New Gender Identity Unlocked

I feel that not everyone identifies as who they feel they are. Not that anyone has to identify as anything, of course. I think we as a world get so caught up with needing to slap a label on anyone who has a specific interest or passion or an aspect of their personality.

Oh, you like Taylor Swift? Swifite.

Oh, you like Star Trek? Trekkie.

Oh, you like to wear panties? Crossdresser.

Because of this, I believe whenever anyone accepts something about themselves we are conditioned to assign a label, or a way to identify, on ourselves and others. This can easily get out of hand. I mean, I like Taylor Swift but that doesn’t mean I’m a Swiftie. I vote for Democrats (mainly to keep Republicans out of office and this statement is going to trigger a couple people specifically lol) but I would never call myself a Democrat.

And fair warning, if you care little about labels or about the different ways one can identify, you probably won’t be too crazy about this post. Also, if you like brevity then you’ll probably hate this.

The difference, I think, between how someone feels and how someone identifies is based on how public that information is. What I mean is that I feel when you identify as, well, anything, it tends to mean that you are out to people in your life. When you feel that you are, again, anything, it may mean that you are not ready to share that with most of the world quite yet… or ever.

As I get older I become less concerned about labels. I don’t like being confined or reduced to a single word, whether that word is a political party, sexual orientation, or gender identity. I feel most of us (people, not just gender nonconforming people) contain multitudes and can’t really be pinned down by terminology.

Of course, it’s not all bad. I feel that labels can be comforting. For example, when I was growing up I wondered if I was the only boy in the world that liked to wear “girl clothes”. I was amazed to learn the word “crossdresser”. It was very reassuring to know that not only I wasn’t alone, but there were so many of us that we had our own word.

I feel that my existence can easily be divided into two aspects, or to put it in another way, two gender presentations. His life and Hannah’s. I mean, I have two different closets, two different names, two different circle of friends… there is very little overlap. In terms of my gender identity and my gender presentation, I happily and proudly identify as bi-gender.

Essentially I present as either masculine of feminine (if gender is binary and I don’t feel it is).

My pronouns are based on how I present. Hannah is she/her and Hannah identifies as transgender. Pretty simple.

The other half of my life is, well, a little more nuanced, I feel. I really don’t give much thought into whatever he has going on when it comes to his gender identity. Unless I am en femme, my pronouns are he/him and if I am out of the house or we have company over I am wearing boy clothes (as far as one can tell, lol).

I’ve had a lot of doctor visits this year for various reasons and every time I go I fill out the same paperwork as I did on my last visit. These documents ask for my name and if I have certain symptoms or a family history of whatever. These questionnaires also ask about gender. The options are almost always:

A) Male

B) Female

C) ) Other (please specify)

I always check A) but I am happy they ask. Gender representation is important and I think it’s important that all genders have the opportunity for visibility. I check A) because for the most part I don’t think it matters. I see little reason my gender identity is a concern when I am having an MRI done or my iron levels are being tested.

But lately I’ve been thinking a lot about gender identity outside of Hannah’s little life.

I don’t think anything should be genderized. Clothes, colors, careers, or even genitalia. I wear leggings in male mode, I underdress, I have no body hair, and have other attributes when it comes to traditional societal feminine characteristics. I wear what I want, I shave where I want, I sleep in what I want.

At home, anyway.

In male mode, I don’t adhere to wearing clothes that are “for men” and I certainly don’t resist wearing clothes that are “for girls”. Because of this, the idea or “male mode” becomes a little silly. Is it really male mode if I am wearing femme jeans and a femme shirt?

…Isn’t the belief that clothes and everything else are for anyone is the most significant and one of the most telling perspectives that a non-binary person has?

I don’t like limiting myself to anything because of the anatomy that I have. I don’t like that being identified as male at birth means I have to do, or can’t do, certain things. I feel I am adhering to gender norms and obeying the established gender binary whenever I check “male” on a form.

Of course, I am overthinking all of this. It’s a pointless question on a medical questionnaire. It’s a less direct way than asking if I have a penis or a vagina.

(And I know it’s not that simple. Cisgender men and cisgender women tend to have different health concerns as they get older which can influence the type of medication or treatment someone needs.)

