For Iphis- What is "androgyny"

[Trinity]

"I never appreciated labels either, but I always understood why people needed it. Now that I have this confusion in my mind I can relate to the need others felt before me. It would be just reassuring to have a precise, clear answer able to give a name to what I feel, to give me back my identity. But I know the road is going to be long, instead.



Would you mind to direct me to conversations/threads (is it the correct name?) related to androgyny? In this moment it is the "label" I feel closer, but I'm not even sure I understand what it is. I wuold be also happy to hear more about your experience if you are willing to talk!"

An interesting question from Iphis.  What is androgyny?iphis

[Trinity]

Androgyne, for me, is a noun. It is an intersex term, to me.

But androgyny is not a gender, imo. It is a gender expression that is not of the binary. A blending, and ambiguity, like, is that a girl or a boy, answer, yes.

I never felt like the traditional narrative of a woman trapped in a mans body. I always just was different. HRT created a different body, and there are questions about how I was born, I may have some intersex attributes.

Oddly, when I just went to look up the noun androgyne, I could no longer find the references I had originally found, basically indicating an intersex person, boobs and penis in my case, to be very blunt, and unless I open my mouth, sometimes its hard to gender me, depending on the clothes I wear, I can be read as either binary or neither binary.

I just never fit into the traditional male female roles, its rather complicated, I have a trans mtf non surgical body that I appreciate and need, but once you get beyond that, I just am me. The social labels break down a bit, nonbinary just is the best way to look at it.

There is a look or fashion folk aspire to that is androgynous. That's not what I am. It has nothing to do with a look, it is a state of being that does not conform to the social rules and structure.

Surprised, when I went to look up the term, seems like the word has been redefined recently.

I knew I was different from the beginning, earlies age, but never understood just why or how. In reality, as time has gone on, I have come to understand that I had exposure to a chemical that alters gender in the womb, and it just is that simple for me. That however is different from being an androgyne, though its how I think of it in my head, and probably doesn't apply to you and just is confusing.

Definitions can limit, sure they can be reassuring because then you feel less unique and less alone. But reality is that we are just people, imo, with different feelings and traits and needs, and learning what those are is where the happy is. Feeling free to be yourself, that's where happy is. Often it takes guts in a world that sees only one or the other, with the silly rules that go with that. But the payoffs for living a genuine life are huge. The earlier, the better.

I personally do have gender dysphoria, its a physical thing with me, HRT was necessary. Gender dypshoria also was acutely painful.

I've seen quite a few think they found their truth and discover they were wrong, and others that it was totally right for. Listening to your gut instincts is important, in my opinion, to keep from going down the wrong path.

Being nonbinary, to me, just means not following the world rules of boys do this and girls do that, but there is something much deeper, its a sense of not being like others. This is the thing with me that has always been intense. I don't feel like a man, nor a woman. They are different from me in some kind of fundamental way. I am a me.

[Ativan Prescribed]

What might help is to understand that there is a difference between your sex, your gender, your orientation.
Your sex is the biological part of it and it can be androgynous or some of both, to what degree it is depends on your personal idea of what one is vs the other in terms of male and female, like intersex people are a mix of the two in varying degrees.
Your gender is who you feel like, its a personal observation and it yours alone and can't be quantified like your chromosomes can for intersex, and even then those fail on some degree.
But if you feel like your gender is not the standard (there is not such a thing) gender based on a one of two genders according to bigoted assholes who think chemtrails are a thing, then it is whatever it is you think it is, and polls show over 10% of people have some NB ideas of their gender.
Orientation is a fools game, if you like people then you do, if you want to have people as just friends because what would others think, then you are playing the game, as far as having sex, love the one you're with, sex can be a show of love between people or it can just be getting off on having sex, who it is with is really up to you as an individual and therefore isn't subject to rules, again only bigoted assholes who think the world is flat think there are hard fast rules that have to be followed for having sex and relationships.
So really it depends on how you want to define gender as to how you will see yourself as any gender at all, which is really a social construct that goes back when people looked and decided there is a difference between a penis and an vagina, having either is no guarantee because according to chromosomes which is the determining factor for biologists, you can be female and still have a penis, so check your chromosomes, but there is no guarantee with those either as any really educated biologist will tell you, its an approximation but there are going to be outliers just the same.
And recently scientists are noticing animals that needed sex have at times been able to reproduce without it, the world is settling in to its next stage of development of living things, but anyways, you are who you think you are and its nobodies opinion or determination that can change that.

