We can't easily ask for a person's ___ (masculinity/femininity/androgyny) because there is no term, so we propose "maf" (this is the first look at "maf" so give feedback but word things carefully and ask questions instead of just casting judgment on the idea)

MAF (capitalization does not matter, but this is an acronym)

• Masc(uline)
• Andro(gynous)
• Fem(inine)

"Maf" should be established carefully, seeing how easily humans get confused, like how the gender side of things got conflated with sex because "man", "woman", and "gender" itself mean multiple things.

Some stuff that should eliminate potential concerns:

• this does NOT replace gendered language, it adds to it while also allowing to opt out of gender while still articulating your experience (especially useful for agender and apagender people, and likely nonbinary people too)
  • if someone does not like the concept of maf, use "amaf"
  • if they are apathetic about the concept of maf, use "apamaf"
• This highlights that men can be fem and that woman can be masc; this puts the focus on what gender actually is outside of anatomy and maf. How we see gender:
  • One's sense of being a man, woman, both, neither, fluid, and/or other in relation to their society and/or how they see the world
    • essentially, identity often in relation with a person's anatomical-sex (maf is not identity and is an articulation tool for the spectrum of femininity/masculinity, but identity has no rules, so maf can be used for gendered terms or can be its own system of identity)

Some examples of how this can be used:

• what is your maf?
  • I'd have more examples, but I am quoimaf ("sometimes", I am also likely fluid-maf)
    • I do not grasp the concept of femininity and masculinity
  • "maf" is just to ask "are you fem, masc, both, neither, fluid?" by saying "what is your maf?" or something like that...

Reminder to "give feedback but word things carefully and ask questions instead of just casting judgment"

Or we can just talk about stuff related to maf, like sharing your own maf aspects, idk

👉👈

:3

Why do my 16-19yo female coworkers call me a "baddie" as a guy? like more than 4 of them, Is it a compliment or modern slang? What’s the vibe?

I’m not trying to be offensive or anything but i feel like y’all just doing that to be extra and i dont really understand it

I am fluid and use any pronouns

I already call myself genderqueer, genderfluid, nonbinary, etc. And while these are all correct I feel like they don’t quite capture my internal experience.

I don’t feel masculine in nature. I feel androgynous / lean feminine in nature. But it’s a very queer, subversive femininity.

I don’t necessarily feel more like a “man” vs a “woman” I feel a bit like both, neither, somewhere in between, or a combination of the two, and something else entirely.

But I almost always feel “male”. At least that’s the best way I can describe it? For me that isn’t the same as being a “man” and it’s not inherently “masculine”.

I was raised gender neutral and gendered social roles really weren’t a “thing” in my family. Growing up I just knew what body parts / bodily functions I wanted / didn’t want so I went on T, had surgery, now I’m figuring out the rest.

And please no comments insisting I “don’t need labels” I’m not looking for a label to ascribe to I’m looking for a label to more accurately describe my experience to others. I find labels helpful when communicating. Thank you.

I am in the beginning stages of writing a book (I will not publish it) and I have a solid cast of characters who all have gender discovery and stuff, but I'm agender and having trouble writing Sol who is a trans woman before knowing she's a girl. Can you describe how it feels to be an egg? I felt kind of suffocated by gender expectations before I figured myself out, is it like that? How did it feel to figure it out and transition and stuff?

I don't mind being a woman, but i yearn to be a boy. i don't mind being called by she/her, they/them nor he/him yet i feel uncomfortable being too feminine, i don't mind being Masculine, and i'm extremely comfortable Being androgynous. i think im bigender but i also think i could be agender

So I was born as a girl. But as of lately I've realized that sometimes I just feel like a man, or just want to be a man. On the other hand though, I also love being a girl and dressing up and feel pretty. I feel like because of this I've been telling myself that I just think that, and I'm only a girl. But it's getting hard to ignore with myself and I'm starting to think that sometimes I'm a guy or something adjacent like that. Does anyone else feel like this or know what this is? I haven't told my family yet because I'm still trying to figure things out, and I'm worried that if I tell them I'll be brushed off even though my family isn't like that. Probably just me being paranoid about me being wrong. Anways I'd love to hear ya'lls opinions on this.

