So one thing I always wonder (from the perspective of the straight white male) is how much of the LGBTQIA+ terminology implicitly reaffirms, or even depends on, just those stereotypical gender norms and social structures it seeks to question.
For instance, take the term nonbinary: in order for it to make sense, one must first stipulate that there’s something that’s picked out by ‘binary’ in order to negate that; so if gender simply isn’t binary, it makes no sense to call oneself ‘nonbinary’, since there’s nothing there that’s being negated.
So to me, it seems there’s a possibility that those disagreeing with your self-characterization do exactly the opposite of boxing you into some pre-defined category: your self-characterization, from what little I’ve read about it, is as a ‘male girl’. This, presumably, due to the fact that, while you’re biologically male, you exhibit some characteristically ‘girlish’ traits—behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and so on.
But one might want to deny that there is such a thing as characteristically girlish traits (please note that I don’t mean for ‘girlish’ to carry any diminutive connotations; I just can’t think of anything else but ‘essentially girl-appropriate’ or something similarly clunky). That, for instance, those traits perceived to be girlish are simply social construction, historical accident, and without basis in objective fact.
Consequently, the label ‘male girl’ would not make much sense to them: there is nothing essential to tell apart a male girl and a male, as there is nothing inherently girlish (or boyish) beyond misguided expectations.
Or, perhaps, to get at it another way: do you believe somebody in your situation would be wrong to simply call themselves male? If so, what exactly is it that would make them wrong?
I apologize if I’m going about this in a too simplistic way. Part of the above is the issue with the neatly delineated vs. continuous spectrum rainbow posted above: in a sense, the whole problem is people judging other people by what boxes they fall into (or are sorted into by others, often those doing the judging); but the reaction seems to be to build more boxes. To me, in my naive way, that’s always seemed sort of the wrong tack: shouldn’t we rather try to question the grounds for boxing at all? To just live with the fact that human beings and their identities (gender- or otherwise) are simply big, messy, fuzzy things, and that we’re actually pretty much all the same on that accord?