[iphis]

Hi Trinity and hi Ativan Prescribed,
I begin greatly apologising for disappearing after you were so kind to answer in a so deeply way to my question.
The fact is that for some reasons I did not have the courage to come back to the forum until now. I'm going through a tough period and for awhile I've been stuck in a bad place inside my mind.
Whatever, I think that this confusion about my gender may be related to this period.

The difference between sex, gender and orientation is pretty clear in my mind. I have female attributes and I'm totally comfortable with them, I don't feel any kind of disphory. And even though I'm not always sure about my orientation, it's not something bothering me (I kinda think I'm heteromantic, but perhaps bisexual, but in this case I really do not feel the need for labels since it's not something that identifies me such as gender does).

I'm going (I've gone) through a bit of depression and related anxiety issues and in this period I started to wear male clothes because they made/make me feel more comfortable with myself. I understand the need of cover yourself in a bad period - clothes are like an armour, especially if it's summertime.
Even though I get that male clothes may be just a way to cover me better, since they cover better my shapes, for instance, I started wondering about this thing...
I wore male clothes for a few years of my life, I think from 8 to 13 and after that I still wore masculine, but "for girls" clothes (and still some properly males clothes); never wore a skirt before my 17 and after that I've worn very casual clothes (I can't find a word to define them in english) at most, but sometimes also feminine ones, even though I didn't like them that much most of the time.
Many times in my life people mistook me as a boy and it never bothered me, actually I kinda liked it, I guess. In these days - wearing male clothes - I like the feeling to be mistaken as a man/boy. In the meantime I still enjoy to wear "sexy" underwear and I think that if I should meet with a boy I fancy I'd enjoy to wear feminie clothes.

That said, I don't know how I feel inside me. I can't say that I'm not comfortable with my body, I'm totally ok with it and sometimes even proud of my femine shapes. I can't say I totally don't feel feminine, I guess I'm ok being a girl, and I'm sure I don't feel a male... But I don't understand how I should feel if I am one or another.

During my life I've got a lot of interests/hobbies/sports usually associated to boys, but these kind of things are just gendered by society so I can't see how it can help me.

Now that I am a bit less frightned about these thoughts, I find I can relate to what you, Trinity, says, that a label is not necessarly something that would help me and maybe I just need to let it be...

Ativan Prescribed: I find this idea "the world is settling in to its next stage of development of living things" really appealing and hopeful.

I assume what I wrote does not make much sense, but I don't find much sense in my mind either.
I greatly thank both of you for your explanations and your experiences.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Aug 20, 2022 23:19:03 GMT 8 iphis said:

I assume what I wrote does not make much sense, but I don't find much sense in my mind either.
I greatly thank both of you for your explanations and your experiences.

It does make sense, these are the feelings you have and they make total sense.
Anyone's feeling they have for who they are makes sense, there is a truth to personal feelings and so long as you recognize them as also having the ability to change, then you are doing OK.
I find the people who talk the talk that a person is this one way and that is the only way to be short sighted and might have a problem with imagination and thinking outside a very confining box.
I have to wonder about people like that in the sense that they might lack thinking skills and prefer that others do their thinking for them, they are a gullible lot and live in a bubble of others opinions and lack of ability to think for themselves as well.
To be honest, you sound perfectly normal to me, you understand how you feel and are not afraid to explore yourself, good insight and the ability to expand your thinking or as I put it usually, making the box bigger rather than thinking outside it.
To me thinking outside the box is merely that step that allows you to then make the box bigger, always thinking outside the box can be a difficult thing because it has a feeling of weightlessness, thoughts are floating and not grounded, but the realization that you have a distinct idea is what suddenly makes the box bigger.
Nobody else can tell you how you need to feel about yourself, and my opinion of it is one that its a journey of discovery and is never ending, you should always be evolving and discovering and learning new things about self and the world around you.
Everyone's journey is different and sure you can gleam some things from others, but not everything, you will always feel that there is more to self than you already know, this is the driving force that propels you forward and keeps you from being stagnant.
Explore, define, redefine, adapt and move forward, its the steps you take and even the mistakes that define you as a person, you learn from your mistakes but you also learn from developing new outlooks of self.
There isn't a destination, there is only the journey.

