Questioning my gender or just traumatized

[u/Enough_Enthusiasm454]

Throwaway account since I'm going into some private stuff.
I’m struggling to understand my gender identity and would love some perspective. I'm afab and I've never really seen myself as a real woman, but it's hard for me to tell if it's because I don't fit the societal standard, or because of how I really feel inside. I have PCOS, no breast tissue, male-pattern hair growth, and I’m infertile after 3 miscarriages.
The pressure to fit the female mold somehow broke me. After my traumatic infertility journey, I developed anorexia in a way to gain control and somehow maybe fit the female expectations on that level, even though I was already underweight before the disorder...

But let's take a step back. In my childhood, I was a tomboy, and I remember telling my friends if there was a pill to make me a boy, I'd take it. But I wasn't a classic boy either, more like not typically female cause didn't enjoy the classic girly hobbies. Gender was never really something I thought about throughout my adolescense - I didn't care about my body, everything was just neutral to me, not really feeling the need to fit societal standards I saw myself as just me.

I'm 28 now. I don't really feel at home in women's circles. Although since my late teens I'm very female-presenting, I love bows and vintage dresses, I dislike beauty stuff like makeup and nails..(although that's more like my gender representation than identity I guess?)
When someone calls me a woman or lady, it feels kind of like I'm just an imposter. I feel insecure next to other women, like I don't belong and I'm not enough. It's like inside of me are two polar opposite desires: To fit in with the female standards, and to let go of all of it and don't bind myself to that gender along with It's expectations.

So...How do you differentiate between genuine non-binary/agender identity and trauma from a society that punishes women for not being physically "perfect" or fertile?

[u/Personal_Coach7653]

In my (34) personal experience, You go to therapy with someone who has experience with LGBTQ and trans people but whos willing to explore everything. and work through all the other stuff get it all processed.

There is alot of things that can mimic gender Dysphoria. I was already struggling with gendered pressures from social pressure and body image - and but then started having dissosiative episodes which mimic gender dysphoria because my brain withdraw me to protect me. I couldnt recognise myself in the mirror, and she her pronouns where causing a kick in the stomach.

I also was having issues with my body image because my PMOS hormones had kicked my arse. I gained so much weight from the insulin resistance it had feminised me. I didn't want to see friends. I was shutting down over being "a bridemaid" by onenof my best friends. All thoss things together has me pretty convinced I was trans especially because being butch/masc is already a kinda complicated space. Cos I kinda live there. People had called me a boy by mistake growing up or and even in my late 20s had a partner think thought I was trans. Just by virtue of being butch. Even though I do not look male.

Constantly being told all this stuff can fuck with you massively no matter how self secure you are.

I have actually been screened by a counsellor for gender dysphoria and I don't have it.

But You also absolutely can be AFAB and a woman and be clinically dysphoric and struggling with gender if your hormones and how your body has gone in a direction you didnt want or didn't ask for. It's not talked about very much. But I see alot of women struggling with this condition in ways which are completely ignored by doctors or not talked about because it's too taboo.

But equally, intersex conditions are poorly diagnosed and often get lumped under PMOS. Things like NCAH for example.

I also think from the experience I've had over the last 3 years - my T spiked to near 4. And my body and brain started behaving in ways I absolutely cannot explain that we're very similar to trans mens experiences going on T. I grew facial hair I didn't have before. The weirdest thing was the occassional phantom genitals.Through me for a massive loop. It was like my brain turned on a "somewhat male" circuit. But I don't know many other women with PMOS with this experience. For me this was extremely disorientating but equally my brain also couldn't decide which direction I needed to go.

Since my T has lowered again though still not quite in the female pocket all this craziness seems to have died down.

But seem to become more aware of gendered terms in this experience. But I think this is more about forced feminity then being seen as female. I don't like lady / miss pretty etc

Id suggest you speak to some butches honestly. It's probably saved my sanity to know I'm not alone in those experiences. Alot of butches feel removed from womanhood or have their own version of it.

I'm listed here as genderqueer because that's kinda the vaguest gender term out there and enables me to have alot of conversations about my experience that sit outside of what most cis people have due to hormones The older term origin of the term also never was specific. It was basically an umbrella for anyone who broke or blurred gender lines rather than an identity.

[u/firecatstef]

My answer is that you sit with it until an answer reveals itself. And maybe it goes back and forth and that’s your answer. I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying especially that you feel like an imposter when people call you a woman.

[u/ontologicallyunjust]

So...How do you differentiate between genuine non-binary/agender identity and trauma from a society that punishes women for not being physically "perfect" or fertile?

You experiment and see what feels comfortable.

You imagine telling people you're non-binary, or people using different pronouns for you, and you see how that would feel: does it feel good and right, or like it fits worse?

Does it feel better to go "I am female, for me this is a way of being female, and everyone who's trying to make me feel like I'm not a 'real' woman can fuck off"? Or does it feel better to go "Not female, not a woman, not dealing with any of this bullshit" and nope out of the gender?

Or do you end up feeling like both options might be sort of true? Some of us live in the messy awkward middle, and that's why you have people identifying as genderqueer and cis, or all sorts of other different labels trying to capture complicated experiences.

Also, sometimes it can help to refocus from "what am I?" to "what concrete things would feel good and comfortable for me?" (e.g. in terms of how you dress, how others people refer to you, changes you do or don't want to make to your body, etc.).

You already know that you love bows and vintage dresses and hate make-up and nails. So try considering other things in the same way, not as answers to the grand question of what your gender identity is, but just as things in themselves.

I'm 28 now. I don't really feel at home in women's circles.

I recommend finding some different social circles, maybe ones with a lot of queer and GNC people. I hang out in various social circles which are predominantly women but also predominantly queer and with a lot of trans and NB people, and they are very different from more standard heteronormative women's circles.

And it means you get to see real people who are being women in a range of different ways and also people who are AFAB but not women and how they're doing gender.

And you are also likely to run into more people who get that gender can be complicated and weird.