This was something I was thinking a lot about today and I would be so stoked to hear anyone elses stories about their identity and sort of your journey to figure yourself out.

When I was a kid my parents raised me as a girl. Growing up I had never felt that. I disliked anything feminine in any way, but I also never felt like a boy. So I had, even as a small kid, sort of referred to myself as "nothing". I'd go around telling people "I'm going to be nothing!" I got a bit older and started dressing rather androgynously. I wore really baggy clothes trying to hide any sort of figure I had, and just tried to not ever stick out.

When I hit high school I had met another kid named Raven. He was very open about being transgender, and when he heard me refer to myself as "it" (HORRIBLE thing to refer myself as, I know that now), he started explaining to me his process of transitioning. He knew I wasn't comfortable presenting as a girl, so he had thought I too might actually be trans. So I researched it. I tried the pronouns on myself. I cut my hair, purchased all clothing from the mens section. Changed the name I went by.

For many years I thought I was that. I thought, this is who I am. I want to transition. I want to become a man.

But I was still very uncomfortable. It wasn't until college, and going to a Doctor, that they had told me I was intersex. Which uh, explained a lot. Like a lot. And I thought about it. What did it mean to be that? How did I feel about being a man? About being a woman? Technically and medically, I wasn't either. And that feeling I had as a small child, I should have listened to it.

It was this year that I finally started to identify as non-binary. I dressed in a mix of clothing from the mens and womens section at stores and heck I look great. I feel great. I've grown into this fully gender neutral androgynous person that I have always wanted to be. I let people who whichever pronoun they feel (though for some reason ever goes with masculine pronouns) because I'm honestly not bothered by any of it. I prefer neither, but still, not really bothered. I'm a little glad I was too lazy to ever actually go through with transitioning things before this. I'm really happy now, and I'm so comfortable with myself.

Anyway, what stories do other people have? How did you discover yourself? Are you still discovering yourself?

I know what I am. I don't like it. I also know the extent that I want to change is not possible.

But rather that try to accept this form or change, I'll just not. I'm at war with reality, and my greatest enemy is myself.

Nothing makes sense to me anymore.

This post is NSFW-ish due to medical terms and the mention of certain body parts, but it's my story.

Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to be a boy. Even before I knew much about sex, I wanted a penis, I wanted to be a boy every way possible. As I got older the feeling minimized, mostly because I was struggling with my sexuality (I'm pan), but once I comfortable with my sexuality and graduated high school I started questioning my gender again because of similar feelings as before, Then, when I was 10 I learned about non-binary genders, and at first I was kinda like "pfft whateve Binary4life", then I learned more and realized I was being judgemental, so I worked hard to support non-binary people, because there was no reason for their genders to be judged the way they are. Then around my 21'st birthday, I realized I was non-binary myself. It's been almost 2 years and I'm still trying to figure out what EXACTLY I am, but most days I comfortable with the non-binary label, and just recently added the trans label as well.

i have a complicated relationship with gender etc etc. non-binary is the easiest to explain, and while takatāpui's translation and meaning have changed over time, it's a pretty good word and the one i'm most comfortable with.

takatāpui is a māori word that now refers to the entire lgbt community, kinda, though it was originally used to refer to like... same gender relationships sorta thing.

I came out as nonbinary to my family at 19 (I recently turned 21). They took it pretty well, although all of them forget to not call me 'sister' or 'daughter' often. I mean, I still use she/her pronouns along with they/them (I like both pronouns!). It helps people not out me by accident, I guess.

when i was around 13, 14 i was vaguely aware of the existence of trans people, and didn't really feel settled as a girl, so i thought therefore i must be a boy... i would think things like "if i was a boy i would name myself this", want to get rid of my breasts (yes i had huge breasts at 13 it sucked), etc... it felt kind of forced at the same time, though, like i was doing this on purpose instead of by nature but i didn't know why i was doing it on purpose. i had no motivation for it and yet i felt like it was a decision i made, like it was something i forced. and i mostly kept it to myself too, i was too shy to share, but nonetheless it felt like trying to force something up out of my throat. i'd get this weird choked feeling that i still remember for its intensity.

around 15 or so i discovered non-binary genders via the internet, don't remember exactly how, but i was basically instantly like "oh, that works" and instantly started id-ing as genderqueer. i at one point saw xe/xir used as a pronoun (on the mary sue litmus test, actually!), i knew about that one before i even knew about they/them, lmao. i was still too shy to tell anyone though, except in my school's lgbt support group, which i went to for about a year but never made any real connections in. i told my mom eventually, she was chill about it.

however not long after that i met the person who i am now dating at a convention, and they later invited me to a 4/13 party to meet some people they wanted to test if would get along in an rpg group. (spoiler: we did, this is now my friend group.) we did a little circle and introduced ourselves including pronouns, and as i hadn't had much success with xe i just said any pronoun was fine, just please not she/her as i was getting tired of being called that all the time. they spent the rest of the evening joyfully referring to me by whatever random pronoun came to mind, which i thoroughly enjoyed. a powerful, all-encompassing gender. only i noticed especially that i got warm fuzzy feelings when they called me he.

which eventually brought me to asking them to use that for me all the time, and at some point along the line i found the term demiboy which suits quite nicely as i still can't really feel myself in the concept of true masculinity, just doesn't work. eventually came out to my parents too, have been living out ever since. (i'm 20 now, came out around 17.)

recently though, within the last year, i discovered i'm a system, and everything fell into place. the day ky first took the front was weird and also joyful-- the experience of suddenly being a different, new person, everything around being new and shiny even with stored information of it, a bright, vivid feeling in my chest i had felt before but never grasped. at first she was like "i'm more androgynous than hank i think, not really boy at all" but then she stopped holding back and leaned into "yeah i'm feminine." only we're still very uncomfortable with being referred to as a woman. so we're kind of half demiboy half demigirl, and everything we've ever felt about gender started making a whole lot more sense the more we thought about it. everything did in fact: i was always, i'm soft and i'm hard and i'm loud and i'm quiet and i'm shy and outgoing and bright and dim and preppy and goth and everything at once-- well, yes, sort of, but i'm two different people. that was the key for me to having a real identity, a real sense of who i am. and i'm happier than ever. ^-^

sorry for the infodump, yall probably don't care that much lmao. that was fun to write though!

most my life I kinda more or less hated the label of "female" for myself and for the longest time I figure "I'm nonbinery then" nope that wasnt right either and long story short I've recently come out as a trans man to my fam. while a homophobic relative was flying in.