[iphis]

Wow! Thank you. I find your idea about boxes really inspiring even though it's frightening. It's a matter of recognizing the changing and embrace it, and keeping doing it all the time, if I understand.

It may be one of the main point of this period, actually. It's a period of huge changes in my life right now (city, job, friends, sport, big problems with the man I've shared the life with in the last 12 years) so I'd like to be able to embrace your point of view not only in relation of my gender identity, but in any aspects of my life.


What you wrote made me think also that a precise definition is something that I have/had the need to have in order to explain myself to others, but I guess that people who really care for me should understand me if I explain myself with my own words, without any labels..
And at end I'm not even sure there's the need for any explanation. This is me, perhaps there's no need to share these things..


I also think that I would like a more define label because of my boyfriend. Just a few days ago we were talking about no binary people with another guy and they both kept saying that a non binary system could not exist and that if a person is not able to identify with the male gender or the feminine one means they have a psychological problem. I've tried for awhile to convince them they were wrong, but actually I didn't have the tools and the knowing to do it.. I can't say I felt misunderstood or miss recognized (I guess it's not a word) since I can't even say if I feel non binary, but it was very disappointing and I thought how could I explain to this man, with whom I've shared almost half of my life, how I feel?

But I'm babbling again.

I have to say that most of the time my gender identity does not "bother" me. But I'm not yet able to say if it is because I'm ignoring it or because I'm honestly in peace with a bit of fluidity.
I guess I need to give myself a bit of time, always remembering to enlarge the box and looking to all the possibilities..

Thank you so much for your words!

[Ativan Prescribed]

OK, if you only identify as male or female, does this mean there is nothing shared between the two?
That implies that one has no frame of reference for the other, in other words a complete mystery....
It is VERY common for either to be able to understand the other, in other words they can experience the very same things.
So what they are saying is that because they have a penis they can't possibly know what it is like to be a female?
And if someone has a vagina they can't possibly understand someone who has a penis?
Doesn't this totally sound stupid? If they can understand the feelings of the other it is because they experience a lot if not all the same emotions and values.
This is the foundation of bigotry to say you have to be one or the other as if there is no common grounds and what might be common grounds is only close but not the same, bigotry is the very same thing as racism, the rely on some differences to make it sound as if the other is totally alien to this universe.
It is either a lack of being able to understand that being a member of the human race is also a member of every living thing in the universe, to say and only be able to think in terms of difference and not similarity is bigotry and racism, both of which makes that person appear to be incredibly stupid.
This kind of thinking that this group of people with a penis can only turn right and this group of people with a vagina can only turn left, so they need each other to be able to navigate in the world?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. There is always a way to navigate the world and peoples thoughts and emotions are not locked into whether they own a penis or vagina, we are humans and have human abilities.

