Month: August 2018

My Physical vs Social Sense of Gender

My physical sense of my gender and my social sense of my gender fluctuate separately but can line up at times (here is my post about how I figured this out and tools I used to explore it). Here, I will describe what I mean by physical and social gender, what it feels like when my physical and social sense of gender match or differ in various places on the spectrum, and what strategies I use to manage dysphoria in each situation.

PHYSICAL GENDER

This is based on how comfortable I am in my  body as a female-assigned person. If my body feels completely right for me and I’m happy to show off my curves my physical gender is female. If I’m mildly uncomfortable with my curves but don’t necessarily feel like I should have a completely flat chest I’m closer to neutral. If I’m really uncomfortable and wouldn’t want to go out of the house without a binder on my physical gender is male. There are other physical aspects that play into this but shape and chest are the easiest to describe.

SOCIAL GENDER

This includes how various aspects of interacting with other people and being in public spaces feel such as pronouns, gendered language, bathrooms, social interactions, etc. What pronouns feel most comfortable on a given day is a big clue where my social gender sits (usually they/them but often she/her don’t bother me much). Often female gendered language (ma’am, ladies, girl) bothers me more than female pronouns but the days when I would prefer the equivalent male gendered terms are the days I’m likely socially male.

PHYSICALLY FEMALE, SOCIALLY FEMALE
  • Indicators:
    • Minimal dysphoria, physical or social
  • Effects:
    • Generally more at ease, more comfortable
    • More likely to socialize
    • Causes a feeling of invisibility or like I have to justify my queerness
  • Strategies:
    • Comfortable wearing name tag at work
    • Comfortable wearing bras and female clothes
    • Will make sure queer symbols are visible
    • Wear a piece of masculine jewelry to remind myself/express my masculine side but mostly female jewelry
    • hair up nice or down
  • Personal Reminders:
    • Enjoy the comfort
    • No amount of femininity invalidates my queer or genderqueer identity
PHYSICALLY FEMALE, SOCIALLY NEUTRAL TO MALE
  • Indicators:
    • Mild physical dysphoria but only when I’m putting on clothes to leave the house and picturing how people will see me
    • Internal cringes relating to female spaces or language
  • Effects:
    • Discomfort in social situations leading to fast social burnout and lots of recovery time required
    • Strange feeling of needing to wear a binder even though I am perfectly fine with my body when I’m on my own
    • Frustration at how people can’t just know that I’m a guy in a female body and be fine with that
  • Strategies:
    • Wear tight sports bra or binder
    • Masculine presentation including hair, accessories, and clothing
    • ‘Forget’ to wear my name tag at work
    • Avoid gendered spaces/bathrooms
    • Minimize social interaction at work
    • Spend more time alone, in nature, with my husband, or with queer friends who refer to me as Ray and use they/them pronouns
    • Converse/interact in more masculine ways
  • Personal Reminders:
    • I’m a female-bodied man
    • Think of myself as Ray
PHYSICALLY NEUTRAL TO MALE, SOCIALLY FEMALE
  • Indicators:
    • Physical dysphoria even when I’m alone
    • Minimal discomfort with female pronouns or female spaces
  • Effects:
    • Want to feel masculine but interact in ways that appear feminine
    • Socially comfortable
    • Difficulty maintaining focus, learning new things, or remembering information due to the distraction of constant dysphoria
  • Strategies:
    • Avoid mirrors unless clothed
    • Wear binder, baggier clothes, and darker/more neutral colours especially for tops
    • Lift weights
    • Move and posture in masculine ways but interact and converse in more feminine ways
    • Comfortable wearing name tag
    • Avoid multitasking
    • Write down all new information so I don’t have to retain it
  • Personal Reminders:
    • Acknowledge that I am Ray on the inside even if I’m comfortable being Meaghan on the outside
    • I’m a masculine woman
PHYSICALLY NEUTRAL TO MALE, SOCIALLY NEUTRAL TO MALE
  • Indicators:
    • Physical and social dysphoria whether I’m alone or going out
  • Effects:
    • Want to be seen as male and feel physically male
    • Difficulty maintaining focus, learning new things, or remembering information due to the distraction of constant dysphoria
    • Discomfort in social situations leading to fast social burnout and lots of recovery time required
    • Strong feeling of invisibility
    • Lots of cringing with female language, pronouns, interactions, and spaces
  • Strategies:
    • Wear binder and masculine clothing and accessories
    • Don’t wear name tag
    • Avoid gendered spaces
    • Workout
    • Spend time with queer friends
    • Listen to trans podcasts/watch trans youtube videos
    • Use self-care toolkit and listen to self-care playlist
    • Talk to my husband/commiserate
  • Personal Reminders:
    • Today is just a male day
    • I know I’m Ray even if no-one else does

