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Frédérique
01-16-2013, 04:21 PM
Am I a bigender or genderfluid? ...bigender is 2 genders in one body, and genderfluid is 1 gender that changes with time...

“The simple things you see are all complicated…” (Pete Townshend)

Perhaps the complicated things you see are all actually rather simple, or at least trying to be. My thanks to Ryan A. from the FtM area for piquing my interest along the lines of gender-confusion. I really shouldn’t be writing about this stuff, since I’m just a boy who likes to wear girl’s clothes, but I get a kick out of all this counter-productive terminology that floats around under the LGBT umbrella. Does it have to be this complicated? Really? I mean, if the goal of LGBT is to be better understood by those outside of the community, why all the misleading terms and hair-splitting labels? These terms are starting to look like a formidable ring of defensive embrasures, and I’m not talking about my femme underwear…

Bigender? Aren’t we ALL a mixture of the two genders, in varying degrees, and we express this evolutionary fact through our personal choices of clothing, comportment, or lack of same? Doesn’t everyone understand the concept of blending? You own a blender, right? IMHO, a “third” gender is not created (let’s not complicate things further) through mixture; rather we try to recognize the presence of two genders in all of us. There are two sides to everything, in this particular corner of the known Universe, so we might as well get on with it – all I can hope to achieve is a 50-50 split, in terms of gender, and this means somehow getting past the plumbing arrangement I was born with. So far, so good. We used to be together, M+F, until society split us in two and told us what clothes to wear…

Who’s keeping the genders apart, anyway? The genderealists? There’s another term for you, another way of saying “sexist.” A sexist is a person who recognizes the physical, cognitive, emotional, and reproductive differences between the human male and the human female, and a rift between the genders is subsequently created and maintained, lest we all lose our precious gender identity. A sexist cannot stomach gender-bending, or genderfluidity, or gender-unspecific anything, so we are forever banished to the confines of LGBT where the aforementioned defensive barricades have been constructed. What’s that? You’re gender-fluid? What on Earth does THAT mean? I read that genderfluid is related to being transgender (duh!). It is when people sometimes feel as if they're male and sometimes as if they're female. This does not have to be related to sexuality or physical gender in any way, and is not a result of indecision...

That’s good, or NOT, as the case may be. I thought I was just a capricious butterfly, floating from one gender flower to the other for nourishment, depending on my gender-unspecific whims, but it seems I’m fluid, no doubt flowing, by gravity, towards the human sewer (according to some)! It sounds like a physical state of matter, a clinical term dreamt up to define me, file me, and ignore me. I tell ya, we’re splitting hairs with these terms, adding more and more confusion. I think it’s safe to say that EVERYTHING is fluid, including interest in things other than what your birth gender may indicate – “I feel like a girl today: Wheee...! I feel like a boy today: Yay!” So what? Dream on, androgyne. I guess if you’re a genderealist, and you’re not budging an inch from your gender “position,” you will eschew gender fluidity and insist on either M or F – this is akin to ignorance, or prejudice against one’s own natural fluid state. Violence will ensue, usually against US, no matter what we call ourselves...

Everyone on this discussion forum is a gender-bender, or is sympathetic to gender-benders. A gender-bender is a person who seeks to define gender expression outside of the binary terms of man and woman, i.e. an androgynous person, a transsexual, a transvestite, etc. Gender-binary – that’s another term you can try to swallow. It means the social construction of gender in most societies in the world where gender is a dichotomy between male and female. Male and female gender expectations, roles, and functions are generally very rigid and the presence of alternate gender constructions are usually denigrated, ignored, or made oblivious. In this very rigid state, I feel that gender dysphoria, gender confusion, and gender-fluidity should be expected – it comes with the territory, an emergence of the natural bigender state that few “binary” people want to consider or acknowledge...

I must say I don’t mind the term genderqueer, any more than I dislike the term “queer,” but I don’t think the term is a proper fit for some MtF crossdressers. Genderqueer can be a term to describe a gender identity that is not encompassed by traditional roles of male and female. This could be a person whose sense of self is the opposite of their perceived gender. Additionally, the term can be used for someone who is poorly described by traditional labels, and also not completely described by the term “Transgendered.” Thus, someone whose sense of self is not wholly male or female, but embodies elements of each gender could also be described as Genderqueer. Isn’t this the same as bigender? Why are there two (or more) ways of saying the same thing? BTW, if I had more time, more room, and more coffee, I’d mention cisgender...

My gender identity is male, but, since I crossdress, people will assume I’m just plain queer. In order to crossdress, I have to step away from the gender binary state and enter the dark forest of queer terminology. If I said to someone, “I like to wear women’s clothes...” that person might quickly gain an understanding of who I am. Believe me, I couldn’t declare myself with any more clarity. If I said, “I’m genderfluid,” I might encounter some furrowed brows. How about, “I’m a gender-bender,” a less traditional way of saying "queer?" Does this accurately describe what’s going on? I suppose that the way of identifying as either all male or female, or M to F or F to M, has paved the way for the current level of comfort with gender being a more fluid, and less concrete concept. Theoretically, it’s better than it was, or is it? To me, present-day terminology represents confusion about concepts that should be easy to understand, and it seems like the gender-binary “system” has put up its own defenses, even going over to the offensive on occasion...

