Social LGBTQIA+

I regret legally changing my sex.

"I regret ..." sometimes feels like a dirty phrase in this community. Like somehow it has awful implications to say you think you made the wrong choice about something. That I'm supposed to stay chin-up defiant, unwavering, saying I'd do it all over again, or else I'm letting Them win or just self-hating.

But I do. This sucks. I'm in the most terrifying, paralyzing, uncertain position imaginable. I don't regret transitioning, I don't regret changing my name. I regret that a single meaningless letter change on a handful of documents has ultimately become a major sacrifice. I'm stuck in this terrible paralytic state where all I want out of my life is freedom and mobility, and I'm restricted in ways that I think we don't yet fully understand. I'm worried I won't be able to reenter the country if I leave because I'll be told my passport is somehow invalid. I'm worried that getting a job or insurance and the like will be even harder than it already is. I'm worried that I can rarely choose the closet for personal safety anymore.

I don't like it, I don't like the freedom it has stolen from me, I hate all the uncertainty, and I hate how I prioritized meaningless external validation over the practical needs of my life. I don't know what the hell I was thinking.
So a few thoughts: to me it's not really worth it if you're fem passing/presenting, because like, having a fem presentation but a masc legal designation can cause a lot of problems in the other direction in terms of how people interface with you (and keep in mind, the gender designation is really only an issue if you're interfacing with the federal government, though I don't know what state you're in, and as far as we know, they cannot revoke or invalidate *existing* passports). I will grant though, and I didn't really think of this because I would never, ever consider returning to the closet, even at gunpoint, that changing your legal designation makes the closet much harder, because you can always change your presentation.

I understand where you're coming from, I really do, though, it's really hard and scary for all of us and I hate that we're having to deal with this.
 
BIG ASHLEY, if you need to practice W rizz, my DMs are open
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idk how many ace people are in this chat but to those who are, do any of you also wish you weren’t as well? like idk, i just wish i could connect to people that way but i’m just kind of repulsed by it. obviously its completely valid to not want a relationship that doesn’t have sex but i just wish it wasn’t like that. i know that one day i’ll find the person for me but its a really sucky feeling that i have to leap through an additional hurdle that’s essential to most people
 
idk how many ace people are in this chat but to those who are, do any of you also wish you weren’t as well? like idk, i just wish i could connect to people that way but i’m just kind of repulsed by it. obviously its completely valid to not want a relationship that doesn’t have sex but i just wish it wasn’t like that. i know that one day i’ll find the person for me but its a really sucky feeling that i have to leap through an additional hurdle that’s essential to most people
this is something i used to feel a lot when i was first coming to terms w/ my identity. that was back when i used biromantic to label myself (homoromantic now, gayce basically). i still feel it to some degree rn, but then i think about how many ways there are of being intimate with someone and i feel better about it. it's something that does get easier to think about, but i haven't gotten to the point where it completely goes away and i'm honestly okay with that.

on a personal note i did get cheated on (found out on new years right at 12 no less) and while i've realized that i might not ever know what about me wasnt enough for him, i do feel like it's complicated for ace people to date someone who's super sex driven. but like, to me it's also very obvious that that dude is a dick no matter what - you use your adult words when there's something wrong and if that doesn't work then i'll just hand you crayons and a blank sheet of paper and you can draw it out i guess. another thing is that even if it was the sex - that's still something ace people can navigate with allo people. i personally dont think ill be ready to date allo people for a while, but it's not an impossibility (i went on hinge and got a few matches but they were all allo and my asexuality was discussed in the wildest of ways LMAO).

at the end of the day, you're definitely gonna find people who make you uncomfortable with your asexuality. even in the lgbtq community, we face a ton of discrimination and there's posts on ig and tweets on twitter that get thousands of likes for just being hostile to ace people. you're gonna trust the wrong people. you're gonna have the wrong friends. you're gonna date people who bring down your confidence, not just in your sexuality but in yourself as a whole. but you're also gonna find people who embrace your asexuality and you may even find people who share that label (even though we're like 1% of the population). you're gonna find people who didn't know they were ace until they met you and realized that's something they identify with (happened to me). you're also gonna find people who encounter asexuality in different ways than you do, because asexuality is a fairly big umbrella.

the biggest thing is you're gonna find someone who treats you right. like, if your asexuality is a hurdle to people as you described, i'd say that the people you don't wanna be with are eliminating themselves which is awesome to me personally. as you said, it's not a bad thing for people to want sex, but it's also not a bad thing for you to not experience sexual attraction to whatever extent it is that you do, and it's okay for you to change your mind if you choose to. it's also okay for you to not change your mind and stay consistent in not wanting sex, which is where i'm at rn. but if the wrong people are making you feel weird about your sexuality - imagine how good it'll be when you find the right person!

