#gender journal

[boabuns]

As a trans masc person, all the discourse around dysphoria online made me believe that dysphoria was "hating your body" and centered on feelings of misery. So it took me years to accept I even had dysphoria because I always felt pretty good about my body, just dissatisfied. Like, I knew I wanted my body to be different; That I wanted to look more masculine.

Not to be too personal but my formative years were wracked with low self confidence and self loathing. I hated everything about myself and not just on a physical level either. It took years to build up my self esteem and after coming out as trans all of my negative feelings towards myself gradually faded.

I felt like my feelings towards my body weren't strong enough or negative enough to warrant calling it "dysphoria". That my discomfort was so mild that maybe I wasn't dysphoric at all. Then it hit me as I was drawing.

Dysphoria doesn't always have to be defined by how much I hate myself. I can like myself physically but also be self aware enough to understand that I want to make certain changes to my body and voice. I can love myself through the beginning stages, the awkward second puberty, the squawky voice cracks,the shitty facial hair,the Gym/lifting struggle phase and all.

My gender identity and transition is a journey. So why not enjoy the ride? I don't need to reserve my happiness for the "end point" whatever that may be for me. My gender is defined now and forever as an act of radical self love.

So yeah, I'm dysphoric. I'm trans. But I refuse to let my gender be defined by self hatred.

[your-bigender-big-brother]

If you want a way to keep track of your gender and labels, try starting a Gender Journal! A Gender Journal is a space for you to write down everything you want to about gender, potential labels, pronouns or terms you like, or anything else related to gender. It doesn’t need to be anything aesthetically pleasing or even use more than one color pen. It can be a simple notebook with a pen you can grab to quickly jot down thoughts and ideas. Separating it into sections with tabs can help, but is not necessary.

I have an entire notebook dedicated to writing labels that resonate with me, tracking days that I come out as different genders (from coming out as trans to coming out as a demiboy to coming out as bigender, with dates included), pronoun practice, and whatever else I want to write about!

Here is what you can include in a Gender Journal:

If you're trying to find a label that you want to use regularly but you're unsure which one you want to use, make a big list of gender labels you like and rate them with a score from 1 to 5 - from the least fitting to the most fitting. Cross out ones you no longer vibe with. Include dates so you know when you added terms and when you omitted them.

Try making a hoard of interesting labels with their definitions included. If you want, you can include what you like about the label or draw what the flags look like.

Make a hoard of pronouns you like, and dedicate a space for pronoun practice and write some paragraphs about yourself in the third person. Create a pros and cons list or notes on what you like or dislike about certain sets of pronouns - "I like thon/thons because they have a they/them sort of vibe, but they don't start with a vowel which is what I prefer."

Include a name hoard, which is great for the pronoun practice section. You can sort the names into when you would use them - if your gender feels more feminine, you might use a certain set of names, but you change to names that feel more masculine on those more masculine days. This works for anyone whose gender changes day to day, or in certain circumstances.

List some colors or aesthetics that match your gender experience. Use abstract concepts to describe it. Write down songs that have a specific gender vibe.

Have a list of characters that you relate to because of their gender or expression. Write down details on why you relate so much to these characters - it can be their facial hair, their pronouns, the way they dress, the accessories they wear, or even the kind of species they are.

What do you think? Would you ever try making a Gender Journal? - Your Bigender Big Brother 💙💚

[candy8448]

Bigenderfluid rambles (aka: my gender journal)

My rambles and feelings about gender (Because ill clog up rambles masterlist with this stuff otherwise)

Update: i now have a bigender community blog @yourbigendergremlet where i will be posting all my gender rambles from now on, only my big rambles will go on here!

Coming out as bigender

Philladelphia XD

Im genderfluid! (bigenderfluid)

Hair euphoria

Chemical reactions

Help with gender identity exploration

Transgender paper analogy

Confusing cis friends

Chest dysphoria

Shaving for christmas (dysphoria & trabsphobia)

Dragon's Dogma and customisation (euphoria)

Dressing up fancy (more)

Pins and agender

Xe/Xer pronouns?

