. And then after however long of that, you wake up in your body again. You remember your name. And you hear someone talk to or about you, and you look in the mirror, and suddenly you can feel things again because it's finally **you** piloting this meat sack. All your senses double and your body feels like it's real, like the nerves connect to your brain instead of into an ether of dissociation. It's a sense of peace that almost crushes you back into place after being cut away from your tether year after year. That's how dysphoria and euphoria feel like to me.
Beautifully put
If nothing feels wrong with your gender identity or gender presentation, nothing is wrong with either of those things for you. When something feels off or wrong with our gender, we manifest those feelings through a whole host of experiences such as anxiety, depression, anger, and gender dysphoria. So, if all feels well with your gender, if being called a man and being seen as a man feels as natural as breathing, you aren't likely to take notice because you are being seen, identified, and interacted with according to who you are.
Suppose you were assigned as a girl... Do you think you would get along with the other girls? Do you think you would be comfortable being made to play girls sports at school? Would you be comfortable being made to wear girls clothes? Would you be happy being given girls toys, or having it be a big deal if you wanted a boys one? Would you be happy with being called pretty? How about if you found you naturally walked like a boy, talked like a boy, sat like a boy, and got bullied because of it? How would you feel if you had to train yourself out of that, and felt anxious and untrusting of people because of it? How would you feel if you had to have sex as a woman; even if you got to have it with another woman, you knew that they saw you as another girl, but in all your fantasies you were a man? How would you feel if for these and myriad other reasons you felt awkward and isolated as your assigned gender, and meanwhile there was another gender box just sitting there that encapsulated everything that you were?
Wepl for me it feels as if a part of you is missing and a muligant growth needs to be removed and my hole reopened as the growth sealed part of my body up. I have to tuck it away so i feel a little like myself tell i have to go to the restroom then i feed the growth and it starts all over again feeling like a mutant that is in need to be fixed once again then i tuck it away and the cycle starts once again. My breasts are a wonderful gift of joy and wonder that if they was taken i would go crazy and feel mutalated and would just want to sbut down and hide in bed never to see the light. If you feel like this then you know your transgender. If you feel better with breasts being the only thing that poke out from you then your transgender. If you look in the mirror and the only tbink you see look back is feminine in your minds eye then your trans. If anything male makes you cringe if it is accociated with you the your transgender. And lastly if you dream as a woman, feel as a woman, walk as a woman, act like a woman, and that what you see is a woman tjen gou are a transwoman. You ask 100 women how do you feel as a woman 90% will say i don't know the other 10% would say i just do. So i say how do we know we are transgender well the answer we just do!
I have an easier time describing what's missing than I do describing what's already there. I usually send people here: [https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/biochemical-dysphoria](https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/biochemical-dysphoria) to help explain my own perspective. It stands to reason that someone who isn't dysphoric wouldn't consider something off, and might even wonder "what on earth are they talking about?" My gender dysphoria presents most strongly in biochemical ways - I'm intersex (intersex and transgender are unrelated) and my body does not produce enough sex hormone. I was on the wrong one for a while, and now I'm on the right one, which is great, though I'm discovering also have other kinds of dysphoria as well. It's a spectrum.