Hi everyone! I'm a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University and I'm looking for participants to take part in my research exploring how young women navigate cultural messages around sexual pleasure and desire. Cultural messages, media, and pornography play a significant role in shaping expectations around sex, yet young women's own experiences of navigating these messages remain under explored. This research aims to centre their lived experiences.

Research like this matters because young women are so often talked about rather than listened to on this topic. Taking part means contributing to a growing body of work that could shape how educators, health professionals, and policymakers approach conversations about sex and pleasure in the future.

Who can take part?

-Identifies as a woman
-Aged 18–23
-Any sexual orientation
-English language proficiency
What's involved?
A one-to-one confidential online interview via Microsoft Teams (camera off) lasting approximately 60 minutes, where we'll discuss how you navigate societal expectations around your sexual pleasure.

Interested? Click the link below to complete a short screening form, where you can also find the full Participant Information Sheet with all the details you need before deciding whether to take part.

https://charlottestanford.questionpro.com/t/AdE2KZ8iHj

Please check your junk email for responses!

This study has received full ethical approval from Birmingham City University. Please feel free to email [email protected] with any questions or queries.

I wonder which one is for the girls...

srry if the formatting is bad i’m on mobile and i don’t make posts like ever

also idk what needs a warning or not but just to be safe this post talks about me doubting my gender so if that kind of talk upsets you steer clear

i’ve used the label genderqueer for a while now alongside any pronouns bc i don’t feel particularly attached to something specific gender wise but im not sure how to differentiate that from being cis (im afab)? as in i don’t know if my apathy for being called a woman and referred to w/ she/her is because im cis and it feels “natural” or if i don’t care either way (im really bad with naming my feelings so that’s why i can’t decide)

some notes:
\-i hate having boobs no hate if that’s your thing obviously but they get in the way and i just don’t like how they look; if i could give them to a transfem in need i would be soso happy
\-might go with the above point but i also don’t like fitted tops or dresses i feel ugly in them. i don’t mind the way skirts look but i don’t like wearing them cause of chafing. i prefer androgynous clothes by far
\-don’t like makeup obviously its not “natural” but i always feel like a freak in it

the thing that throws me off though is all of these things are stuff cis women experience too so i’m scared im not really genderqueer but i know i can sometimes get imposter syndrome so im having trouble distinguishing the two

i guess im posting here to ask how yall feel so i can try to compare my own experiences but no pressure to reply obviously <3

tldr dont know my feelings well enough to figure out if im a cis girl or not

I've been figuring myself out for a while and I learnt that I just really don't give a fuck about gender and therefore I go by pangender because it means I am regardless of gender but it just feels bad to say that I don't care about gender even when people understand But basically I want to know what gender is like and how it feels

This is going to sound very odd, I’ve never meet anyone or seen any representation of how I feel so here it goes..

I’m a biological women but I have extreme gender envy towards biologically intersex individuals.

I want both genitalia very badly to the point my emotional pain translates into physical pains like chest tightness, etc…

What’s even more confusing is that I have no desire to present masculine or androgynous. I’m perfectly fine presenting as woman, i just want a phallus as well.

Im 18 now and have felt like this since I was 12.

I used to stuff my pants and daydream about how my different lower body would look in the attire i usually wear.

I always find myself asking my guy friends what it’s like as a way to soothe my gender envy, though to most people it would do the opposite.

I recently went to look for people who feel the same by going to different subreddits:

- first I went to [r/genderfluid](r/genderfluid) but soon realized I don’t relate all that much. I don’t feel days where I want to be fully one gender, nor do I get gender envy based on looks. Everyday i simply want to be both equally.

- then I went to [r/demiboy](r/demiboy) & [r/demigirl](r/demigirl).

I didn’t relate to demiboy at all, but i slightly related to the posts in demigirl.

The biggest issue I found is that majority of the people in these subreddits want to take something away from themselves to make way for something else.

