LGBTQ+

I don't want to sound facile or diminish anything, but does it matter? Like gender is such a societal construct. Just be you. Maybe there isn't guy or girl at all. You are just a person with interests and feeling and desires and so long as you are true to them and don't let haters or the implied roles of society/family tell you what you should do, just be content.

Maybe it's just me, but I try not to think of things as boy/girl. When I raise my family I try not to let them think of things through that lens either.

What do you find that you need to put labels on? Maybe I'm naive, and it's relevant and helpful and my life has been so easy that I've glided through without having to worry. But I think labelling yourself is just unconstructive!

While it may sound cliche, it's true that really only you can decide, and get to decide, what and how you want to label yourself and identify as. And I find that beautiful. Deciding to go on a journey of gender discovery can be an extremely fulfilling thing, it has been for me. It's worth playing around with and seeing what kind of stuff sounds good and feels good. There's lots of labels out there for all sorts of amazing, valid kinds of people. Fwiw, I have friends who have described similar feelings, refer to themselves as demi boys or demi girls

I went through this recently. For me I realised I'm a man who likes things that would be considered feminine. Due to my very masculine dad I saw this as wrong.

But it doesn't need to be more complicated than that. I like my penis and my beard. I also like painting my nails and my curly ringlets.

I will preface by saying I have never questioned my gender seriously, but I have at times questioned my sexuality, among other things about myself. So not comparing just sharing an experience.

When i was 20, I started getting really bad stomach problems and so I went to the doc and got checked out inside and out. They came back and gave me a nondescript diagnosis of IBS. I went through a period where I eliminated a lot of things from my diet, reintroducing them, taking notes, getting very scientific about what could be causing my GI issues. After a lot of trial and error I found out i had gluten sensitivity, milk allergy, etc. But i still had some problems even if I avoided those things. I started questioning whether it was in my head, or at least partially. And started looking into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Turns out, it was at least partially in my head. I had become so obsessed with figuring out the answer to my problems, that I couldn't let go. I had gotten so afraid of eating my triggers that at times i would just not eat to avoid being "poisoned".

6 years later, I realize now that the obsession I had was the unhealthiest part. These days I choose when I eat triggering foods, I know a lot more about myself, and I have learned a lot. But honestly, the most detrimental thing to my physical and mental health was the diagnosis and ensuing obsession. The "answer". I think if I never had the answer, I wouldn't have been so fixated on fixing myself. I think I see a lot of parallels between that and how you feel.

Maybe the answer isn't what % of boy and girl you are, but what % you love and accept yourself without needing to label yourself with what you are. Maybe the label isn't as important as the ingredients inside. Maybe if you focus on loving yourself a bit more and not trying to fit into conventional themes of understanding, you will create a new cool thing that is just capital Y You.

As far as the pronouns go, maybe by way of self acceptance you won't need to be addressed in whatever way gives you external validation. That's definitely not my forte.

Sending you love and acceptance.

It's ok to be confused and it's healthy to keep questioning whether the label(s) you use still apply to you. So dont feel like you're not allowed to change them!

Just sharing my experience, I’m 42 and still figuring it out. It helps me to remember that gender and the behaviors ascribed to it are made up and have changed massively through history. We get to decide who we are and what we call ourselves, and that can change. We also get to decide if the rules and labels matter to us at all.

Watched "Beyond Non-binary" last night and found it helpful.