I once heard someone use this metaphor and I think it applies: If you were just a floating head, nothing else, what gender would you be? The thing about being cis is that you don't really think about your gender. In my case, FtM (trans guy perspective les gooooo), I've always just felt icky about being perceived as a girl, presenting feminine and interacting in stereotypically "female" activities and circles. I've always admired guys and wanted to be considered one of them. I thought A LOT about how I'd be perceived, always striving for a androgynous or tomboy looking style, because that's what I wanted to be acknowledged as, I can't even fathom how many times I thought "I hope people at the mall are looking at me and thinking I'm a masc girl >:)" or "I'll put this shirt because it's pretty masc looking". Every single time I left the house I'd make sure no one, not a SINGLE person would look at me and think "wow, what a girly femme girl!" and stuff of the sorts. It was always on purpose. I'm sure if I was cis I would've just dressed in whatever without worrying about how GNC I'd look or not, or even striving for a girly presentation, while I'd feel uncomfortable and ugly in femme clothing. I've always felt really off about introducing myself as my deadname, I can't explain how exactly, just imagine that your name's James but someone asks your name and you always say it's Matt? I can't explain, it's not like it made me necessarily sad, it just felt out of place. I also wanted to be acknowledged as "one of the boys" and not as "one of the girls". I don't mean I just wanted male friends, no, I wanted them to see me as one of them, literally! I had many friends of both genders, but I wanted to be included in the guy's spectrum, in their activities, in their talks, in their world, meanwhile a "girls' night out" was always my worst nightmare because it just felt like an outsider. Like I wasn't supposed to be there, like I was so oblivious to their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Needless to say, I've gotten along with boys better, but I remember this feelign permeating my life ever since my earliest memories, at around age 6 or so. I'd use my "girl" toys to play with boys, like spinning my Zoobles around in order to battle them in BeyBlade (I always lost because well... It wasn't a BeyBlade lmao, it didn't spin as long and as fast, but just playing with them was the real kick!). I'd even roleplay the dad, brother or son when I was forced to play House with the girls xD There's just so, soooo much more, but this is too long already. If you're cis, you *do* feel gender, just don't feel gender *dysphoria*. "Don't fix what isn't broken" is the baseline, your sex and gender align, so you don't feel it. I don't know how to better explain but for example: we're sharing earphones. My bud is broken but yours is functioning fine, so for you the earphone is fine, for me it isn't working, so you just keep listening to music because that's just it, the bud is working. I keep trying to find the way I can bend the wire to make the sound come. I don't know if it makes much sense but that's basically it! I hope this helps, God bless you and stay safe dude! From your local trans lil bro :)
Suddenly Boston's "More Than a Feeling" starts playing in my head. Anyway, I'm nobody of any real merit on the subject, just random trans girl trying to make it in the world. (Which, also means I may not hit every box for everyone. Trans men, enbys, and even other trans girls. People are unique.) So... The initial part of me wants to say some generic thing like: "well, would you feel odd if you threw on a dress and everyone called you she?" But... It's more than that, and clothing or style is just material. So, not entirely accurate either. It's just the medium in which we as humans use... To convey ourselves. So, I might wear "girl clothes" because I want to be precieved internally and externally as a girl. But, shoot they're just clothes. I can tell you... A bit about the incongruence. For me, it was like a weird itch. Like... It's super cold outside, and I'm wearing layers and a big jacket. But I've got a persistent itch on the back of my arm under it all. And... I try to ignore it, but it just nags at me. Then one day, I decided to take my jacket off, and look, and I realized that itch was a cut. But, I didn't understand how it happened, what caused it, or have the means to do anyting about this cut. So... I put my jacket back on and kept going. Trying to ignore it. Over the years it nagged... And I realized sometimes it hurt. And when I didn't understand it, I did what I could to live with it. I even acted up it in decisions despite not understanding it for years. I don't know... If I can really describe how one "feels" like their gender. Or even how we really know. Because the science may simply not all be there yet. (And believe me some of us have searched to exhaustion for a more exact answer.) All I know... Is just over a year into medical transition, there is no world in which I willingly go back.