I’m gender-specific, but my crossdressing expresses the bigender reality. There is no gender confusion for me, and my CD’ing is like genderplay, or genderswitch, just for fun. When I don my girly garb, I unwillingly pass through an imaginary portal to genderfluidity, leaving the restrictive world of gender binary behind, at least temporarily. Society has provided me with a box to fit in, and I do, to a point, but this box is kinda uncomfortable. I am content to be male, in fact there is no alternative to this condition (I don’t hate my male-ness, I mean), but at least I can go on a trip now and then, leave the confines of my “box,” and enjoy being alive. My apologies to those who are on difficult journeys related to gender – this is meant to be just another investigation into the terminology that has either been adopted or constructed to elicit greater understanding. Perhaps accurate definition is the goal of all humans, simply because we are capable of doing it, and modern terminology reflects this ongoing quest, but aren’t the clear waters of blessed understanding getting a little muddy these days?

Why can’t you just say, “I’m a blend of male and female,” and leave it at that? Or, you could simplify things further by saying, “I’m a human being...”

Do you prefer simplicity, or do you like to complicate things? :idontknow:

Kate Simmons
01-16-2013, 04:36 PM
Well, if I wanted to get technical Freddy, I guess you could say I'm a Transmorph but that concept is pretty foreign to most people. I honestly don't BECOME anything other than what I am although the outward expression may change. In simpler language, as you say. I'm a human being (at least right now) :battingeyelashes::)

kimdl93
01-16-2013, 05:40 PM
I suppose anyone of us could keep it exceedingly simple and assert that we each are "a blend", as you suggest. And that's fine. But the term may simply not adequately express any particular individual's self assessement. So, I'm perfectly ok with people applying other terms to describe their gender identity.

We're not engaged in a scientific discourse, where the terms necessarily have to be vetted and accepted by a panel of our peers. Still, it helps if people try to familiarize themselves with commonly used terminology, just to minimize confusion. As with most things involving human beings, the capacity for miscommunication, confustion and dispute is seemingly inevitable. So, choose your terms as carefully as you can, expect disagreements, and most importantly, be comfortable with whatever term you select to better understand yourself.

ReluctantDebutant
01-16-2013, 06:31 PM
Cross-dressing complicates life enough already. I perefer to keep it simple. I am a human being. Its the one thing I am guaranteed to have in common with the rest of humanity. It is how everyone deserves to be treated, is how everyone should expect to be treated and is how I treat everyone. Cross-dressing terminology is fine for describing individual concepts about ourselves in a discussion. But I believe when used as labels in identifying ourselves to others it can de-humanize, make it easy for others to forget our common humanity.

Marleena
01-16-2013, 06:34 PM
Let's keep it simple, I'm a mess!:D

JadeEmber
01-16-2013, 08:36 PM
Really, it's best to be simple, by which I mean the terms should have pretty clear meanings. They are descriptive, though. It totally depends on the context as to their value.

So, from an external perspective, people who aren't familiar with any of this at all, then most of those terms are opaque. To such people, the whole group is the same, and they typically have mass misconceptions of people. As you say, we're just "queer."

To people within group, the differentiations that are relevant to themselves often mean a great deal, but sometimes the fine lines for other sub-groups don't.

For someone doing academic work, or someone discussing psychology, the precision of these terms is tremendously important. To someone just describing how they feel and think, however, a term can be constraining if it doesn't quite fit. And then there's the mess of legalistic definition which might not match general usage.

It gets more complicated because people sometimes bring baggage to terms, especially in the early days. So, back in the 70s, bisexual people weren't recognized because gay people thought the bisexuals were in the closet. Or, alternatively, someone might feel troubled about their identity and so reject a term they still aren't comfortable with. Or, we simply don't really know yet if some things are different. Our entire way of thinking about this is mutating. It wasn't that long ago that gender just meant the gender of words in linguisitcs, and not the meaning it has now taken.

The words are getting better, but there's still kind of a mess. That's why there are some arguments on this board about words; different sources conflict, and sometimes we're still figuring out if two ideas are really the same or if they're distinct.

I wouldn't, for example, call you gender fluid or bigender, at least from what you've said in the past, Frederique.

Ultimately, though, I would say things can be simple and complicated. You can look at a bird and call it simply a bird, but sometimes, it's a red-tailed hawk. It just depends.

KellyJameson
01-16-2013, 09:09 PM
We live inside a dualistic universe made up of opposites so think and learn in opposites so have a relational relationship with opposites.

If we were designed for asexual reproduction so there was no biological sexes would there be crossdressers? What would there be for a crossdresser to cross over to?