Yes everything applies to all aspects of living your life, it is not just a gender related thing, its also called being in the moment, the ability to see things as they are without preconceived forethought, it is a way of cutting through the BS and seeing life as it really is, to see people and things for what they really are, its taking off the hazy goggles that we develop over time that need cleaning to be able to see the path forward more clearly, to be able to take the next step on the path that is your life without blindly stepping in it.
NB is itself not a gender so much as it is having the ability to simply see others for who they are, consider that males feel obligated to stifle their ability to cry and show emotion, this is not an attribute like they think, it is a negative way of going through life and yet they feel it is necessary because some unwritten rule says it is just the way it is, its kinda on the same wave length of never learning to not touch a hot stove, so you repeatedly do it over and over, never learning the advantages of not touching it because touching it is the manly thing to do......
Labels tend to confuse people who lack the ability to see beyond them and realize they are nothing more than a descriptive word and not the last word, labels belong on canned goods because we can't see inside the can...
The only label you should use all the time is self, the rest of them are merely a descriptive word for how you feel at the moment and that goes for everyone who says they are this or that.
Live in the moment as much as possible, stop dragging the past into the future, there probably isn't enough room for that much past if you want to move forward into your future.
Just because something went one way in the past is no reason to believe it is going to happen that way in the future, it is highly unlikely that the past is going to suddenly pop out of the past and become the now or the future.

[iphis]

Aug 22, 2022 3:34:23 GMT 8 Ativan Prescribed said:

Live in the moment as much as possible, stop dragging the past into the future, there probably isn't enough room for that much past if you want to move forward into your future.
Just because something went one way in the past is no reason to believe it is going to happen that way in the future, it is highly unlikely that the past is going to suddenly pop out of the past and become the now or the future

It's incredible how you recognised what is probably the main issue of this period for me, through the few words I wrote!
And you put it into words before I was able to rationlize it in my mind..
Basically I think I really do not want leave that past behind but I'm not even sure if it is because that was  what I really wanted (and in part it appears reasonable since I had started to call the place where I lived home and I found there friends I really love) or if I'm idealizing that past (and I'm sure that's also true because, for example, I didn't like the house where I lived and I can't "remove" from my head a boy with whom I shared just a few days of intimacy).
I'm not sure I understand what you mean with "there probably isn't enough room for that much past if you want to move forward into your future". That past is a huge part of my life, which changed me a lot, in  a way I like. Is there not room for this past in my future? What should I do with those experiences? I want/need to find a place for that part of me in this new, frightening present I'm trying to build. There, there are also those friends with whom I'd be more comofortable to speak about my gender issues, if the need will come, actually the only people to whom I can imagine to speack about it.

But I'm off topic.. I really loved your explanation of the non-binary system. I'd really like to be able to talk freely of these issues with my boyfriend. Perhaps you were referring to him saying that there's no place for the past in my future.. For sure I can't see a way to talk with him about my gender issues in this present..

I've already read your post a few times, but maybe I need to read it some more..
I'm so grateful for your time and your sharing.

[Trinity]

Interesting shift in the topic from gender to the past, present and future.

I know for me, I can bring a lot of the bad feelings and things into my present and it is not helpful. But there are things from the past that I can reclaim, that were lost for one reason or another, and that can be brought back. Music was one of those things.... the arts....

But carrying the negative experiences of the past and projecting them onto the now, like bad event happened here so bad event will always happen, that's where I think we are talking about things.

We are built on the foundations of our experience, I think, but we have to be aware of how that has shaped us and what choices we have, to hold onto the good and drop the bad, perhaps, or some hold onto the bad and drop the good. The trick is recognizing when we are doing this, and awareness gives us the ability to choose what we want and need to do.

I had a lot of bullying and trauma in my life. I choose not to bring it into my now, I leave it behind me. But I can easily fix my eyes on that, and let it color my life.

What does happen, unfortunately, is trigger events that bring it back up for me, and then it comes into the now, particularly when I encounter someone like those who caused and still cause harm. But I have choices in how I react to this, and that is a whole different discussion, in order to be shamed, for instance, a person has to agree with the shaming as being true, where if you see that its laughably false, you don't feel shamed at all, because you know its just dumb and someone being mean, and that's on them, that's there problem and not yours. And then we can choose to walk away from them.

Building on the past might be different from allowing the past to dictate your present. Its awareness of choices that matter, awareness of what is happening, so we rise above being victims or this or that, and become instead, warriors.

But that is just an example, it may not apply to you at all, but it could help someone else following the thread some day.

The now, is a creative moment, we can create the now we are in, whether happy, sad, good, not good, self care, self hate, lighting a candle and feeling nice, sitting in the dark and yelling there's no light.