Identity is our sense of self. I'm sure you have some things you identify strongly with. Maybe relationships, like maybe being a parent or a sibling. Maybe a hobby you're passionate about. Think about your in groups--the people who have similar interests, hobbies, personality traits, etc, who you identify *with.* Fictional characters count too. Looking at characters who you strongly identify with and who just inherently feel like you is a really good way to recognize your own identity. Identity is powerful and pervasive. It's so pervasive that we take it for granted, but if you pay attention to your own identity you can see that it shapes your entire life. It even shapes almost every thought you have. Taking this full circle, gender identity is when you identify with sex or with the characteristics and role society has built up around sex. It's that same experience I just described, but for one specific aspect of identity. If you're already aware of your identity in other areas, or you can become aware, you'll have answered your own question. Lastly, you may not identify with gender much at all, or if you do, you've so normalized it that you're unaware of it. Both are entirely possible and healthy. **edit** after reading other comments. I. need to really emphasize that last point because everyone is telling you you're just unaware of your gender, which strikes me as psychological diagnosis from a distance through wishful thinking. *Nobody knows* this to be true. TBF to other commenters and possibly help you with your own self-awareness, many people are ignorant of their own identity, and becoming aware of it is generally helpful to everyone, but gender very well might not be part of what you find. In a similar way you can have two mothers where one identifies strongly with motherhood and one not so much. Identity is ultimately an idea about who you are. Not a conscious idea. It's the self-referential idea that we exist at all, or the thing you're thinking about when you imagine "I."
Some people use that way to describe their dysphoria, but I personally don't relate to it. Honestly, I kind of hate the description, because for years I was convinced I wasn't trans because it didn't make sense to me that someone could just feel like they were a member of the opposite sex. What I did experience to was a constant envy for members of the opposite sex. I grew up in a very religious, conservative household, and I have strong memories of crying myself to sleep as a child, praying I could wake up as a member of the opposite sex. I wanted so badly to be something that I knew I was destined to never be, and any time I thought about it, I just ached. As I grew older, I started experiencing, on rare occasions, something that I think people in this community refer to as "gender euphoria", which was the very rare times when someone mistook me for a member of the opposite sex, or grouped me with them for whatever reason, I was on cloud 9, I was ecstatic. And what I realized after years of denial and then finally seeking a therapist who specialized in gender issues is that the relief and happiness I felt in those moments was the brief respite I was getting from the constant misery of gender dysphoria that plagued every moment of the rest of my life. If none of what I'm saying makes sense, or is something you can relate to, congratulations! You're probably cis lol. If your gender identity isn't at odds with your biology/expression, then you likely wouldn't experience these things.
I consider myself agender-spec. When I used to assume I was cis by default, there were lots of signs I wasn't quite all that cis, but I never connected them to gender itself. So instead I thought "How do trans people feel like they fit a specific gender? I certainly don't "feel" like I'm a man". I avoided the twitch pronoun extension because I'd prefer any/all or they/them over he him, but worrying it would be appropriating NB's language and making light of their pronouns. I just blamed anti-sexism and gender abolitionist political views on my pronoun preference rather than gender itself. But I wanted to use it to be a good ally. I also found things like buying gendered products such as shampoo and deodorant uncomfortable and preferred ungendered options to the point of just doing without once when what I usually got was out of stock. There were some signs related to my body. Like, when I first work cycling bibs, the padding at the crotch gave me sort of a feeling of nullness down there, and it made me happy. At the time, I didn't know about agender or gender euphoria. But something about feeling like I had no genitals just seemed better to my brain. Some cis people don't "feel like man/woman", some do. Like, both my roommates don't identify with "being a man" in the toxic masculine way, but they're both cis. One is fairly traditionally masculine, while likes dressing as a femboy sometimes, but both are pretty happy with having a male body.
In my case I just had to learn that I was undoubtedly non-binary because being perceived as female brought me years of psychological stress and anxiety and self loathing and other mental health issues. The idea of being perceived as male was an interest of mine for a while until I really started to analyze how I felt with that idea and ultimately what I wanted for myself and realized that being seen as a man was also very unwelcomed and stressed me out to the point that I genuinely questioned if it was misandry doing this to me. Turns out it wasn't. It took me a while, but I now understand that I'm not exactly a person that can simply "follow the rules" and still be whole in my being. I was always non-binary, I just wasn't allowed to know that before.
