CW: I will discuss body dismorphia, or the (seeming) lack thereof I feel when thinking what it would be like to have been assigned the wrong gender. Also I describe sexual roles and thinking about having different anatomy.
Ok, so I’ve previously read Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg and I care about gender insofar as it takes to ensure all gender nonconforming people get healthcare, feel safe in public life, etc. I also will/have changed my language as much as it takes to make my trans comrades feel comfortable. With that out of the way:
I am a cis male, and I guess I am mostly okay with the body I’ve been given. I prefer to be called him, but I would only be a little annoyed if someone used she/her or they/them to describe me. If I try to imagine my body with a vagina and developing breasts in puberty with my current state of mind, I don’t feel very much discomfort. I don’t feel particularly attached to the role of penetrating another partner as a gay guy who enjoys bottoming more than topping. If I was forced to wear dresses to church growing up, I don’t imagine I would be very distressed.
I do value the relative ease of building muscle that comes with having a male hormonal profile, and I guess dealing with having a female hormonal profile could be alarming, but mostly because it’s not what I’m used to. But before puberty, I also wasn’t used to having a bunch of testosterone.
On some level, I understand that it can be traumatic to be the target of violence and hate speech, or to be denied medical care. I’m speaking from a position of relative privilege.
Does this mean I’m possibly non-binary? Or something else? I feel content to be assumed as male, but I don’t feel that strongly about it. And the title question again, does anybody else who is cisgender or otherwise just not have strong feelings about their own gender?
I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on this because I actually transitioned to female for a few years and later detransitioned.
I kinda came to a similar conclusion as you did. Living as a woman, going by she/her and a female name didn’t make me feel any different once it had become normal. Not any better or worse. Once I realized that, I made the decision to just go back to being a cishet guy because it was infinitely easier and required less effort.
I still like a lot of feminine stuff, I still have a bunch of women’s clothes that I wear sometimes, but not because I wanna feel girly but rather because they’re in my closet and I don’t care about my gender presentation anymore. I don’t identify as non-binary, at this point it’s more like “okay, whatever, male I guess, who cares”.
This is not meant to sound dismissive towards people who do care a lot about their gender, who make their gender identity their whole thing, uncritical support to all of you. But for me, I’ve gone through my journey of self-discovery and I’ve come to the conclusion that how others (or even myself) perceive my own gender just doesn’t make much of a difference to me.
Agender/Gender Apathy is actually a whole category of lgbt person.
Have you had relationships while you were identifying as a woman? I find that I mostly don’t mind how others perceive me, but in a relationship it is actually very important to me. Are you comfortable with dating straight women who can only appreciate you as a man, or do you prefer to date women who can validate your possibly more complex gender identity?
Sorry if these questions are too personal/directive.