Month: February 2019

6 Months of Self-Discovery

What I Knew at the Beginning

  • I have both male and female gender
  • I am more comfortable presenting gender neutral, tomboy, or androgynous
  • I’m pretty sure I experience dysphoria but I’m not sure what triggers it or what to do about it
  • Having my husband transition has given me the language and permission to explore my identity and has increased my discomfort at being perceived more feminine due to heteronormativity

Fears I Had

  1. My dysphoria/discomfort would increase the more I focused on it.
  2. I would discover that to be truly happy/whole I would need to use neutral pronouns and name and society wouldn’t be able to accommodate that.
  3. That I would end up less comfortable than I was before starting this process.
  4. That if I get to the point where I have to explain being non-binary to my family they would not understand.
  5. That I would have to change jobs in order to feel comfortable.

Goals of Self Discovery

  1. Identify how much my gender fluctuates.
  2. Identify specific triggers of dysphoria and develop strategies to manage it on a daily basis.
  3. Improve resilience, reduce fatigue, and generate a sense of wholeness.
  4. Find ways to communicate my identity to others.

6 MONTHS LATER…

What I Know Now

  • I fluctuate between 50% female to 25% male (0 being equal amounts of each).
  • I have a significant amount of social dysphoria that is primarily triggered by female labels (ma’am, ladies, girl) and to a lesser extent by female pronouns (she/her).
  • I have a minimal to moderate amount of physical dysphoria, primarily related to chest and voice.
  • I am most comfortable when referred to using they/them pronouns and using the name Meaghan Ray (or having equal amount of time being identified as Ray as Meaghan).

Did My Fears Come True?

  1. Yes, some days it feels like my dysphoria does get worse the more I focus on it. But the truth is, it is there regardless and I can either ignore it and have a vague sense of discomfort, frustration, irritability, fatigue, and lack of focus, or I can identify it for what it is, thus increasing my awareness of it but also improving my ability to address it or cope with it.
  2. Yes, in order to live my best life I would prefer neutral pronouns 100% of the time and no, I don’t believe society (or at least my specific workplace) can accommodate that. But I also discovered that I am decently comfortable with female pronouns most days. It’s the other gendered terms that affect me more and that is something I might be able to address in the future.
  3. No, I am definitely more comfortable now than I was before. I have significantly fewer symptoms of burnout and a ton more strategies to deal with bad dysphoria days.
  4. I haven’t gotten to the point of coming out to my family. I have broached the subject in relation to correcting their assumptions about the binary and explaining a friend’s experience but have not discussed my own identity yet. I’m sure I will write a post about it when I do.
  5. Changing jobs may or may not increase my comfort level. But I have become significantly more comfortable without changing jobs so I take that as a win.

Did I Achieve My Goals?

  1. Yes, I very clearly identified how much my gender fluctuates using a chart I created which you can read about here.
  2. Yes. Read about my physical and social dysphoria triggers and my strategies for coping here. One important step was cutting my hair short. Read about my exploration of my gender expression here.
  3. Yes, I have noticed a significant improvement in my resilience and fatigue levels and I’m hoping that these and my sense of wholeness will continue to improve as I come out to more people.
  4. Yes, I have some ways to communicate my identity to others though I am still working on this one.

Still Working On…

  • Coming out to people slowly, including my family
  • Introducing myself as Meaghan Ray or just Ray in queer spaces
  • Managing the physical discomfort that comes from wearing a binder so I can wear it as often as I feel the need to

Looking Ahead

  • Fears about dysphoria during pregnancy and early motherhood and how to manage it (I’m not pregnant yet but hope to be in the near future)
  • Being a non-binary parent

What have you learned about yourself in the last 6 months? What fears did you have before starting your own gender exploration process? How has your understanding of your own gender changed since you started to explore it more consciously? Leave a comment below and tell me your story!

Exploring My Gender Expression

I have both a female gender and male gender. This means I am most comfortable expressing my gender in ways that include both female and male components. Neither aspect of my gender is very far from the middle of the spectrum so I personally prefer a more androgynous appearance. Some people may prefer to mix aspects of presentation from the two extremes. If this is what makes them feel comfortable and authentic, I say have at it.

Gender expression is a combination of appearance and behaviour. My purpose for exploring my gender expression was to find a way to express how I feel physically in my body to help decrease physical dysphoria and to present myself in a way that makes my identity more visible to others in order to influence how they see me and interact with me in order to decrease social dysphoria.

Throughout this series of posts I will be referring to different aspects of gender presentation based on their conventional gender category. This does not mean I believe these aspects of presentation ‘belong’ to that gender or should be gendered at all. It’s just a convenient way to discuss and think about presentation since part of the purpose is to affect how others (who typically do prescribe gender categories to aspects of presentation) view us.