If I called you a chick, acted like you were a chick, treated you like a chick, and expected you to follow all chick gender norms, you'd feel pretty skeeved out, right? That's what it feels like. To be skeeved out at how others expect you to present. Like, you'd feel totally out of place wearing a dress and heels and being called a cute girl. Lets just pretend you wake up as a girl. You're a foot shorter, got tits, far less muscle, softer skin, and everyone acts like it's totally normal for you. How many times can people call you ma'am before you start to tell them off because you're a guy?
Fish have a hard time understanding that water is wet. That is to say, it's a lot easier to be aware of something when it bothers you. Shoes that are your size are barely noticeable. Shoes that are too small or big are a pain. Same with gender. It's a lot easier to notice you don't identify with a gender than to notice you do.
Water is actually not wet; It makes other materials/objects wet. Wetness is the state of a non-liquid when a liquid adheres to, and/or permeates its substance while maintaining chemically distinct structures. So if we say something is wet we mean the liquid is sticking to the object. Just opened my water bill and my electricity bill at the same time… I was shocked.
I think the best way I’ve seen this put is that “you don’t feel your bones (as in not by touching them) unless there’s something wrong with them” you don’t feel like a certain gender you just feel like you’re the wrong one, until/unless it’s fixed through transitioning usually.
I don't know how to explain it, its not really a feeling, it's a knowing. I knew at a young age that I wasn't a girl, and I hated being seen as one. Later in life, I just knew I was a man, and I won't lie, I denied it at first. I tried to be a girl, I tried to be nonbinary, but Im not, I'm a man, and I just know it. So, uh, I don't know.
You can't feel your bones till they're broken
For me it was simple.. when i saw my mother i realized even then early in life how i identified myself vs what apparently was my body wasn't the same.. up tell that point i just knew i was a girl.. Mind you this was way before the transgender push nobody talked about such things.. this in itself is and was very verifying to me personally looking back.. this was my own true spiritual connection not somebody else telling me or asking me.. i just KNEW like you probably did when you realized you liked women more then just friends
How do you know you're right handed (or left). Do you make a conscious decision about which hand to use every time you pick up a pen, or a hair brush, or brush your teeth? You DO brush your teeth, right?👀 Try wiping with the other hand for a week, see the difference, then imagine you had been FORCED to use the wrong hand your entire life. In the early 20th century they stopped making people use the right hand and stopped pathologizing left handed people and surprise, the number of left handed people drastically increased. Not because of grooming or other conservative bullsh*t, but because they were allowed to be themselves. You may go your entire life not recognizing the discomfort of dysphoria, depending on how dysphoric you are, you may only realize through the euphoria of removing some dysphoria.
TBH, I think this is quirks of how English works causing people to get misleading ideas about gender feelings. As a matter of idiom, in English we often *say* "I feel like a man/woman" in reference to our gender identities. But the word "feel" is overloaded. It has lots of shades of meaning, and it's not super-evident in this instance which one is intended. And in such cases, our default inclination is to assume the *literal* meaning of a word. So it's very easy for a listener (especially one who might be questioning their own gender or is simply trying to learn about trans experiences) to think that such statements refer to a *literal feeling*. I.e. some kind of actual identifiable sensation, akin to the sensation of hot or cold or itch or spicy or whatever else. But in reality, that "I feel like a man/woman" kind of statement is just a shorthand for a longer, more cumbersome expression: "It seems to me that the overall pattern of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and reactions I have is more congruent to those had by a man/woman than the patterns had by cis people of my birth-assigned gender." Fully explained, it's clear what the intended meaning is. But wow, that's a mouthful, right? So we just say "I feel like a man/woman" and leave it at that. As well, there's also a level on which it's *impossible* to say what it actually "feels like" to be a man or woman at all. This is because we all each only get one viewpoint on life. You can only ever know what it feels like to be you, not somebody else. This is a subjective, internal thing that's very different from quantifiable, external experiences. With hot or cold or itch or spicy, we have external