this was sort of a yap session but i hope it helped even a lil. by all means feel free to reply with any questions too, i may not have all the answers but figuring out identities is sm easier when you do it with people who are in a similar spot.
 
idk how many ace people are in this chat but to those who are, do any of you also wish you weren’t as well? like idk, i just wish i could connect to people that way but i’m just kind of repulsed by it. obviously its completely valid to not want a relationship that doesn’t have sex but i just wish it wasn’t like that. i know that one day i’ll find the person for me but its a really sucky feeling that i have to leap through an additional hurdle that’s essential to most people

I have found that being poly makes me more open to the idea of dating someone who is ace. Idk if I could ever do it in a monogamous relationship though.

If you’re open to the idea of non-conventional relationships, then this might make finding a partner easier.
 
idk how many ace people are in this chat but to those who are, do any of you also wish you weren’t as well? like idk, i just wish i could connect to people that way but i’m just kind of repulsed by it. obviously its completely valid to not want a relationship that doesn’t have sex but i just wish it wasn’t like that. i know that one day i’ll find the person for me but its a really sucky feeling that i have to leap through an additional hurdle that’s essential to most people
It's a bit weird for me to answer because like, my experience is very different to yours, such that not everything I say may have bearing upon your interest, but yet my experience is very similar. My aceness is one part of my interconnected slew of unusual structures surrounding what people would usually call "romance and sexuality." This "just one part" self-conceptualization, in a way, makes me care less that I'm ace. Like, my aceness is true, but it's something I categorize as "happens to be there, an inevitable consequence of other parts, parts that are more important and active and affirmative for me", rather than anything my identity conceptions revolve around. In this vein, I'm not particularly sex repulsed - I treat it more with bemused curiosity than anything, maybe finding it a pinch gross but not in a way that is particularly deep seated.

...But I'm not sure how much all of that distancing matters. The meta-structure to which I refer, of which aceness is likely an inevitable fixture (incidental or otherwise), produces all of the unfortunate dynamics you describe. Further still, its unusual nature has sourced no end of self-loathing and acceptance challenges. It, both in isolation and compared to a more normal alternative, has sourced in me no end of misery. There have been times in my life when I absolutely would say, yes, I wish it were not so, that I were normal, and times where I have actively tried to destroy this meta-structure, as much as I could execute and conceptualize such a thing.

But I would not make that switch now. Not anymore. I've learned that I cannot separate my unusual situation here from myself – it is baked into my personality, and in large strokes a consequence of it and my experiences in life, and not a switch I could flip without becoming someone else. It's a part of me. Through years of accreting thought and experimentation, I've gained a better appreciation and love for the unique ways I can connect with people, and the unique beauties of my mentality, how I can understand and conceptualize people and actions and ideas and intimacy. I definitely agree with Ren's idea of how many ways of being intimate there are, and I think we can learn a lot from them.
 
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idk how many ace people are in this chat but to those who are, do any of you also wish you weren’t as well? like idk, i just wish i could connect to people that way but i’m just kind of repulsed by it. obviously its completely valid to not want a relationship that doesn’t have sex but i just wish it wasn’t like that. i know that one day i’ll find the person for me but its a really sucky feeling that i have to leap through an additional hurdle that’s essential to most people

idk whether i fall within "ace people" (as far as 'identity' my answer tends to go back and forth from one day to the next, and thats more j definitions than anything) but yea i feel that ~ tho i also suspect that maybe this is an "additional hurdle" for many people who arent ace too, perhaps even for most

there are a million variations of practices that might be grouped within "sex" (depending on your definitions lol), and any relationship with a romantic or sexual component is going to involve some level of people exploring what they do and dont like and particular preferences that are not 'completely aligned'.

at the same time, one of the roles of the romantic and sexual spheres is (hopefully) to 'shatter the ego', ie to break down the preconceptions etc that we entered an encounter with (rooted in the values of the society we live in, ie white supremacy patriarchy and so on); sorry for the tangent but my point is, even if people enter a romantic or sexual encounter with somewhat different preferences, they/we might choose to push our limits and enter into something that we "wouldnt have planned" to. [which could go very well, or very badly, or anywhere in between.] id even suggest that itd be boring/stale to have identical preferences, that a crucial part of interpersonal experience is opening up to ~something new~ which in turn leads to change(s) in ourselves.