Pronoun/name check

Pronoun braclets

Partner terms

Manurisms

Neopronoun niceness

No one is straight

Achillean + Saffic flag

Confusing gender feelings

Queerphobia in my house & my fears part 2

My pronouns are she/he/xe

She/he/xe/xer flag

Xe/xer flag 💙💚

If this post gets 3000 notes, i will come out

My christianity vs my bigenderfluidity

I wish i had supportive family

I ordered my first binder!!!

🎶 Crush or gender envy 🎶

First binder just arrived!!!

Trying on the binder!!!!

Im genderflux! (Bigenderflux/fluid?)

My neopronouns 2

Prom outfit!!

After prom scare

Am i religious? (Lgbt+ ask game answer)

Argument for gender affirming care

Bigender, genderfluid, genderflux explanations

Wonababi zipper binder

[genderprompts]

73

How do you plan to support trans and intersex rights this year?

[idyllicdyl]

I started a gender diary/journal today to keep track of my thoughts about my gender identity 👍🏻 I recommend it for anyone who is struggling with their gender identity and wants to keep track of things

[moth-flowers]

some more gender thoughts

alright so! *claps hands* there's a lot going on these days in this ol noggin haha

i think im nonbinary, or at least that's how im labelling it. im using this one because it's an umbrella label, and it helps me feel more secure in what im feeling.

funnily enough, i might be going back to what i had originally, like when i first started questioning, which was he/they/she, but im not sure yet. again, i still need more exposure to people actually using he/him and they/them pronouns for me so i can see if im comfortable with them, or more comfortable with she/her seeming uncomfortable in comparison. if im being honest, i wish i were comforting with *just* he/they, but unfortunately that may not be how it works out. which leads me to my next point:

i feel like a girl sometimes, there it's said. it's probably genderfluidity or w/e, and honestly i was really angry when i first felt like that. all i could think was "I don't want to want to be a girl, why can't i just want to be a boy instead?" i think part of why i was so angry was because i had already questioned for so long, and thought that i had finally settled on being a boy, and feeling this way threw me back into questioning and just in general feeling uncomfortable because I don't know how i want people to perceive me, or even how i perceive myself.

so even before i started feeling more strongly like "girl" (quotes entirely necessary because it's girl in such a specifc way that it just,, it needs them. ill get to that in a bit) sometimes being a boy didn't feel like being was *quite* all that was there. like i was a little uncomfortable with it, even if i liked it, in the way that it kind of felt,, wrong? sometimes? (part of this also might be me trying to be more hyper masc just so i can pass more sometimes, and being masc in these specific ways actually don't make me happy except for the occasional "sir" i get from people. which is few and far between. moreover, i feel like it's not even worth it because im analyzing it so hard when it happens to try and figure out if it makes me happy that I can't even tell what's actually happening with my gender. basically, sacrificing my self expression and happiness with my appearance for a few "sir"s that don't even help me figure out my gender)

being a boy has definitely felt forced at times, or like i was trying to be something that i just couldn't be. i kind of related to transgirls a lot on this, sometimes feeling like a girl trying to be a boy i guess.

but I've DEFINITELY had times where i was for sure a boy!

it was the little things that sprang up out of no where that let me know this. stuff like crying over how deep corspe-husband's voice was and feeling deeply sad that i felt like i could never sound like that even with T (i made vent art about this!), or crying over not being my father's son after watching an emotional scene in Adventure Time (it just felt like it'd hit different if i was his son vs his daughter, y'know? maybe it doesn't actually, again I'll get back to this later).

it was the stuff that I didn't try to force, or to find, or to search out for that let me know i was a boy. that's the thing that's been the hardest in my questioning: not being able to tell if it's what I'm *actually* feeling, what my *base* feelings as i like to call them, or if I'm *forcing* myself to feel things, like because I just so badly want to be able to feel those things.