I am still exploring my gender expression and will continue to, off and on, for my whole life as I change as a person, but here are some of the aspects I have considered.

APPEARANCE

Clothing

You can do almost anything you want with clothing. You can pick different articles of clothing (skirt or dress, slacks and bowtie), different styles (golf shirt vs blouse, short shorts vs long shorts), and different colours (darker, neutral, or royal colours are typically more masculine, softer lighter colours are typically feminine).

You can combine any of these components in any way, for example a feminine bottom (skirt) with a masculine top (button up shirt and bowtie), or adopt a consistent gender presentation that is similar day to day or wildly different depending on how you feel.

As an AFAB person, my base appearance is more feminine so I am more comfortable when I wear more masculine clothing to balance that out. My sense of gender fluctuates somewhat but stays generally closer to the middle than either end of the spectrum so my clothing doesn’t change a ton.

Body Hair and Head Hair

Body hair, in my North American culture, is generally viewed as more masculine. This includes leg hair and underarm hair. At some point in my early to mid teens I tried shaving my legs. Not only was having to shave annoying but it felt uncomfortable to me so I stopped. I can now identify the discomfort I felt as relating to gender. This was a mild component of dysphoria triggered by shaving my legs. This dysphoria at least has an easy fix – don’t shave.

Facial hair is especially seen as masculine. As I am not on testosterone and do not have facial hair I have to make up for this in other ways. I have never particularly wanted to have facial hair but some days it would be nice to have the shortcut to being identified as male.

Head hair is something I’ve experimented with very recently. Growing up I always had long hair and almost always had it tied back in a pony tail or braid. In my early twenties I did Cuts for Cancer and had it cut to just above ear length. I quite enjoyed this but didn’t specifically identify it as a gender based experience. I slowly grew it out, mostly due to neglect, but then the undercut style came into fashion. I started with the basic undercut at the back, then expanded it up one side. I was almost exclusively wearing the long part of my hair in a bun. I worked up the courage and finally got it all cut short. This has been one of the best experiences since starting to explore my gender identity and play with expression. It has offset my base feminine appearance to the point where I feel comfortable adding a bit of feminine flair back in. I feel more like myself and I like what I see when I look in the mirror.

Accessories and Jewelry

Most jewelry is seen as feminine. Thicker, darker, or chunkier jewelry is on the more masculine side. I have two necklaces that are more gender neutral or masculine, and two that are more feminine. Watches are something that can be either depending on style, so I wear a more masculine style watch. I do not have my ears pierced but I do sometimes wear an ear cuff. I have three – straight lines (more masculine), crossing zig zag lines that looks a bit elven (neutral), and a rose (feminine).

Switching up my jewelry and other accessories is one of the main ways I deal with dysphoria. I have to wear pretty similar clothes every day at work so I don’t have as many presentation options with clothing.

BEHAVIOUR

I think of behaviour as anything that wouldn’t be discernible from a picture. This can include physical movements and postures, voice, word choices, interaction style, and mannerisms. Some examples are how you cross your legs, altering the pitch of your voice, or your physical greeting style (handshake, hug, one-arm hug, fist bump, etc).

Women typically apologize more, especially if they’re interrupting or offering an opinion. This is a hard habit to break if you are the type of person that does this a lot but if you are trying to be read as more masculine, breaking this habit might help.

When walking towards someone in a hallway or on the sidewalk, women are more likely to move out of the way, even if they were only taking up half of the space to begin with. So, without being rude and blocking the hallway, hold your ground next time and see how it feels. I will do this if I am passing a more masculine person but I will still move out of the way if it is a more feminine person.

Men typically hold doors for women. So, if you are feeling more masculine, hold doors for women (and men, and people in general), or insist that the guy who is trying to hold the door for you walk through first.

Over the course of a few months, I have consciously worked to lower the pitch of my voice. I have a music and choir background so part of how I do this is by working to expand my singing range into lower registers. This helps to maintain the resonant quality despite using the lower end of my range (so I don’t sound monotone or growly when I talk). Some days I will work harder at this than others depending on whether my masculine side or feminine side is more dominant that day. The times when I have to correct my voice more consciously is when I am greeting people, when I’m talking on the phone, when I’m talking to animals or children, and when I’m excited.

I’m sure there are many more aspects to gender expression that can be explored. One of the other main ones that I have used is binding which I will discuss in a future post.

What are some ways you have played with your gender expression? Is this based on dysphoria or other aspects to your gender identity? Leave a comment below to share your experiences!