I’m cis. I’ve been pretty indifferent to norms of masculinity since I was young. I used to wear corsets and makeup and skirts to goth clubs back when I was cool. As a perk of being well over six feet and a man no one ever gave me shit about it, and on the very rare occaisions they did I wasn’t impressed. Maybe it’s a neurodivergence thing or a bipolar thing, idk, but I never really considered my masculinity, such as it is, something society was worthy to challenge.

I guess some of it was a very bad experience with Texas’ unique brand of toxic masculinity and violence when I was a kid. It put me off of a lot of traditional toxic masculinity bonding stuff - football, beer, cops.

And I had probably the weirdest frat experience in college - very supporting, very loving, all for one and one for all, no hazing. Most of the old guard was thrown out for being frat bros the year before I joined so we mostly built the culture from the ground up and it was pretty good. Like this was the bush adminstration and the gay straight alliance would all come to our dry mocktails parties. We barely knew trans people existed but we decided that if someone wanted to join, and asserted they were a man, we could only induct men under the national rules but the rules didn’t tell us we needed to check people’s genitals so we’d take anyone who said they were a man.

And then, like, hanging out with sex workers and strippers, gave me a lot of perspective on shit women put up with. I got firmly in to feminisms early on, did a lot of reading, hung out with some real cool feminists. Dated a whole lot of queer women who didn’t expect normative traditional masculinity from me.

I ended up having mostly queer friends, including a bunch of trans people. Learned a lot, read a lot, talked a lot.

So, i got lucky in a lot of ways. I got turned off to toxic masculinity early. I’m a huge man and that gave me safety to play with gender, have fun. I met a lot of cool weirdos and good people. I had the opportunity to learn a lot. In college i studied anthro, which is studying culture, which is all about breaking down what you think is normal. Had some cool queer professors and cool marxist professors.

Oh, and i guess i was introduced to transhumanism early from reading tons of sci-fi, and radical bodily autonomy, being able to make your body and mind whatever you want whenever you want, once i started to learn about transgender people it was just a natural fit. Like of course people should be able to express whatever gender or no gender, change their body to suit their needs, what feels good and correct. It was completely consistent with transhuman ideals.

So, put it all together, i’ve had a lot of advantages for exploring, critiquing, and playing with gender, and with all those advantages i ended up cis+

Don’t get hung up on labels. Just do what you want, try out new things and see if you like them or not. I found out I am cis purely through trial and error- being perceived as a woman feels incorrect to me. I hate wearing women’s clothes, whoever designed them is a bastard. I like having a beard. I don’t like the way makeup feels, and even my man boobs are too much for me. You cannot know yourself without putting yourself in new contexts and reflecting on how you relate to those contexts

I didn’t know what trans was when I was 4 or 5, but I heard about reincarnation, and I thought “that explains it! I must have been a woman in a past life!” I couldn’t specifically say what it was, but I just never felt like a typical man, and fantasised about being a woman as early as I could remember. I later learned I could be a feminine man, I consider myself non-binary and present mostly male, I’m not big on labels.

Trans, phantom penis and generally not feeling right with my body, once I found out about the terms that was nice since it gave a detailed definition to a generalized dysmorphia and always wishing to be a guy even from my earliest memories.

Like a lot of cis folks, I never even really had to think about it. Privilege of being born in a body that matched what I thought of myself, for the most part. Once my hormones starting rocking in my teenage years, I hit the gym pretty hard, really wanting to embrace my masculinity. Probably helped I had positive masculine role-models in my life, especially my dad, who was a farmer for most of my childhood. Big man, rough hands, dependable, always made time for his family and community, informed a lot of what a “man” is to me without me really realizing it until I reflected on it in adulthood.

I really didn’t give it much thought until the 00s when a friend of mine came out as trans. She was incredibly brave, this was long before even cis gay people had a lot of purchase in culture, especially the rural area I grew up in. Her announcement of it on social media post (sorry for vagueness, trying not to dox), was of the effect “I’m Trans. This is Not a Joke” because that’s kind of how trans issues were seen, even among us relatively left leaning folks (I remember John Stewart making fun of Kucinich during the 2008 primaries for saying he would put a trans person on the Supreme Court). Crazy she had to frame it that way.

When she came out, I did have a bit of self-reflection about it. She actually was already talking a lot about gender in blog posts and stuff like that leading up to that point, she was who taught me about the concept of privilege, for example. And I realized pretty fast that I had a lot of that privilege stuff for being born male and feeling comfortable in not just being a man, but even a lot of traditionally masculine things like being big & strong, watching sports, being attracted to women, etc.