We live between opposites, first by natures design and than by the ability to stand outside of nature and even nature tends toward random expressions of itself.

Flux and chaos is the norm.

The complexity is very simple to see from a non-dualistic perspective.

Frédérique
01-17-2013, 02:37 PM
Let's keep it simple, I'm a mess!

Yeah, I’m with YOU, in more ways than one... :clap:

I should apologize for this cavalcade of lengthy posts I seem to be producing, but there’s a simple explanation. My garage door broke some time ago, and I had to wait interminably for it to be fixed. Meanwhile, my car couldn’t get out of the garage, so the battery died, and the alarm system went with it! So, I wait here, by the telephone, writing my little (lengthy) ditties just to pass the time. Hopefully this will end sooner than later, but I usually write things to calm my nerves – we girly boys hate to go out, into the world of males, and act like males to get other males to help us, but I’ve been doing that lately...

I’m happy to say the garage door has finally been fixed, and, as of today, my car has been extricated from its prison and is off getting a new battery. This has nothing to do with crossdressing, but it all makes me write, and write, and write...and WRITE...


I wouldn't, for example, call you gender fluid or bigender, at least from what you've said in the past, Frederique.

You are correct – I’m just a crossdresser. However, I subscribe to this idea of two genders being in our genetic makeup, with crossdressing being valid evidence of that situation. A lot of males are actively suppressing the female in them, while others let it in small doses or embrace the WHOLE of their being in some way. It doesn’t necessarily follow that an “incorporated” being would crossdress, rather it is just one form of expression based on bigender truth. I don’t think many people want to entertain the idea that they are made up of M and F, in varying degrees, so they pick a side and make the best of it. A rose is a rose is a rose, so humans must be a conglomeration of both genders, if I understand our evolution correctly. Calling humans “bigender” is redundant, if you ask me, and saying, “I’m gender-fluid” is another way of saying, “I exist,” IMHO...
:straightface:

Annaliese2010
01-17-2013, 02:47 PM
Um like....who cares. Cogito, ergo sum.

julia marie
01-17-2013, 02:58 PM
We've talked about some sort of scale or spectrum with male at one end and female at the other, and how some of us fall somewhere in between. Of course maybe there's a separate spectrum for gay and straight (apologies to those who can't conceive of having a bit of gay in their thoughts/actions). I confess, I feel like I move further toward the other end of both spectrums (away from pure male and pure straight) when I dress en femme. Also, the more complete I make the CD experience (not just clothes but wig, makeup, purse, and maybe going outside) the further along those spectrums I seem to travel, although I haven't passed the midway mark on either.
So, the clothes don't "make the man" but maybe they make the "gender shifter".
Confused yet? Join the club.

Michelle M
01-17-2013, 09:06 PM
I love that your genderealist is prejudice against himself, and just hasn't figured that out yet.

aalynn88
01-17-2013, 09:40 PM
What’s that? You’re gender-fluid? What on Earth does THAT mean.

My first thought when I first heard the term............Thirsty? Got genderfluid?

Beverley Sims
01-18-2013, 07:39 AM
I am following with interest all these large concatenated words. I must get my Dic Tionary out and insert them in the spaces.
Gender-Fluid. A word evolving from that Chinese wordsmith Sum Wun.

Marleena
01-18-2013, 09:14 AM
Genderfluid, something I put in my car? I think this is where I say we are all transgender.:D *runs*

Frédérique
01-18-2013, 10:10 AM
Genderfluid, something I put in my car? I think this is where I say we are all transgender. *runs*

I’ll CATCH you – I’m not wearing heels!!! :heehee:

From now on I’m going to tell everyone I’m gender non-bifurcated. That’ll do the trick… :eek:

Ryan A.
01-20-2013, 12:48 PM
That's a really interesting point, thanks for telling me about the thread! :D



Bigender? Aren’t we ALL a mixture of the two genders, in varying degrees, and we express this evolutionary fact through our personal choices of clothing, comportment, or lack of same?


I sort of agree with this, but everybody that I know really well don't feel a woman side or a man side inside of them, they seem really binary. But I don't know if they are like that because they never searched for it, maybe?

In this type of society I feel the need to have a label, it makes me feel more comfortable. I like to call myself bigender because it's a way to know where I am in this society. Maybe in the future we won't need those labels because society doesn't need to have. I do feel both genders inside of me. But one thing for sure is that nowadays, it exist so much labels that get confusing...

For real, I think CD is a great term for me, but I like to be call bigender. Am I confusing it even more? Because CD looks like something just about the clothes, and for me I feel it's much much much more about the clothes!

andrea lace
01-20-2013, 03:52 PM
you are what you are no more no less.Thats the way i seeit

Ryan A.
01-21-2013, 11:04 AM
you are what you are no more no less.Thats the way i seeit

Everybody keeps saying that. And y'all right. I think I'm too attached to labels.