We have the choice.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Experiences in the past happened because of circumstances that unless they are exactly the same won't happen in the same way.
This applies to both good and bad, we make choices and things like hindsight alters how we think of things.
For instance, something bad happened in the past and when the nearly same or even kinda same circumstances are in the present, there is no reason to believe that something is going to happen the same way.
You already know the outcome so you have an advantage right there, if it was a bad thing, you can sidestep it or whatever because you can see it coming this time around.
If the thing was a good one, then you can encourage it and hope fore a good outcome and have better odds of that because you can see it coming at you.
Think of it like a bad storm or a nice sunny day, just because it is the same means nothing because everything around you is now different and you are as well.
Bad experiences and good experiences are worthwhile in the present because we have the expanded experience, we have learned regardless and can apply what we learned to hopefully have a better experience in similar circumstances in the present.
You stepped off the curb in front of a moving car and it hit you and you got probably hurt, say it was a red car, do you hesitate when you see a red car coming because of past experience? Or do you simply pay more attention when you step off the curb.
Don't let the past dictate your present and don't let it steer your future, but by all means appreciate what you have learned from both negative and positive things in the past.
Your tomorrows are going to become your present, but your yesterdays are never going to become the present or the future, unless you never ever learn a thing in the present, it is going to effect the future, you need to be aware and learn from the present to be be able to deal with the future.
I'm retired and younger people who know that tell me it must be nice to be on eternal vacation,.. not true in the least, its very difficult with the exception that I know better when it comes to a lot of things, but I had to learn everything over the years and learn especially from my mistakes.
Retirement is not vacation, it is simply another way to live, no job I have to go to five days a week but then its a lot less money but then living costs a lot less because I have what I need and don't have to spend a lot on cloths for a job, car and gas to get me there, its s different lifestyle is all.
But I have learned so many things and can separate what is really necessary from the bullshit that society puts on people as they live, I know the difference between what is necessary and what isn't and just trust me when AI say most things are just others pushing an agenda or justifying their own lack of knowing if something is bullshit or not, the only way to know is to live through it for the most part, bullshit is mostly hindsight anyways, until you actually step in it you don't realize just how much of it is in piles along the path in life.
I know that most people and me included a lot is that you have to go through stepping in pile after pile of shit before you learn to recognize what is and isn't a shitpile on the path you take, you generally learn by making the same mistake several times before you learn to stop stepping on that pile of shit all the time.
The trouble is you can't really see if it is or not until you have to scrape it off the bottom of your shoe, you step in it again anyways because generally people do that and then think good, I did that so the path must be clear, it never ever is, damn bulls fallow the paths themselves you know.
But eventually you learn not so much the answers to things as you learn what to avoid and what to stop and look at, maybe even pick up because you are now smart enough to do that safely, like some plants are not meant to be picked, you know?
Nobody can tell you where to step on the path because it is your path, nobody can tell you what path to take, its your path, nobody knows where the paths lead, they are all different.
So when people tell you that you have to be like this or that, know that it isn't true, that only they need to be this or that because of the path they are on.
Don't let the past become your future, the past is where we learned to be better prepared for the present and the present is always going into the past and the future is always here before we realize it is.
We pick things up and take them with us, we accumulate a lot of things that over time become just a burden once something is no longer useful, its just the weight, get rid of it so you can better be ready to pick up the next useful thing that comes along.
We cast off what is no longer relevant to our life or path, we pick up what is, it is a constant recycling of things, we pick up things from others and other pick up what we cast off, life is a constant recycling effort.
Its fine to have memories stored away that are relatively weightless, both good and bad memories seem to serve us well when we least expect them to, thats the part of our learning experience, memories are the anchors of those experiences.
But don't let the anchors keep you from moving further along your path, don't let others anchors do that as well, don't let the past be a part of your future, and always know there is no destination only the journey.
Don't let worries stop you from moving forward, its the only thing you can do anyways regardless of whether the worry is big or small, keep moving forward, there is much to see and much to learn and of course there is going to be bad times but there is always good times and the more you learn, the better those are.