Since there have a few threads lately touching on nonbinary gender identities, I figure some people might have questions about what it’s like from the inside, so to speak.
To start off:
I’m agender. (“Don’t have a gender” would be my preferred way of putting it, since it doesn’t feel any more significant than not having a favorite footbal team.) Assigned female at birth; worked out that didn’t apply in my mid-teens, very soon after being exposed the concept of transexuality for literally the first time. In my mid-thirties now.
Not ‘out’ in much of my daily life (I like having a job!), but the only thing I do to “present as female” is not correct people who use the wrong pronouns. I wear men’s clothing, go by a masculine nickname, and use all-gender bathrooms whenenver they’re available.
Finally got top surgery a few months ago, after spending entirely too long wearing a chest binder daily. Not and never have been on hormones.
I’m autistic (formally diagnosed as ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ back in the days of the DSM-IV), and I do suspect this is what kept me from developing a gender identity. I also suspect that ‘cis-by-default’ is a category that includes many more people than have heard of it and realized it fits them.
I am a nonbinary person, and my experiences are far from universal.
As a woman, I have to say I really hate bras. I’m kinda small so I can go without most of the time. How was it wearing the chest binder? I can imagine the irritation.
It was an irritation, but much less so than going without. I had a pretty large chest, enough so that if I tried to use a sports bra instead of binding, even one specially designed for large-chested people, they’d bounce when I moved fast. Even ignoring the psychological issues, the binder let me actually use my shirt pockets, exercise without chest pain, and not have straps digging into my shoulders.
I used an Ace bandage for about five years and didn’t like it, tried a few commercial t-shirt style binders and didn’t like them, and finally started sewing my own vest-style zip-front binders out of stretch denim. Making them tight enough to reliably keep my chest flattish - not completely flat, just flat enough to not strain the fronts of a men’s buttondown that otherwise fit - was hard to balance with not letting them to dig into my armbits or give me back pain. I had to keep making … adjustments … throughout the day. It was an extra layer in warm weather, which was very annoying. I used to take the binder off once I got home in the evenings and knew I wouldn’t be moving around very much.
‘They’ with friends/online. It’s still ‘she’ at work and with family, because I decided that bothered me less than the prospect of unemployment/having to explain modern gender theory to my family.
Do you have (or have you had) any kind of sex drive? In other words, do you get randy? Or in other other words, has your lack of gender also presented a lack of interest in anything sexual?
I have to admit, I’m very curious about that. Libido and having some degree of reaction to good looking, or (probably more caveman-ish), good smelling women has been pretty constant since puberty for me.
There are other of us genderqueer / nonbinary / gender-atypical folks here. It’s always nice to see someone stepping up to do the public education piece!
You say you dress in a masculine way - I presume at work. Does this cause others to enquire about your life/sex life/relationships, and do you find you have to bat people off? Do people assume you’re a lesbian and does that annoy you? I guess - how do you handle the questions, or is everyone too polite to ask.
As a lesbian myself, when I was younger I used to bend myself in knots trying not to talk about my weekends/partners - something which can be emotionally wearing. I’m out at work these days, so no great shakes.
Do you consciously treat other people differently due to their perceived gender? Subconsciously? I ask because I’m often treated differently based on whether I’m seen as a cis male crossdresser, a trans woman, or a cis woman.