So an important part of discovering and navigating my gender identity has been holding discussions with myself. If you want to get real fancy about it, what I’m doing is applying the dialectical method to help me reason things out (Pro tip: If you don’t want to worry your friends and family use the phrase “Oh, I was just employing the dialectical method”, rather than the more worrying “Oh, I was just arguing with myself”. Trust me on this one.). I’ve found the method to be useful in poking holes in my own logic and leading me to think about things a bit more critically.
Here’s a example of how I use this:
Me: “Ok, you claim that you’re not cisgender. What’s your evidence for this?”
Myself: “Well, I don’t have a whole lot of connection to my male birth gender. I’ve never really fit in with the expectations around it, nor have I ever been entirely happy with the physical appearance that comes with it.”
Me: “Ok, that seems pretty textbook. But how do you know you’re not just a feminine man?”
Myself: “Because I don’t connect with the conception of “man”. At all.”
Me: “Well, if you’re not a man, then are you a woman?”
Myself: “That’s…complicated. No, I don’t feel like a woman either.”
Me: “Wait, so you’re not transgender? I’m confused. Aren’t you one or the other?”
Myself: “Well, the term transgender covers a whole spectrum of identities. The common theme amongst them is that lack of connection to the gender assigned at birth.”
Me: “Ok, but you don’t consider yourself a man, and don’t consider yourself a woman, where does that leave you?”
Myself: “The best fit for me is nonbinary; I don’t really feel like the one or the other. But that’s not the whole picture.”
Me: “Go on.”
Myself: “So while I don’t see myself as a woman, I do see myself as feminine. That is, I connect to femininity far more than I connect to masculinity.”
Me: “Ok, so you’re not a man or a woman, but you do feel a connection to femininity. What does that make you?”
Myself: “Fair question, with a complicated answer. So a term that fits is transfeminine, though that’s not 100% accurate for me. The label I’ve been applying to myself is “Nonbinary transfeminine”, or “femby”, for short. But that’s been evolving, and is subject to change.”
Me: “Your life is very confusing.”
Myself: “Yes. Yes it is. When I figure it out you’ll be the first to know.”
So there you have it, the dialectic in action. Hopefully others will find this a useful tool for self-reflection; it’s definitely been helpful for me.