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Hi Everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender.
This episode is about nonbinary gender exploration including my own personal exploration process and some other general ways you can explore your own gender.
MY INITIAL GENDER EXPLORATION PROCESS
I started with a list of what I knew:
- Both male and female
- My gender fluctuated somewhat
- I had both physical and social dysphoria
- I felt invisible but didn’t feel ready to come out yet
I then made a list of what I wanted to find out:
- How much my gender actually fluctuated
- What triggered my dysphoria and how I could manage it or increase euphoria instead
- How to flag my gender to those around me so they interacted with me in a way that is more comfortable
- Whether I needed to transition socially, medically, or legally in the future
TOOLS I USED
Gender Tracker
I found this to be the most useful. I was already using a bullet journal for my day to day organization, personal notes, and journaling, and a habit tracker already built into that so I made a gender tracker to go along with it. I tracked my physical and social sense of gender separately using a dot and a circle on a scale of 5 female to 0 to 5 male. This scale works for me because it matches my personal gender identity but if you listened to season 2 episode 1 you heard me talk about various different ways to represent nonbinary identities. If it doesn’t work for you, use a different scale or create your own. Send me an email or leave a comment below with what you come up with. I’d love to see it!
I plotted my gender daily for a month and a half using markers such as where and how much I was feeling dysphoria, what was triggering it, what made me feel better, and just generally how I felt gender-wise.
It showed some very useful patterns:
- Exactly how much my gender fluctuates
- When dysphoria or a sudden fluctuation in gender related to my mood
- How my menstrual cycle affected my gender (not a surprise)
Maybe some of these same patterns will show up for you or maybe you’ll find your own. I do highly recommend at least tracking mood, energy level, social engagements or other aspects that may influence or be influenced by your gender during this period so the information in the tracker is as useful to you as possible.
You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery by Dara Hoffman-Fox
The first part of this book that I found really useful was the questionnaire about how comfortable I am with various aspects of my identity, body, and presentation as they relate to my gender. It gave me a good starting point and some objective information. I was able to repeat the questionnaire half-way through my process and then again once I had achieved a lot more comfort and self-awareness.
Other exercises from the book included one where it forced me to write down my fears, one where it helped me come up with a self-care strategy to use for more difficult exploration tasks, and how to design practical gender exploration experiments related to changing my presentation. All of these exercises were really useful and I came back to them multiple times throughout my gender exploration process.
Self-care Toolkit
One of the other things in the book that I will talk about separately is a self-care toolkit. Dara recommends having a small box or pencil case that you can take with you on a daily basis. I left mine at work where I struggle with gender the most. Inside the box are things that are affirming, bring you comfort, and things that provide sensory stimulation for distraction or grounding.
Mine included things like precious stones I could carry around in my pocket, a subtle scent I could dab on my wrist, strong tasting gum, and talismans that reminded me of the support I have in my life.
Other things you can include are slips of paper with affirmations, music playlists, reminders of self-care activities you can do, or names of supportive people written on them, or small pictures of supportive people or yourself when you felt the most euphoric.
Journal
I found it really useful to get my thoughts and feelings out in a stream of consciousness style with no judgement. I had a weekly check in with myself for a little while, and then that switched to monthly once I was doing better. I used this to review how I was doing and what I might need to do differently or if I was ready to try the next thing on my list.
6 MONTHS LATER…
After about 6 months of this exploration process I had figured out quite a lot about my gender.
- How much my gender fluctuates
- How much social and physical dysphoria I have and what specifically triggers each of them
- What situations and presentations make me feel the best – euphoric and seen
Remember that exercise from Dara’s book about putting fears into words? One of the biggest ones I had was that exploring my gender would put more of a focus on the dysphoria that I had and would make me more uncomfortable rather than more comfortable. For the most part I had either proven my fears false or at least balanced it out. I have a lot better self-awareness to recognize when dysphoria is what’s making me uncomfortable and burnt out, I have much better management strategies, I can communicate how I’m feeling to supportive people in my life and seek them out, and I have much better support networks either through groups or online, or even just my partner and co-workers.
OTHER WAYS TO EXPLORE YOUR GENDER
There are lots of different ways to explore your gender so if none of the ones I have mentioned so far work for you, I’m going to go through a list of some of the others.
The most common is practical experimentation which I will talk about more in episode 3 on gender presentation and expression.
Another way is you can use vicarious experiences via books, podcasts, social media (especially YouTube), descriptions of labels and definitions, or talking to people in your community who have similar identities to what you’re curious about for yourself.
You can use the process of elimination by defining for sure what you are NOT and steering in a different direction.
You can use objective guidance such as filling in a gender tracker, following steps in a book like You and Your Gender Identity, or talking to a therapist that specializes in gender identity
Or you can test out a particular identity by writing about yourself in the third person using a different name and/or different pronouns. Especially if you have an experience that made you really uncomfortable based on gender, maybe try rewriting it using a different description of yourself, different name and pronouns to see if that makes the experience feel any better for yourself. Try rewriting it a few different ways.
You can also test out your identity by joining an online chat group using a different name and pronouns, especially if you can find a gender affirming one where you can use different pronouns or a different name at different times. Or ask a group of 2 or more friends that you trust to use a different name or pronoun for you and with whom you can present however you feel comfortable.
There are even apps you can use (or there’s always the standard photoshop) where you can see what your face would look like if you had facial hair or none, had make up of various styles, or had shorter or longer hair.
WRAP UP
Exploring a nonbinary identity can feel a bit like deciding to step off the path in the middle of the woods with no map, compass, or destination in mind just as it starts to get dark.
Don’t be intimidated!
There are lots of gradual, safe, and private ways to explore your gender identity that don’t involve the sensation of jumping off a cliff. If you need someone to talk to as a sounding board, send me an email at letstalkgenderpodcast@gmail.com. I am not a therapist (and I highly recommend you find a gender competent one if you can and have the means) but I have done a lot of this myself, have talked to a lot of people, and would love to help if I can. Also reach out to queer support groups in your are or online.
You are not alone.
That’s it for Episode 2 of Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. Check out the links below for related blog posts and past podcast episodes. Next week I will be talking about nonbinary gender presentation and expression. Or in other words, what can I change about how I look and how will that affect how people perceive me?
RELATED POSTS
- My Initial Gender Exploration Process
- 6 Months of Self-Discovery
- Different Ways to Explore Your Gender
- Let’s Talk Gender S1E3: Personal Transition: Gender Exploration
CREDITS
All music for this podcast is written and performed by Jamie Price. You can find them at Must Be Tuesday or on iTunes.