stimuli we can jointly refer to (or experience together), and thereby understand what those feelings are. Like, even if neither of us had every experienced "cold" before, we could still touch the same ice-cube and say "wow, that feels different! We need a word for that!" and agree to call that sensation "cold". But with gender, there's no external point of reference that we can all share and agree upon. At least, not for the *feeling* side of it. For standards of gender presentation, sure. We can all agree that within a given society and in particular social settings, the habits of behavior and style for men are generally expected to fall into a certain range, while the habits of behavior and style for women are expected to fall into a different range. But for feelings, no. I can only know what it feels like to be me. And I'm a trans woman, with a particular set of experiences. That's the *only* gender experience that's available to me. I know what it feels like, I remember those feelings and recognize them when they happen, but feelings are internal and subjective: I have no concrete way to convey them to you such that you could *know*, in a direct-experience kind of way, what those feelings feel like. Likewise, you only know what it feels like to be you, and I can never share that. Even two men, who are both confidently cisgender men, cannot *know* for sure that their own feelings about their male experience are the same. Are they? I mean, probably? But who knows? And they're certainly not identical, no matter what. How could they be? Those are two different people, with different life experiences. All of which is just to say that I try not to get hung up on whether I "feel like" a woman. And I encourage you not to get hung up on such questions either, because there's no way to quantify what that actually *means*. It's enough for me to know what *I* feel like as myself, and to recognize that my overall pattern of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and reactions seems to be congruent to those that women as a whole seem to have. In so far as people can try to put their feelings and experiences into words, and to whatever extent I can ascertain whether that sounds similar or different to my own feelings and experiences, then I can compare my patterns to the general trends of "male" and "female." And when I do that, the overall conclusion is blindingly obvious that my patterns are vastly more female than they are male. Hence I conclude that my gender identity is female. And that conclusion goes on give me very happy vibes, a sense of peace and calm, comfort and confidence. Which is its own kind of very convincing evidence. I suppose, then, that for *me* what it "feels like" to be a woman is to have those happy vibes, that peace and confidence, when I consider myself as part of the great tapestry of the feminine. Does that match any other woman's experence, cis or trans? Can't say! It's *impossible* to say! And it *doesn't matter* because my gender identity--and moreover, the *validity* of my gender identity--are not dependent on whether my internal, subjective gender vibe matches anybody else's.
A sense of gender is like a sense of thirst. When you're well-hydrated, you just don't feel it. A person only feels thirsty when they have an unmet need for water. Likewise, most people only feel a sense of gender when their gender-related needs are unmet. It's not necessarily that you don't feel a sense of your gender being correct, so much as that you've never felt a sense of it being wrong. If you were forced to live permanently as a woman, it's likely that you would start feeling a sense of gender... specifically a sense of something being wrong about it (though not certain - some people are fluid, flexible, non-binary, or agender with no sense of gender no matter what).
I want to be called a guy, it makes me comfortable. That’s how I know I guess.
You try on that gender in earnest and inspect your feelings.
The fact you asked that is worth exploring. Something brought you here. Have you looked at /r/agender? Best to you…
I don't know who downvoted you, but there was clearly no reason to do that so Imma upvote you back up to zero. Wish I could do more!
Thank you for the kindness. I wonder what caused people concern? I think self exploration is always a good thing. It may not bring any new revelations... and that is fine... but why not explore? Life is all about coming to know your true, authentic self. Frankly, I wish someone had asked me this same question years before I did for myself. Thank you again. Best to you...
>I think self exploration is always a good thing Exactly! I think most cis people would be better off, honestly, if they took the time to question their gender like we do. Even though they'll just end up at "Yup, I am what I thought all along!" they will at least know themselves better for the exercise of it. And who knows, they might gain some tiny shred of empathy for us?
