How did you discover you were trans or non-binary?

[Dalton_Holt]

Personally I've considered myself a bit more feminine than most men for a long time, and I always rejected the gender norms. Yet I still called myself a man since I didn't really understand gender. Only recently I came across someone on the internet who identified as bigender, and I later saw a video about gender fluidity and was like "wait, so people really identify as a specific gender?" So then I did some thorough research and discovered I was agender (genderless). Pretty amazing thing to discover about yourself! So what are your stories?

[UNKNOWN8198]

I started to look at my gender after I became okay with the fact that I was gay, which was around Easter last year. Because I go through periods where I feel different about my gender (masc, neut or some other thing), I couldn't decide whether or not I was cis, neut or other. At the time I also wasn't very happy with the way I looked, but I thought that was just because that's how I was.

I decided to try a little experiment where I changed my environment around me to see how I reacted, which was a really weird thing to do at the time because I wasn't sure anything would happen. At first, I just made subtle changes to things like my clothing, so I would wear non-gendered clothing with what I considered neutral colours, like red or black or gray, and found that I became a lot more comfortable with myself. I then grew out my hair to make it less 'stereotypically male (short)', it's not even that long but I feel more comfortable with it.

Even with all of that I'm not 100% sure; I know I'm not male though. The majority of the time I think I'm gender neutral, but then I'll go through an extended period where I'll just float around like leaves on the wind, and I'll get really confused about it again. I think I basically need to wait a couple of years for all the hormones to settle down a bit.

Coming out-wise, I can't be bothered. My main problem at the moment is being out about my sexuality, despite the fact I'm like 99.9% sure everyone knows. Also with the gender, given that it does vary and I'm not happy with the labeling I've currently given myself, I'm just gonna sit it out for a while.

[Dalton_Holt]

I started to look at my gender after I became okay with the fact that I was gay, which was around Easter last year. Because I go through periods where I feel different about my gender (masc, neut or some other thing), I couldn't decide whether or not I was cis, neut or other. At the time I also wasn't very happy with the way I looked, but I thought that was just because that's how I was.

I decided to try a little experiment where I changed my environment around me to see how I reacted, which was a really weird thing to do at the time because I wasn't sure anything would happen. At first, I just made subtle changes to things like my clothing, so I would wear non-gendered clothing with what I considered neutral colours, like red or black or gray, and found that I became a lot more comfortable with myself. I then grew out my hair to make it less 'stereotypically male (short)', it's not even that long but I feel more comfortable with it.

Even with all of that I'm not 100% sure; I know I'm not male though. The majority of the time I think I'm gender neutral, but then I'll go through an extended period where I'll just float around like leaves on the wind, and I'll get really confused about it again. I think I basically need to wait a couple of years for all the hormones to settle down a bit.

Coming out-wise, I can't be bothered. My main problem at the moment is being out about my sexuality, despite the fact I'm like 99.9% sure everyone knows. Also with the gender, given that it does vary and I'm not happy with the labeling I've currently given myself, I'm just gonna sit it out for a while.

Sounds more like you're gender fluid, where you basically go through times where you feel masculine, others feminine, others something else (neutral for instance). I feel like gender is something you actually have at least some level of control over, it's really just a reflection of how you prefer to act. So don't worry about labeling yourself too much. You're just you. It doesn't matter whether you get labeled cis, neutrois, fluid, whatever. Just do whatever you want and act however you want. That's how you become confident in who you are.

[UNKNOWN8198]

Sounds more like you're gender fluid, where you basically go through times where you feel masculine, others feminine, others something else (neutral for instance). I feel like gender is something you actually have at least some level of control over, it's really just a reflection of how you prefer to act. So don't worry about labeling yourself too much. You're just you. It doesn't matter whether you get labeled cis, neutrois, fluid, whatever. Just do whatever you want and act however you want. That's how you become confident in who you are.

Thanks for your input. I realise I didn't really explicitly say it before, but I'm not that happy with any of the labels that I've found, including the one I'm currently using and gender fluid. Because most of the time I feel gender neutral, that's the one I tend to use, however because it does fluctuate as well gender fluid does also work. I just don't use it because for me personally, I think of it as being 'more fluctuating' than my gender is, and saying gender neutral would be a more helpful, if not completely correct, label for my gender (and also I think of gender fluid as being 'not as correct' as gender neutral, although I dont think either of them are correct).

[Karkat]

I've known most of my life. Even when I was little, I wanted to be the opposite sex. I got more comfortable with my own body as time went on, and found that I was bigender- something I discovered in my mid teens, I think. I've been out for a couple years now.