But I don’t want that at all, I like my body, I don’t want to take anything from it, I just want to add a phallus and go about my life as normal.

————-

I don’t identify as non-binary either because I like being called she/her and presenting feminine, I just feel like a part of my BODY is missing.

I really want to undergo a Vagina-Preserving Phalloplasty when I’m in the position to get one. So I know I want my female parts intact as well, I couldn’t think about living without Miss.Girl, lol.

Is there such a thing as trans intersex or something like that??

so I’ve been transmasc for about 6 months now, Im in highschool and havent done any kind of hormone treatment yet, and I’ve noticed the only part of my body thats dysphoric for me is my breasts. I don’t care about anything else, and even masturbation is completely fine for me. which in my experience, it’s become clear to me that feeling that way isnt normal for trans people, and I’ve been feeling very confused recently because I’ve been feeling like I want to dress in femboy clothing and be all cutesy but then the people around me keep telling me that I need to be the epitome of toxic masculinity if I’m going to pass. things like short hair, no girly clothes, I even need to ACT like a boy, but, I don’t really feel like I want to do all that, sure I love the idea of being a boy and being anything but a girl, but at the same time, I still want to be able to dress and act however I want. I want to be able to dress like a femboy and have more messy / fluffy medium length goth boy kind of hair, and it feels like it’s just not allowed. So I wanted to ask if this means Im a more Masculine leaning Non-binary or just a weird trans dude?

just to clarify, I absolutely HATE being referred to as a girl, makes me feel like id rather get stabbed than get called one / treated like one. so I definetely know Im not that.

Hello :3

The last few months I was thinking a lot about gender. I have ended up at a understanding of it that i don’t share with a lot of people I’ve heard from. I want to hear your opinion of my understanding. Please tell me if you think I’m wrong or if some of my ideas might even be harmfull for transpeople or anyon else.

My bias:
Maybe my ideas are biased because my political perspective. I like to call myself an Anarchist although I support reformist changes that improve the lives of people. If i try to make an political argument on the topic of gender it’s with the goal of ending all forms of gender related opressuon and extensive rights for all transgender people. I call myself Agender wich makes it hard to relate to the idea of gender identity from an non-rational, outside view. Gender identity confuses me a lot and i esspecially hope to hear from you about that. I was AMAB and therefore have internalised some patriarchical ideas/behaviours etc.

Definitions I use:

Gender:
the socially constructed roles, behaviors, and attributes a society considers appropriate for men and women. I also include gender identity.

Gender indentity:
a person’s deeply held, internal sense of being male, female, a combination of both.

Sex:
The biological classification assigned at birth (usually based on anatomy and chromosomes). It’s important to note that i don’t see sex as a very fundamntal property of a body but rather just as a set of features that can be one way ot the other. It’s a little bit like skincolor just that it’s more extensive and the biologcal expression of sex is more polar.

What is gender:
I like to view gender as some sort of violent reproduction system. As gender is defined over a set of roles, behaviours and attributes. Gender (w\o identity for the moment) is defined over freedoms/unfreedoms that are given to you based on your assigned sex. I think the patriarchical order is fundemantally inherent in those roles. We view men as (strong, brave, protectors, those who earn the money) and women as those who are (nice, good mothers, caring for the women, quiet, pretty, sexy). Often these things are described as toxic masculinity or more rarely toxic femininity. I don’t really see why we should hate on all of those very toxic aspects wich are some of the most fundamental of gender while still keeping any of the rest. I don’t think there will be much left of woman and man if all of those things are ablished. I think that the toxic gender traits are to inherent to gender as to protecting it in any way. I think to leave patriarchical rule behind us we have to leave gender as a whole behind us too. Most feminist achiements are exactly that. Destroying the limits of gender.