I grouped neutral and male together because I am AFAB so neutral feels the same as male but less intense because it is still towards the ‘male side’ of my physical and social baseline of female.

Do your physical sense of your gender and social sense of your gender fluctuate separately? Do you have similar or different experiences to the ones I describe above? What strategies do you use to manage social or physical dysphoria and make yourself more comfortable? Leave me a comment below!

How I Conceptualize Non-Binary Genders

I’d like to explain a system for understanding non-binary genders that has really helped me make sense of myself and other gender non-conforming people. This system is only discussing gender which is a separate concept from sex. I treat gender as the internal sense of who someone is in relation to society’s views of the binary genders or the assigned gender based on their sex assigned at birth. I am also not talking about gender expression – how a person presents them-self to the world, only how they feel internally.

Typically in mainstream western society there are two accepted genders that match the two accepted sexes – male and female. This is what we consider to be the gender binary. So, when we are referring to anyone that doesn’t feel strictly male or strictly female, we can use the term non-binary or gender non-conforming. Not everyone will personally identify with these labels or use them for themselves but I will use them as a general category for the sake of this discussion.

So, rather than thinking of people as either male or female with no other options, I think of gender as a spectrum from male to female with ‘neutral’ at the middle. This allows for a sense of ‘femaleness’ or ‘maleness’ in any percentage that adds up to 100. But what if a person’s gender doesn’t feel part female and part male? What if they feels neither female nor male? Or fully female and fully male at the same time? These questions require a way to show ‘both’ and ‘neither’. I used to think of it as male to female on the x-axis with neutral in the middle and neither to both on the y-axis, crossing at the middle. When I tried to map some of the genders onto it I found it difficult or ambiguous. So I went searching for a better graphic and found this one:

Gender-spectrum
Gender Spectrum

It still has the ability to represent all the same things but with a lot less ambiguity or redundancy. I also like how it doesn’t represent male and female as opposite but on two completely separate axes.

There are infinite ways to represent gender on this chart. People with a static or consistent gender would place a dot at the spot where they sit. You can see some of them written on the chart – female, male, agender. Demi-boy would sit somewhere between agender and male, demi-girl between agender and female, gender neutral somewhere around the center of the chart.

People with a fluctuating sense of gender could outline or shade in the area that applies to them. Here is how I would represent myself at this point in my discovery process:

Genderqueer Spectrum
My Gender on the Spectrum

I have two stable components to my gender – one halfway between female and neutral and one halfway between male and neutral (represented by the dots). This is the core of my gender but my day to day experience of it is more like the second chart. When I combine two genders into one person one will be more dominant at a given time (represented by the outlined area).

Other examples:

Male to Demi-boy

Gender Spectrum demi-boy
Male to Demi-boy

 

Bigender with a stable female component and a fluctuating neutral to agender component

Female and Neutral to Agender
Female and Neutral to Agender

 

As you can see, gender can be infinitely complex and variable. Some of these genders could be represented in a few different ways. Some genders such as third genders may not fit anywhere on this diagram. But it helped me understand my own gender and maybe it will help you as well.

The best thing to do when meeting someone who identifies as non-binary is to use their preferred name and pronouns, and, if you have a more personal connection, ask them how they experience their gender. If you have never felt at odds with your own gender or how your gender is perceived by society you may not be able to viscerally understand how they feel but respecting their pronouns and giving them the opportunity to explain their identity to you in their own words goes a long way to earning their trust and showing your respect and support.

Did this change how you think about gender? Tell me what you think in the comments!

How would your gender look on this diagram? Draw your own representation and post it in the comments below with the labels you use or an explanation!