as far as being a girl (or rather a "girl"), it's kind of,,, complicated here too (haha yeah who would've guessed, my gender? complicated?). if im a girl of any kind, it's incredibly tomboy ish, or like masc girls and masc lesbians type. one of the boys, one of the bros, if you will. not in the gross misogynistic way, but just in the,,, y'know cute tomboy u have a crush on kinda way? like, girl who just sort of exists. but also, isn't labelled as her gender like ever. she/her is the only thing that lets u know that, technically yes, this is a "girl," but really she's just here to vibe. and this is how i used to feel! just kind of a girl disconnected from gender, like yeah technically it's there but i dont really care about it or want to be actively associated with it or segregated by it. i.e. no differentiation between her and boys.

and one might rightfully wonder, "how is this any different from what basically sounds like repressed gender dysphoria?" which is a good question! currently, and to my understanding rn, it's basically that im feel sort of more okay with enough of my femme attributes and actually *liking* them (mostly my voice because i can sing Chastity Belt songs like the lead singer, or Sir Chloe which makes me feel like a really cool tomboy). if you've ever seen Benny from the webtoon "my name is benny" then it's kinda like her!

thats what i mean by "my girl-ness is very specific." i mean it as "girl in a very distinct not-girl way, but just in an existing way"

i have a lot more thoughts, mostly on the "does going through an experience as one gender feel differently from the other?" thing, but i need to sleep. feel free to dm me and chat about this, im super up for conversation abt gender and such, and want to do more of this so i can figure it out. u can dm me for other stuff too of couse haha :-)

[adventuresingenderland]

Imagine that gender is like an aesthetic blog. Lots of people enjoy aesthetic blogs. We all know that aesthetics are socially constructed, but we enjoy them anyway. And what’s interesting is that certain people will naturally be drawn to certain aesthetics and not to others - and that’s ok. It’s totally individual and just a fun way to let people know more about you. Now imagine that we lived in a society where there were only two types of aesthetics that people can discuss. Let’s say, vaporwave and grunge. And worse, when a baby is born, the doctor brands them with a tattoo on their arm and announces, “This baby will be running a vaporwave blog.” In this society, everyone reacts to their assignment differently. A lot of people enjoy vaporwave and decide that they can live with being a vaporwave blogger. Some of these people are aware that the grunge bloggers have more access to photos than them and that grunge is more widely respected than vaporwave. So they lobby for equal photo access for vaporwave and grunge bloggers, which is a noble pursuit in and of itself, but that’s about as far as they go. Some vaporwave bloggers really don’t like vaporwave and would be much happier if they were running a grunge blog. When they try to say this, other people get angry. “You’re gonna run a vaporwave blog and you’re GONNA LIKE IT!!!” Or they get confused. “So what you’re saying is that you want to be grunge so you can have the number of photos that grunge bloggers get. Come join us tomorrow as we rally for more vaporwave photos.” Similarly, there are grunge bloggers who would be much happier running a vaporwave blog. And when they try to go to the rally, the vaporwave bloggers get mad at them. “You’re just trying to destroy our chance at getting equal photos from the inside! Why would a grunge blogger ever want to be one of us? You have so many more opportunities.” There are even some people who don’t like either aesthetic very much. Or sometimes they’re feeling one aesthetic and sometimes they’re vibing with a different one. Or they’re actually really drawn to pastel goth but whenever they talk about it, everyone is like “Pfft, that doesn’t exist.” This society would be way less of a hellscape if only everyone could just blog whatever aesthetic they wanted to.

[bigendering]

What exactly is a gender journal? It sounds like a cool concept

For more clarification, is it just listing what your gender is each day, or something more to it?

It can be whatever you want it to be. Some people just write down what their gender is that day, some people write when it changes, some people write down what they’re feeling and thinking about their gender that day, like a normal journal but gender-centric. I know someone who uses an app to track their gender, and just enters when they feel which gender. It doesn’t have to be daily either - it can help even if you make entries once a week or once a month or whenever you remember its existence.

Hope this helps!

Kai