It was cool to have that influence in my life kind of early on, helped me not be a chud about gender stuff, I think. Or at least not struggle with it, like I did for a while with say, abortion. My only early life influence on that issue was being raised in the church, I never knew anyone that, publicly known anyway, had an abortion. Even if I left the church at 17, it took me into my 20s to get right about it through reading and getting more in touch with feminism and what not.

Anytime i feel cognitive dissonance about masculinity i look at how much work transitioning is. I can’t be bothered

I’m agender, meaning I don’t really associate myself with gender at all. I’m amab, but never cared to be a boy when I was growing up. I had two older sisters who would rope me into playing “girls games” when I was young. I was never really happy with my appearance when I was a teenager, but I never thought I wasn’t enough of a man. I wanted to be skinnier and more attractive and have cooler hair, I didn’t want to be masculine. I didn’t want to be feminine either - gender literally just never played a part in how I wanted to look. I never felt like I had to fit in with boys by acting masculine, or that girls worked differently from boys. I didn’t think about gender.

I was 19 before I started to question my gender. I knew I didn’t want to be a girl - some feminine things give me a lot of gender dysphoria, even today. I played Deltarune, which has a canonically non-binary main character, and became really hooked on every aspect of the game, including the main character’s gender presentation. At first I thought “oh, awesome, non-binary representation”, but then I realised that playing as and relating to a character with they/them pronouns was appealing to me.

I don’t consider myself androgynous, because I don’t try to steer away from a clear gender presentation. I’m masc presenting for the most part. I guess I fall under the umbrella term of non-binary, but I feel like that’s too vague to describe my identity. When I say I’m agender, I mean that I am completely ambivalent to gender. I would happily wear a dress or a corset if I thought it looked good on me. I don’t think about whether I will look feminine or masculine when I wear clothes. I have some clothes that I really like, that look like cool cloaks - and they provide absolutely nothing to my gender presentation. Gender exists, as a concept, but its not for me.

Ive questioned my cisness before, and came the conclusion that bein a dude just fits. i do think itd be cool to be a woman for like a few days but outside of general curiosity bout what itd be like to inhabit a body that isnt my own, im comfortable with what i am and how i am

had a bunch of dreams about being a girl and used to pray to wake up as one. this starting hitting right before puberty, before that i was fine

later there’s shameful crossdressing to feel some gender euphoria, supportive partners (but most fetishized this stuff and i was already a kinkster so that added more self-doubt for years)

in the 90s and early 00s there was a lack of organized information and my friends were mostly clueless and i hung out with the queer goth/punk kids!

bounced back and forth between whether it was wish fulfillment or not. i’ve settled on non-binary transfemme or MtF butch but labels suck besides as a way to identify yourself online or to a community

the questioning phase can last months, years, decades even but despite all the horrible political reaction there has never been a better time (except in the future perhaps!) to explore transness and find support.

I was a teenager when I found out about trans people existing, and I genuinely asked myself if that is something that applies to me. Now I am amab, and could never really identify with the machismo view of masculinity that I at least feel defined the culture around me. But of course there are other forms, other ways to express yourself. Identifying and being seen as a man has never felt wrong to me and while I can imagine what other situations feel like, I can’t attest that it would be in any way accurate. I don’t really know what it means when someone tells me they feel like a woman, or non-binary or honestly even like a man. That’s fine though, I trust others when they tell me these things are very important to them and when it comes to trans people (who sadly have to fight to get the basic acceptance that they deserve) honestly am glad that I never had the same struggle.

I identify as cis. I talked about this topic with my partner (who is trans) and he told me he wasn’t sure if I wasn’t agender or something, but that just doesn’t feel like a label I can identify myself with either. I think I just don’t identify with my societies narrow view of masculinity and just do things the way I like them and the way they feel right to me.

I personally was stuck for years on trying to find a label because I used it as an excuse to not try anything. I really think gender exploration is in the doing. Every new thing you try, you now have more data on how it makes you feel and you can put in some time to figure out the question of “why?”

You also reach a point where there really is nothing that can prove you’re trans or prove you’re cis. Cis people do not get asked to prove their gender identity, generally, and tend to be very bad at it. Meanwhile, there’s no objective measure of transness where you can determine you’re trans and then act accordingly. That’s backwards. At some point, it is an assertion you make about yourself to guide your actions and state an intent. It’s your identity. It’s personal. It’s something to be taken hold of.