so i think we all have to negotiate this dynamic of on the one hand wanting to stay within the comfort of the ego-system, and on the other seeking out the ~edge or 'limit experience' that carries the potential for the ego's unraveling. this dynamic is fundamental to interpersonal life i think, and whether in romantic or sexual spheres or otherwise, we all will have interpersonal situations where we are drawn toward something that we "wouldnt have thought we would be", and hopefully at least sometimes we have the level of safety necessary to get to test our limits.
bc to have an interpersonal life without any limit experience, would basically be like being on twitter: we would no longer be seeing or experiencing people's subjectivity and instead everyone else just becomes a projection of our own ego-systems, we assume we know what someone is thinking/feeling before they even open their mouths, we ignore everything that doesnt fit our preconceptions and twist the remainder into whatever it is that is most comfortable for us to believe about them. and thus "i like pancakes" becomes "omg why do you hate waffles".
'limit experience' (or something in that sphere, obv whatever wording ppl might prefer to use is fine) is necessary to not have our interpersonal life be reduced to [twitter], bc contact with our limits is precisely how we disrupt the ego's drive for stability and coherence above all else. for both people who "are" and people who "arent" ace, and across 'romantic' 'sexual' 'platonic' spheres

i definitely do agree (i think this is agreement lol) that limit experience can be less accessible for those of us who are ace and/or whose sexualities operate in ways very 'outside the norm', because sexual life is by far the area in which limit experience is most normalized in the world we live in. so we may end up stuck within our egos 'more often', if our (interpersonal) attempts to touch the edge go unrecognized bc they do not take a 'typical' form ~ (tear hug). limit experience surely isnt "easy" for anyone tho, bc it necessarily involves a risk to the ego, even for people whose sexuality "most closely matches the norm". and while limit experience may be less accessible to us, we also might be more willing to take the risks that the limit involves, bc we dont have any illusion that we can meet our needs without doing so

(i perhaps come to this from a v particular perspective but figured my pov was worth sharing anyway. also jsyk i dont follow this thread, so feel free to msg me if u write something that u want me to read/respond to or such)
 
Hi it's me.

I have been a very open and staunch aro/ace person for a while now, but lately I've been kind of questioning how true that is. And I feel kind of guilty about that?

For some context, I went through a traumatic experience that left me very anxious and sort of grossed out by the idea of having any sort of intimate relationship with other people, romantically or sexually. The feeling persisted for a very long time and I eventually settled on it being aromanticism/asexuality, just falling into the box of not really being interested and not really wanting anything to do with that side of life.

But my mental health has been steadily improving and along with it, I find that I have a sort of budding desire for human connection and intimacy. They are weird feelings to unpack. I have a lot of anxiety around these things still, but more and more I find myself wanting to explore them, especially on the sexuality side of things. Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me.

I guess where this all culminates for me is in a few places: I'm interested in trying things out, and that leaves me unsure of where I stand. I haven't tried to label anything beyond understanding the sorts of partners I'd be okay with, because I find this tangled mess of thoughts and feelings difficult to put a word to besides "curious." But the other side of that is I feel kind of bad for being in aro/ace spaces and claiming that label if it's not really the person I am, and I feel like I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes about aro/ace people by being like "well now that I'm not a depressed sack of potatoes anymore I want to try exploring my sexuality."

A bit of a ramble but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and just sort of wanted to get it off my chest.
 
Hi it's me.

I have been a very open and staunch aro/ace person for a while now, but lately I've been kind of questioning how true that is. And I feel kind of guilty about that?

For some context, I went through a traumatic experience that left me very anxious and sort of grossed out by the idea of having any sort of intimate relationship with other people, romantically or sexually. The feeling persisted for a very long time and I eventually settled on it being aromanticism/asexuality, just falling into the box of not really being interested and not really wanting anything to do with that side of life.

But my mental health has been steadily improving and along with it, I find that I have a sort of budding desire for human connection and intimacy. They are weird feelings to unpack. I have a lot of anxiety around these things still, but more and more I find myself wanting to explore them, especially on the sexuality side of things. Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me.

I guess where this all culminates for me is in a few places: I'm interested in trying things out, and that leaves me unsure of where I stand. I haven't tried to label anything beyond understanding the sorts of partners I'd be okay with, because I find this tangled mess of thoughts and feelings difficult to put a word to besides "curious." But the other side of that is I feel kind of bad for being in aro/ace spaces and claiming that label if it's not really the person I am, and I feel like I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes about aro/ace people by being like "well now that I'm not a depressed sack of potatoes anymore I want to try exploring my sexuality."

