My Relationship With Being "Trans"

• 12 August, 2025
• Essay
• Personal

Recent events has caused me to think about my relationship with my gender. For those who don't know, I am transmasculine and genderfluid. However, I've always referred to myself as "not cis." I always felt off when calling myself trans or transgender, as I felt like I was being dishonest with myself. I wanna explore a bit why.

Ever since I realized I was genderfluid, I knew I wasn't cis. However, I never fully felt "trans" either. I still liked being referred to with she and her! I even double-checked by trying out only he and him pronouns in 2020. However, I realized, I missed being called "she." I missed "they," too. That made me realize I really was genderfluid, and it made me feel more sure of myself. But, it didn't really answer how I felt about being called "trans." I wasn't really sure how to feel about it, so, I left that question unanswered. Nobody really bothered to ask me much about it, or even refer to me as trans, so I never had to think about it.

Lately, with Punkitt going head-first into defending Floraverse, when people talk about the situation and how I play into it, they've been referring to me as a trans person. I want to make clear that I'm not upset people refer to me as such! If anything, I wasn't expecting it, and it caught me off guard. It made me ask myself the question again: how do I feel about being called trans?

"Transgender" as a term is a bit like an umbrella. At its root it means you're not the gender you were assigned at birth, but there's other terms that fall under it. "Nonbinary," meaning you're not explicitly female or male. "Transgender woman," you now identify as a woman. "Genderqueer," meaning your gender is queer, which can be seen as a more specific term of being nonbinary. "Genderfluid" would fall under nonbinary, as it is more than just feeling male or female. It can be both, it can be in-between, it can be multiple things! Of course, not everyone has to label themselves. Which is why there's a label called "unlabeled" (the irony is hilarious but also understandable). But, as I was reading about gender as a kid, I felt connected with "genderfluid." Someone at my school was genderfluid, but initially due to falling into anti-sjw spaces, I used to think it was just a ploy to get people to "misgender" you and then call them out and cry about it. Now I know better: most people don't exactly enjoy being misgendered and wouldn't go out of their way to be misgendered on purpose, just to get a "gotcha" over someone! I also knew about "bigender," but, I felt better with genderfluid. It explained why I only occasionally corrected people when they referred to me with he and him, or called me a guy, or just used gender neutral pronouns on me. Now there was a term to explain that I liked being called she, he, and they!

I knew at that point, briefly before I realized I was genderfluid, that I was bisexual as well. Now that I realized I was genderfluid, I knew I wasn't cisgender... at least, entirely. I still identified with being a woman. I still liked occasionally being feminine, but preferred being masculine. I liked having leg hair, I liked the idea of growing facial hair (but not actually keeping it because I don't think it would fit on me). I didn't care for skirts, but I liked wearing dresses. I also liked wearing suits, I liked being called most masculine terms over feminine ones (i.e. king over queen, sir over ma'am, guy over girl). But, at the same time, I was always a tomboy. Most of my friends before I started getting into queer spaces were men, and I always felt like I fit more with them. I also had ridiculously horrible experiences with women, who made fun of and harass me more often than men. I've only ever had one guy make fun of me in my time during school, and one guy harass me. I can name at least 3 women who bullied and harassed me at school. Most people who judged me in my life, even today, were women. Unfortunately, this resulted in some internalized misogyny, but by the time I graduated, I've been able to work past that with my therapist.

... But, this still doesn't answer my question: how do I feel about being called trans? Well, I knew back then, I didn't feel like I was "different" enough to be considered as such. I felt like, because I still identified with being a woman to some degree, I didn't really deserve to be called trans. It also didn't help that unfortunately, the spaces I hung out in before discovering my gender was surprisingly transmedicalist. We grew up and changed our minds, thankfully, but I wonder if that had any impact on how I feel I'm not "trans" enough. Even now, I still feel that way: that I'm not "trans" enough to be called as such. Sure, I am mostly masculine. Sure, I don't like being called most female titles. But I still like my boobs, for the most part! I'm still okay with having an hourglass-like figure! I'm mostly okay with my voice!

I've explicitly went out of my way to avoid calling myself trans anytime I could. Not only because I didn't want to "lead people on" about my identity, but even now, I'm still not sure if I've "earned" it. I've always said I'm just not cis. But, that's when I saw someone talking about my story with Punkitt. They didn't name me, but they referred to me as "a trans person." And that single, throw-away line got me thinking about everything again.

I know now, that you don't inherently need dysphoria to be transgender. You can just simply be happier as something else. I also know not everyone desires to be seen as the traditional man or woman. Sometimes, trans men want to be seen as men, while presenting feminine. Trans women, like cis women, want to be seen as women while acting masculine. That's normal! The feminine trans man and the masculine trans woman are still at their core, transgender. So, why wouldn't that apply to me...? Just because I like my boobs and sometimes dressing feminine doesn't mean I'm any less masculine, right?

... I still don't feel completely trans. I still worry that I don't "qualify" to be completely trans. I've had an on and off thought, where I was wondering if there was a term to refer to the in-between feeling of being trans and cis, but to my knowledge, there isn't. There's other posts asking the same thing, but to no avail. I've thought about possible terms for it. Transflux, transfluid. But these terms are for genders, and I don't want to take that away. So, after that passing comment, I referred to myself as "on the trans spectrum." For now, I think that'll be as good as it gets for me.

So, the answer to the question the audience is dying to know: how do I feel about being called trans?

... I'm not sure. I still see myself as somewhere in the middle, but I can't entirely tell if it's out of internalized transphobia or just how I really feel about my own gender.

If you're also thinking something like this, hey, at least you're not alone.