I started being comfortable calling myself trans by referring to myself as trans in my head and with safe people. Eventually, it stopped feeling like I was taking up space where I didn’t belong or like I was lying to myself. And it took way longer than most people would probably deem necessary from the outside. I know because I have plenty of friends I’ve watched transition and they will be living full time with new name and pronouns, looking at HRT and still be like, “what if I’m actually cis though?”

I’m cis, and I’m confident I’m cis - expressing my masculinity has always felt right to me, like it’s The Thing I Should Be Doing. But it did take some reflection to realize that, and I did question whether I was trans at one point. A lot of people in the communities I was in had come out as trans at the time, and they were talking about how right it felt, how good they felt, and I realized that’s what I wanted, that sense of purpose and belonging, to not feel like shit anymore, like they did. But the truth is that I feel like shit for reasons unrelated to my gender.

I essentially folded the moment my assertion in my “cis-ness” was challenged (got asked what pronouns I preferred for the first time, had a thought that “maybe they/them would be fun” come into my head, and went from there.) Over the years since having that first realization, my perception of my own gender has shifted and changed as I’ve tried different labels and pronouns, accepted some, and rejected others. Right now I’m in a pretty comfortable position with my gender (firmly trans, wanting androgenic HRT, not identifying with being transmasc/a trans man) but who knows, things are subject to change in the future as I gain new experiences and discover more about myself.

I think what helped me was gaining the realization that wanting to be whatever gender you want to be is all the proof you need. I used to be stuck in the idea that there is some “essence” of transness that I was missing, therefore I wasn’t trans. But there isn’t. You don’t need to experience dysphoria to be trans (though it’s pretty common for trans people to realize that they were, in fact, experiencing dysphoria and just didn’t know that’s what it was.) Cis people don’t find themselves wanting to be other genders. I know, it’s weird.

Good luck on your gender journey

I agree with the sentiment in here of don’t worry about labels too much. Just try out different stuff and play with it until you find what fits for you.

Personally, I’m a 35 year old trans woman. When I was growing up trans women were only the butt of jokes in shows and movies. I didn’t think people actually were trans so I wrote off a lot of my obvious feelings as “everyone feels this.” I had a tough time identifying it because as I aged, masculinity didn’t feel right but I’m autistic so nothing ever really felt right.

It didn’t all click for me until I was watching a trans youtuber’s coming out video. I can’t find the transcript for it, but the line that just SHOOK me was something along the lines of “I looked in the mirror and I saw myself aging into an old man and I was terrified”. I had those feelings before and then the rest of her experience really clicked into place for me and all the egg-y shit I had felt and thought really came into focus. It took a while to actually publicly transition, but in the meantime I would dress in feminine clothes at home to try and find my style. And expressing my gender more just resonated deeply with me and I ended up having to publicly transition.

As an aside, I think the book Whipping Girl really helped me understand my gender better, but that might just be because the author’s experiences lined up with mine really well, my cis wife says it really helped with understanding her gender too.

i wanted to be a boy when i was younger, in fact i was certain that i was. i was offended at the idea that i should be on the girls’ football team, because obviously i couldn’t hit a girl. i wanted to be a cowboy or a wizard or a scientist. i wanted a wife. i wanted to have a beard when i grew up (so that i could be a wizard). i remember my mother losing her mind when i referred to “the other boys” in my school, and i didn’t really understand why adults kept saying i was a girl or wanting me to dress like one. in my 5th grade class we came up with the (probably transphobic now tbh) idea that i was a spy going undercover as a girl to find out what they got up to on their group bathroom trips. etc etc

but then i read Stone Butch Blues and realised that people like me exist and always have; i’m allowed to be a woman and love women, i’m allowed to be a woman and be as masculine as i like, i’m allowed to be a woman and not dress/act/talk/etc “like a woman” because there is no such thing. i’m allowed to be a woman and a scientist (and now i am!!). women like me have a history and it is proud and long and badass - and no matter what the world says there is fucking nothing wrong with being a part of it.

plus i realised that as long as i am clockably afab (which, for me, will likely be forever), i will experience sexism and be oppressed in the same way and by the same mechanisms as all other women. medically and legally, i will always be oppressed the same as women. there is no reason for me to distance myself from people who experience the same injustices as me.

(i still want my beard and superhero muscles but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ its not worth me figuring out how to get on T and spending the money and stuff. i’m just gonna go to the gym and try to learn how to love my body the way it is (which i’m certainly getting better at; nothing about the way i am makes me lesser or less masc or more deserving of objectification etc etc - society is just sexist))

i’m cis. i didn’t want to be a man, i wanted to be a fucking person, we just live in a society where women are often denied that and i was too young to understand and reject sexism.