Gender and Identity

[Crim]

This is such an interesting discussion. I've been doing a lot of thinking about gender and sexuality the past year or so, and the more I think about it, the more mixed up it becomes for me.

I'm romantically and/or sexually attracted to (all? most?) genders but I don't know whether I always was, or whether I've changed. I used to feel straight-but-allied and I don't think I was in denial - I think my attractions growing up were exclusively heterosexual. These days, I classify my sexuality as pansexual, bisexual or queer. I'm don't think sexuality is a /choice/, partially because I don't experience my attraction as under my control and partially because that enables gay-bashing. On the other hand, I wasn't "born" pan/bi. I think my sexuality was influenced by my environment and experiences, though in a more complicated way than "hanging out with gays makes you gay". Just because I wasn't born with the same attractions I have now doesn't mean I can intentionally influence them.

I grew up feeling cis-gendered, even after I started having teh gay feels. That started changing when I took a Queer Theory class and I basically started questioning gender itself? Now I don't know what I am. I'm torn between several thoughts: 1) gender is constructed and who needs it; we should throw it out completely 2) If people treat me as cis-gendered and I benefit from cis-privilege (despite my gender questioning), is it ethical to claim that I'm not cis? Is it wrong to say I'm trans*? and 3) Biology isn't perfectly consistent, but there are overall differences between "males" and "females". Those differences have been exaggerated, added to, and assigned excessive importance but I don't think it's accurate to say that gender pattern differences don't exist. So I haven't figured out how I feel about gender, but I feel very strongly that I should treat other people's identities as 100% valid.

Those are my current thoughts.

[EPluribusUnum]

I never thought about gender until the person I was dating came out to me as being genderqueer (later identifying as trans*). One day, when he was upset about not passing as a guy, I brought up how I'd never identified with any gender in an attempt to make him feel less alone. I think that was the start of a lot of confusion for me, because it was the first time I'd bothered to talk about my gender and that made me actually want to care about it. After that, I went from identifying as agender, to gender fluid, and now... I honestly don't care. I believe I probably am gender fluid, since I tend to have long cycles of identifying as a girl, then agender or gender neutral or genderqueer or something in between, then a boy for a while, then back to the in between. And then there are the shorter cycles, the hours, days, and weeks.
I mean, I try not to label myself (in a sense, gender fluid is the opposite of a label as it is sort of stating that 'nope, can't really pin it down'). Sexual orientation has been enough of a struggle for me when it comes to labels (I just say lesbian), and don't get me started on being the only non asexual who doesn't seem to want sex in one of my friend groups. For me, sex is biological, and gender is something built by the human mind that I just can't understand. What makes a boy a boy? Why is a boy different from a girl? I know both stereotypes and science, but when I talk to my friends I'm talking to people, even if I'm attracted to one group over the other.