The funny thing is if I abandon identifying as male because I don’t care for labels I am automatically put into another label but as non-binary. Almost everything is like that. Oh, you don’t identify with any sexual identity labels? Then you are pansexual. You don’t identify with any gender labels? Then you are gender non-confirming. It’s almost hilarious.

On another related note, let’s talk about gender dysphoria. According to the National Library of Medicine, this is defined as:

Gender dysphoria (previously gender identity disorder), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is defined as a “marked incongruence between their experienced or expressed gender and the one they were assigned at birth.” People who experience this turmoil cannot correlate to their gender expression when identifying themselves within the traditional, rigid societal binary male or female roles, which may cause cultural stigmatization. 

The reason I bring this up is that society has decided what is appropriate for people (clothes, careers, feelings, favorite colors…) based on their genitalia. These arbitrary rules are human made and maintained for (in my opinion) no discernable reason. There is nothing biological in humans that requires one to wear or not wear specific clothes or prefer a certain color. I think it’s funny we wear specific clothes that for the most part are intended to communicate to the world what we have between our legs.

But these rules are enforced in different ways and not at all of them are subtle.

What bothers me is that if you feel that adhering to these arbitrary rules is pointless and you feel restricted by them, you can be labeled with gender dysphoria or a disorder. Like, why is someone stigmatized if they don’t obey these random and seemingly useless rules? Why is it that someone who has a penis paints who their nails or wears a skirt is called strange or wacky or confused? Why do I have to go to therapy because someone three hundred years ago said that your genitalia determines your wardrobe options?

it’s like playing a board game that has a rule that makes no sense like you need to roll the dice with your left hand and this does nothing in contributing to the experience but everyone obeys it because “it’s in the rules” and no one knows why.

And yes, I know, it’s because we’ve always done things this way when it comes to clothes but in my opinion there’s nothing more useless than doing things one way because that’s how it’s always been done. It’s okay to break from “tradition”.

When it comes to clothes it’s bewildering how nuanced some items are. I mean, there are the obvious ones, such as a necktie is for a boy and a dress is for a girl but I have “boy t-shirts” and “girl t-shirts” and they are almost indiscernible from each other. Perhaps one short has a scoop neck and the other has a v-neck. Perhaps one has sleeves that fall just below my shoulder and the other just past my elbow. They can both be made of a similar fabric, they can both be the same color, they can both fit my body perfectly but they were displayed in two different sections of Target.

“Girl clothes”, such as t-shirts and especially jeans, tend to be softer. Why wouldn’t someone want jeans that aren’t as harsh as most boy options? I mean, unless you want pockets, I suppose.

I got to thinking about all of this about two weeks ago.

Two summers ago, my wife and I moved into our new house. Our new home has less closet space than our last one, and Hannah’s closet is in my home office. The previous owners, as we discovered over the first few months of living here, cut a lot of corners when it came to home repairs. One of those corners was how well they installed the closet rods.

When we moved, I spent an afternoon arranging Hannah’s new closet and the next day I discovered that the rod wasn’t fastened properly and the weight of my clothes caused the rod to break from the wall. It wasn’t anchored or whatever properly.

And it’s not like I had overdone it. I mean, I have a lot of clothes but I didn’t hang everything I own.

Lacking no real skills when it comes to home repairs, the closet remained in this state for too long.

Until my sister came to the rescue. She and her husband have been restoring a family member’s home and she has really taken an interest in stuff like this. She came over and installed a proper rod along with more bookshelves in my office. If you think I have a lot of dresses you’d be right but you should see my library.

She and her power tools got to work and after a few hours I had new bookshelves to organize and a new closet to glam up. My autistic heart swooned. I love organizing things.

I rotated a lot of items and put some things in storage that I can’t imagine I would ever wear again or items that never fit properly in the first place. Doing this always is difficult as I am emotionally attached to some dresses and they bring back memories of when I got them or the event I wore them too.

I also went through “girl clothes” that I would wear in boy mode, such as a femme t-shirt. Ironically, I wouldn’t wear these items en femme (as I tend to be more glammed up) but they are perfect for the days I am presenting as male.