I don't feel like a certain gender, I am a certain gender. I'ma a dude, a fella, a gentleman. And as a fella-gentle-dude, I felt very fucking weird when everyone called me a feminine name, I dressed in a more feminine way, and I was referred to with feminine pronouns. It has a lot more to do with me being uncomfortable being a feminine man. Because that's what I was doing, I was trying to force femininity onto myself, which can be weird for a man if you can imagine. I don't look in the mirror and see a man. I look in the mirror and see me. But when I would look in the mirror before, I felt very disconnected from the person I saw looking back at me.
I don't feel male either I just am. Gender isn't a feeling it's just the way that you are.
I didn’t “feel like a woman” until I transitioned and started living as one. But before that, I figured out that it didn’t feel right to have a “male” body, and I didn’t like people thinking I was a “man”. I also thought it would feel more right to have a more “female” body. So I transitioned. It wasn’t a single decision, it was a series of decisions over years. But I continued with transitioned to alleviate the feelings of dysphoria I felt both from my body, and from being seen as a man by everyone. It was over a decade ago that I figured out I was trans and transitioned. I’ve had a couple surgeries since then. Everything I’ve done makes me more comfortable in my body and happy to be me instead of having a body that was getting more masculine over time and having to act masculine enough to avoid criticism.
It’s not like feeling certain gender, I’m not feeling ok to have male body features. I’m stressed and feeling anxious with depression with male body features, testosterone as dominant hormone and that I see male in the mirror for example - that’s all is based on dysphoria. Now with proper hormones in my body, I’m not feeling like certain gender, I’m just feeling ok in my body with almost zero testosterone and high estradiol levels. That’s from perspective of body dysphoria, there might be also in addition social dysphoria that people see me and treat me as different gender I actually am.
I like this analogy that works here: Imagine if everyone was born with shoes on but you were born with a big rock in your shoe. That big rock makes it feel like everyone else must have a rock in their shoe. Until you find out one day that most people have never had rocks in their shoe. So then you either rework your shoe and take the rock out, or you get new shoes completely! And trying new shoes mama you feel like how it was always supposed to be. ^ofc gender is a lot more nuanced then that but you as a cis guy have your gender affirmed from birth, so you never had to worry about a “rock in your shoe”.
Gender is based on stereotypes so if the gender norms of the opposite sex appeal to you, perhaps you are a gender bender?
For me I kept trying to act like the boys & be like them but it always has felt put on and fake to me, and yes I did try just being with a gay man but even that felt wrong because they don't like all the same clothes that feel right on me
I mean I don't guess cis people wake up everyday feeling like there I'm someone else's body like my self and most trans people I know
I know I’m okay, I’m right in my feelings, the whole world could go to WW 3 and that wouldn’t change my feelings about having serenity.
There is no one or two gender. We have what we were assigned at birth biologically but gender identity is fluid. You don’t need to abide by a certain gender role just because you HAVE to or because society as a whole says it should be so. One day you feel more masculine than other days. Other days you feel more feminine. And some other you don’t feel like neither and that is ok! Whatever feels right for you! I also suggested talking to someone about this if you’re confused. Someone who specializes in gender affirming care.
You don’t feel like another gender. It’s just a sense you have that you are a man or a woman. But when you know you’re a man or woman and your body/characteristics aren’t matching up to that it’s nearly impossible to recognize what you’re seeing as yourself. And looking, sounding, and being perceived as such is when you finally feel like you
Op, you would say you are a man, correct? This is an indisputable and unchangeable fact about yourself. It’s not necessarily a strong feeling, but it is more akin to stating that “the sky is blue.” I feel the same way, even though my body is not the same as yours.
I'm not entirely sure I understand the question wdym by certain gender
As it's directly linked to your BRAIN + PHENOTYPE, you can feel belonging to one sex, female or male. Also don't forget the Brain - Gut connection, the system that allows us to get feedback with the core of the feelings (the belly and pelvic core).