Gender identity:
What I hear a lot as a counter argument for such a abolitionist argument is that the existence of gender identity disproves my assumption that gender is fully constructed in all is aspects. I don’t think there is a contradiction though. I even think gender identity is crucial in understanding the reproduction of gender violence. Often it is said that gender identity is not constructed because people can’t decide to get rid of it, feel a deep comfort when aligning their other components of gender with their gender identity. Often transfender people are mentioned here. I don’t see why these observations are in any way contradictory to the idea of it beeing constructed. If you are forced into some behaviour from the beggining of your life. All that gender constitues is gets grained into you. You have to conform to be part of a social environement and you never come in contact with a genderless world. Ofc somone will have a deep internal sense of what’s right ans what isn’t. This sense was violently put into people and became so deeply ingrianed i to most people they can’t get rid of it. I think that the reproduction of gender partially fepends on gender identity since we pass on this heavily internalized idea without the need to decide to turn somone into a men or a women
Gender is a little bit like a virus. Because it’s ability to engrain it i to our psyche it’s reproducing with ingrains it even harder. Maybe its violent nature is why it exists in the first place. It will take our effort to fight it and get rid of it so we can all be more free.

Trangender people:
I think it’s important o make a distinction between transgender people without dysphoria (that includes me) and people with dysphoria(the perspective I wish to hear about to better my understanding of gender). I think that for most trans men/women the dysphoria about being in the wrong body comes first. (I’d love to know more about to wich extend this can be explained biologically, I’d guess to a large extend, but it also doesn’t matter that much because the dysphoria is there biological or social). My thesis is that since transwomen/men are usually in the wrong body since the beginning of the life they simply adapt the gender identity of the oppsite sex. They’re put under the same violent boxing in as cis-people. They’re forced into the “wrong” gender but usually switch to the “right” gender that matches their right body. I view the gender transbinary people and cispeople as the result of this violent prison called gender. I don’t think people are bad people for conforming to a gender. I think it’s all of our duty to challange gender to whatever extend is possible for us. I can imagine that this is harder for transgender people who suffer under beeing

I’m genuinely curious I don’t mean to offend anyone.
I always wondered why it’s not enough for trans people to just be a masculine woman or a feminine man like why do you want to change your entire gender?
And how do you know you are a man or a woman because every man and every woman is different so what do you mean by saying you always felt like a man/ woman
Pls I mean no harm .
I’m just trying to understand because someone I know is trans but I’m just curious how they think but I’m too afraid to ask them in person.

I (22) have debated whether I’m non-binary for years. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything but I’ve noticed that quite a lot of non-binary people are autistic etc. Could that mean that a non-binary identity is caused by not being fully socialised into a binary gender?

I know lots of autistic people have described feeling like aliens and that not picking up on social cues and understanding social norms are prominent characteristics of autism. It isn’t hard to see how this could lead to an unclear or more complex gender identity

I think that is just evil. Like just notice everyday people just wearing these roles. They are bizzare. Like the masculine and even the feminine both seem very bizzare to me if you look at it. These very thin identities that are on people. It feels that they have fully encapsulated individuality of a person. Basically trapped it. Women are compressed and stressed to femininity and men are moulded and compressed into masculinity. But when you look at them they look bizzare and like a carciture of some sort.

Like both look twisted. Something unreal and fabricated and fake.

Like they are very contextual imo. Contextual to a stupid and f ed up narrative that there should be two genders and stuff. Its so unreal. Like that f ed up narrative is the whole context of these genders.

Hey. I’m 16 and male, and I think I feel like I should be guilty because I’m born a man. I don’t have any intention of changing my gender, but it is something I feel. But I know where it comes from:
My mother is a “feminist”, as in she doesn’t actually believe men and women are equal and just hates men, and she wanted a girl, but got a boy. And she took me away from my dad when I was six, and every time I heard her talk about men it just made me thinks

“Oh, if there’s something wrong with men, then there must be something wrong with me”

And along with my mum making me feel like shit every day, every time I hear stories about women’s struggles, how most of the worlds problems came from men, and just hearing awful stories about men doing awful things, it just makes me feel like I am just as bad. (I really hope this made sense and didn’t sound like ramblings. I just feel guilty for existing)

Just curious.
I myself am not sure which I would pick.