WHAT I ALREADY KNEW
- I am both male and female which leads to a fluctuating experience of gender centered at the middle of the spectrum
- The label ‘non-binary’ doesn’t particularly fit because it’s more like I’m dual-binary
- My physical sense of my gender and my social sense of my gender can be different from each other
- I experience both physical and social dysphoria but don’t know in what ways or how to manage them
- I also have difficulty with my queerness feeling invisible but don’t feel ready to ‘come out’ as something other than cis (one of the biggest reasons why I started this blog)
WHAT I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT
- How far I actually fluctuate in either direction
- What specifically causes my dysphoria
- How to manage fluctuating physical and social dysphoria so I minimize the negative effects by feeling more comfortable in my skin and environment and therefore more authentic
- How to alter my presentation in ways I’m comfortable with while feeling male or female but also that will be noticeable to the people I see every day so it will influence their interactions with me
- Whether I will need to transition socially or medically in the future
TOOLS I USED
Gender Tracker
I created a gender tracker in my bullet journal that has a scale from 5 female to 0 (neutral) to 5 male. Each day I rated my physical feelings about my gender and my social feelings about my gender on this scale. The sense of my gender was based on a combination of what things made me feel dysphoric (feeling wrong for gender reasons) and what things made me feel euphoric (feeling right for gender reasons). I filled it in daily for a month and a half which gave me a good sense of how much I fluctuate (not as much as I thought), how these fluctuations related to other things going on in my life (most obvious influence was my menstrual cycle – of course), and how my sense of gender related to my mood (a couple very specific and useful correlations). I haven’t continued to track it objectively since then but I do use the same system in my head on a nearly daily basis and can now easily identify when my bad mood is related to dysphoria or when a shift in gender might happen.
You and Your Gender Identity: A guide to discovery
by Dara Hoffman-Fox
This is a step by step self-help style book that takes you through three broad stages: Preparation, Reflection, and Exploration. It combines advice and self-reflection questions/activities in a work book style layout. I started at the beginning of the book and worked through the sections that resonated with me and skipped sections that didn’t feel like they applied. I kept my notes in a journal specifically for this stuff so that I wouldn’t be afraid to write down my thoughts for fear that someone would see them in my everyday journal. The sections I found the most helpful were:
- Fears
- Positive Approach
- Gender Questionnaire
- Getting to Know Yourself Creative Prompts
- Physical Discomfort
- Social Discomfort
- Exploration Ideas and Process
If any of these sound like they would be helpful for you I would recommend you get the book and work through it! It gave me a guideline so I no longer felt like I was floating in the middle of nowhere with lots of questions and no way to find answers.
Journal
Even before consciously starting my gender exploration process I started using a bullet journal to keep myself organized, track my personal habits and mood, and have somewhere to write down my thoughts and feelings. I found this very helpful during the later stages of my husband’s transition when all the stress and frustration had built up to burnout level. I have continued to use it since then and often journal about gender-based observations, experiences, and stressors. Mental and emotional wellness is difficult to maintain in the face of daily dysphoria. This journal gives me somewhere to put down my thoughts and feelings to help me process them, gives me a creative outlet, and keeps me organized so I don’t have to keep schedule or to-do list in my head.
Self-care Toolkit
Another idea from Dara Hoffman-Fox’s book that I talked about above. This is a physical box of whatever size you need to hold everything that goes in it. Mine is fairly small and I keep it at work as that is where I generally experience the most burnout type symptoms. It includes reminders for self-care activities and positive statements and sensory objects that will either override a negative mental or emotional state and give you something else to focus on or provide a calming and grounding effect. Mine includes:
- Reminders for self-care activities that help me such as music playlists and phrases that I can use as a mantra
- Scents that I find grounding or calming (sandalwood, cedar)
- Tastes that are strong and distracting (mint, cinnamon) or enjoyable and comforting (chocolate)
- Tactile objects that fit in my pocket and can be played with as a distraction or for calming effect (soft leather, worry stone, carved animal, chainmaille)
Everyone’s toolkit will be different. I put it together about a month ago and have used it about 3 times since but just knowing it’s there if I need it has been a big comfort.
DAILY PROCESS
When I get up in the morning I check in with my body to see where my physical dysphoria is at. When I’m getting dressed I picture myself at work and get a sense of how I want people to see me/interact with me which hints at where my social dysphoria is at. The clothes I choose (including a binder) used to be the hardest part of my day because they relate to both physical and social dysphoria and if one is female and the other is male it can be difficult. I have gotten considerably better at knowing when a binder will be helpful and what clothes I will be comfortable in since I started the more objective gender discovery process. I pick accessories to balance out my gender presentation. If the clothing I picked to feel comfortable is more masculine I will choose neutral or feminine accessories and vice versa. Throughout the day I check in with myself and alter my appearance as needed – put my hair up or take it down, take my name tag off or put it back on, engage in self-care activities as needed.
This post goes into more detail about what types of dysphoria I experience, what it feels like to have different male and female combinations of physical and social sense of gender, and specific strategies I use to feel comfortable with each version of my gender.
What do/did you use to discover or explore your gender? What parts of my process are similar or different to your own? Is there anything that I used that you might find useful or want to know more about? Let me know in the comments!