A bit of a ramble but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and just sort of wanted to get it off my chest.
It’s kinda like when gay come out as bi, they face a lot of backlash, its one of the unhealthy parts of my community
If u are starting to feel attraction then mabye u were aro/ace but not anymore
Its not like its by birth
 
Hi it's me.

I have been a very open and staunch aro/ace person for a while now, but lately I've been kind of questioning how true that is. And I feel kind of guilty about that?

For some context, I went through a traumatic experience that left me very anxious and sort of grossed out by the idea of having any sort of intimate relationship with other people, romantically or sexually. The feeling persisted for a very long time and I eventually settled on it being aromanticism/asexuality, just falling into the box of not really being interested and not really wanting anything to do with that side of life.

But my mental health has been steadily improving and along with it, I find that I have a sort of budding desire for human connection and intimacy. They are weird feelings to unpack. I have a lot of anxiety around these things still, but more and more I find myself wanting to explore them, especially on the sexuality side of things. Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me.

I guess where this all culminates for me is in a few places: I'm interested in trying things out, and that leaves me unsure of where I stand. I haven't tried to label anything beyond understanding the sorts of partners I'd be okay with, because I find this tangled mess of thoughts and feelings difficult to put a word to besides "curious." But the other side of that is I feel kind of bad for being in aro/ace spaces and claiming that label if it's not really the person I am, and I feel like I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes about aro/ace people by being like "well now that I'm not a depressed sack of potatoes anymore I want to try exploring my sexuality."

A bit of a ramble but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and just sort of wanted to get it off my chest.
As an aro/ace person with curious intimacy dynamics, as far as I care, you stand with us in our crew unless you decide another crew fits you better. If that happens, you'll be a friend across the pond in the broader shared group of LGBT, or even just the shared group of humanity. Please join our spaces - part of the social understanding of these spaces is that they're flexible for people who may be a member long-term, but may not be a member long-term, and we care more about you finding your way for your real self than some kinda unfeeling rule enforcement. You can join an art club if you're not sure you're gonna be a painter long-term, there's no contract where you have to commit to paint 5 years to stay a member. We're just happy you're figuring out how you want to live your life, and if we can help you and bring fellowship, or if another swell community can, all the merrier.

Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me
Big relatable! Expressing my feelings of any kind is a clusterfuck. What I think it boils down to is this. Everyone has different ways they feel, express, and intake love, and part of the fun and glory of relationships is learning how to intake love from someone who expresses it differently than you, and having your own expressions of love taken in by another.

I know some of what I said might've been something you've heard before. I get it. Saying and hearing things is easier than internalizing them, and I've for sure seen the other end of that dynamic too. But I think it should be said anyway, cause it can help to hear something again that you're not all the way to accepting yet. And also it's true, and the truth is important.
 
Hi it's me.

I have been a very open and staunch aro/ace person for a while now, but lately I've been kind of questioning how true that is. And I feel kind of guilty about that?

For some context, I went through a traumatic experience that left me very anxious and sort of grossed out by the idea of having any sort of intimate relationship with other people, romantically or sexually. The feeling persisted for a very long time and I eventually settled on it being aromanticism/asexuality, just falling into the box of not really being interested and not really wanting anything to do with that side of life.

But my mental health has been steadily improving and along with it, I find that I have a sort of budding desire for human connection and intimacy. They are weird feelings to unpack. I have a lot of anxiety around these things still, but more and more I find myself wanting to explore them, especially on the sexuality side of things. Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me.

I guess where this all culminates for me is in a few places: I'm interested in trying things out, and that leaves me unsure of where I stand. I haven't tried to label anything beyond understanding the sorts of partners I'd be okay with, because I find this tangled mess of thoughts and feelings difficult to put a word to besides "curious." But the other side of that is I feel kind of bad for being in aro/ace spaces and claiming that label if it's not really the person I am, and I feel like I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes about aro/ace people by being like "well now that I'm not a depressed sack of potatoes anymore I want to try exploring my sexuality."

A bit of a ramble but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and just sort of wanted to get it off my chest.
Hi. Hope you don't mind me responding.




I identified as ace for several years, staunchly, about as firmly and openly as possible. I was fully confident that was just who I was. Like you expressed, throughout that period, my mental health was Rocky At Best, and there was a very deep-seated and trauma-informed anxiety and insecurity around sexuality that was very difficult for me to address. I didn't want to, so I didn't, and I found comfort in that choice for a very long time. I never identified as aro for very long, though that likely came from having the same long-term partner before, during, and now after the period in which I identified as part of the aro/ace community.