These shirts are subtly feminine. The fabric is a little thinner than “boy clothes”, the sleeves aren’t quite short or long and tend to fall a little past my elbows, and are a little shorter than what I normally wear in male mode.

Of course, there is a difference in clothing sizing between “boy clothes” and “girl clothes” but I always buy femme items that are the right fit.

As I was sorting my clothes, I moved these items to my boy closet. I mean, the boy closet is for clothes that I wear in boy mode, why not hang them there? It would make these shirts more accessible when I get ready for a non-femme day.

I decided I would resuming wearing more femme clothes in boy mode. I mean, I already wear leggings every day, why not pair it with a cute shirt?

That’s not to say I will wear a skirt in boy mode, but clothes that are worn by any gender, such as a shirt or jeans but a shirt or jeans that are designed for women. Again, subtly feminine. Clothes that aren’t obviously from the women’s section but if you look a little closely…

Moving these items from one closet to another was me making a conscious decision to wear them more often. In Hannah’s closet they were not as accessible, if you will. Lacking a proper way to hang these items, along with my dresses, made it almost overwhelming to look for something to wear. But now I that saw them each morning when I got dressed it became easier to select something cute, something soft for the day.

And that was that. Or so I thought.

As I mentioned, I give little thought to his gender. For the most part, I thought of myself in terms of presentation, such as whether or not I am masculine or feminine presenting. Femme presentation is pretty straightforward, but even when I am presenting as masculine I am wearing “girl clothes”. It could be panties under boy jeans or a nightgown. I always seem to have my toe in my pink world. This is a conscious decision. I like having a tactile reminder of my gender identity (or lack of).

Besides, femme clothes are sooo much more comfortable.

From my perspective, over time, certain clothes that are designed for women, such as t-shirts and jeans, have lost their genderization. What I mean is that I look at a t-shirt designed for a boy and a t-shirt designed for a girl as items that are different in terms of fabric and subtly and cut. For example, a girl shirt tends to be a v-neck and a boy shirt is more of a scoop neck.

Again, another arbitrary rule. If a shirt fits and is comfortable, why would anyone care how the neck is cut? The neck opening is designed for someone’s head in mind, not for someone’s genitalia, lol.

Since clothes are clothes, the idea of wearing something “for girls” has lost all it’s stigma. Boy wear pants, why can’t I wear pants that fit even if they weren’t designed for someone with a penis?

Of course, if you’ve been reading my website for a while none of this is new. Gender isn’t binary and clothes aren’t either.

But I had a realization in the last two weeks. I woke up at like three in the morning with the thought “omg I’m non-binary”.

I thought about this for a moment and fell back asleep.

When my alarm screamed at me that it was time to wake up (I mean, obviously. What else is an alarm clock supposed to do?), this thought was on my mind. This realization was so… obvious. I mean, if I don’t think that anything in life, whether it’s a color or a career or clothes is required or off-limits to anyone based on their genitalia, again, isn’t that a perspective of a non-binary person?

And it’s more than just a perspective. I wear leggings almost every day. Nightgowns every night. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t wear panties. I wear what I want. I shave my legs not only because I like to show off my legs in a skirt, but I also hate body hair. Yes, having a smooth leg is feminine but I would probably be hairless even if I didn’t have a femme self.

My wardrobe and my perspective scream non-binary. Isn’t non-binary is as non-binary does?

Yes. Obviously.

The question is what do I do now? I don’t plan on coming out as NB, I still feel that my gender identity/identities are something I would prefer to keep to myself. Instead, I am going to lean into the clothes. As I mentioned, wearing more “girl clothes” in boy mode is really the extent of it. Unless I left the house I’ve been wearing only femme clothes this week…leggings, cardigans, shirts, and jeans.

I also have been wearing more workout clothes from the women’s department. I mean, I won’t be running outside in a sports bra, but a femme lightweight cycling jersey and femme leggings for bike rides sounds just about perfect. I already do cardio in femme leggings so it’s not that much of a change.

I don’t anticipate integrating these items when I am around family and friends or when we have company over. Again, I prefer to keep my gender identities to myself.

Love, Hannah