Eventually, though, about a year and a half or so ago, I reached a point, I'm not even quite sure where or when, that it was obvious I wanted to at least try something more. I was curious. And my mental health was in a good enough place where I felt like I could safely and healthily navigate the anxieties I still felt with a partner and figure out what works for me and what doesn't. So I did. Turns out, I was "just" depressed and very traumatized, and I actually had a lovely little sexuality I was happy to explore. Good news! but also kind of a rough realization after years of thinking something about yourself that now feels untrue.

Made me feel more than slightly guilty for the years I spent saying otherwise. More than slightly guilty for changing my mind, so to speak, or like I had no place in the ace community in Any capacity. Spent a long time working through that too, and I guess from mostly on the other side, my perspective is that it's good to just take things slow, explore what you want to, and with who you want to, and don't put the labeling cart before the feeling horse, so to speak. The ace community is so warmly welcoming of all forms of nuance, and although I see myself as fully separate now, I know there's plenty of room for people trying to reassess where they might stand. The words that have stuck with me are that it's only as deep as we want it to be.

As far as the reinforcing stereotypes part, I feel that hard. For me, now fully outside the community and as someone who identified with asexuality as a teenager, this hits hard. I've come to think of it as a similar idea to, I think, detransitioning. I can see myself today as a non-asexual lesbian and still fight for the ace community, support ace voices, have a fondness for the safety and comfort the label of asexuality gave to me for years, and accept it's not me anymore. I can hold in my heart that it was me for a long time and now it just doesn't work for the life I want to have. It's only reinforcing those negative vitriolic viewpoints if that's what we choose to do with it, and that's an easy thing to avoid. Plenty of people out there are ace and I support em all, even, maybe even especially, as I've found it's not for me.
 
this is sorta a silly question maybe, but how do i know what gender i am?
to know if someone else is, say, a woman i would ask them whether they are a woman but of course asking myself whether i am a woman doesn't really help me know if i am a woman.
i've been asked before whether i feel like a woman, but how would i know what it feels like to be a woman? similarly, if i'm asked whether i want to be considered a woman i don't know how to answer that besides "depends, what's a woman?"
i've vaguely been considering myself agender because i don't have emotions towards gendered terms in general, but i feel like that's because i don't really know what those terms mean - if i knew what a woman was i might want to be one, for instance.
i could just assume i'm cis but i have some objections to the idea that being cis is a default. similarly i could go off my presentation but my presentation i feel is just habit and besides i don't think there's any particular link between any presentation and any gender.
maybe a woman is someone who has a preference for the term "woman" independent of what it means?
 
Hi it's me.

I have been a very open and staunch aro/ace person for a while now, but lately I've been kind of questioning how true that is. And I feel kind of guilty about that?

For some context, I went through a traumatic experience that left me very anxious and sort of grossed out by the idea of having any sort of intimate relationship with other people, romantically or sexually. The feeling persisted for a very long time and I eventually settled on it being aromanticism/asexuality, just falling into the box of not really being interested and not really wanting anything to do with that side of life.

But my mental health has been steadily improving and along with it, I find that I have a sort of budding desire for human connection and intimacy. They are weird feelings to unpack. I have a lot of anxiety around these things still, but more and more I find myself wanting to explore them, especially on the sexuality side of things. Romance is in a very strange place because I'm not super sure how to navigate the sort of feelings and gestures people tend to expect from romance because I've never been good at feelings in general - expressing things like "happy" and "sad" have always been difficult and so something like "romance" or "love" is very alien to me.

I guess where this all culminates for me is in a few places: I'm interested in trying things out, and that leaves me unsure of where I stand. I haven't tried to label anything beyond understanding the sorts of partners I'd be okay with, because I find this tangled mess of thoughts and feelings difficult to put a word to besides "curious." But the other side of that is I feel kind of bad for being in aro/ace spaces and claiming that label if it's not really the person I am, and I feel like I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes about aro/ace people by being like "well now that I'm not a depressed sack of potatoes anymore I want to try exploring my sexuality."

A bit of a ramble but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and just sort of wanted to get it off my chest.
i'm an organizer in the swedish ace space; we had a gathering earlier today and a lot of people attending expressed how difficult it was to land in their current label and how much it had evolved over time - in this instance a common shared experience was identifying as gay into straight into gay into homoromantic ace. what adeleine says is true - there is a lot of flexibility in ways of identifying within the members, and you can join that too. nobody is harmed if you join a community and later decide that it was not a perfect fit - you evolved, which is great! don't worry about what you may or may not feel in the future with regards to your orientation(s). try engaging in some online ace spaces and share your situation, i think you will find it a welcoming experience.
 
this is sorta a silly question maybe, but how do i know what gender i am?
to know if someone else is, say, a woman i would ask them whether they are a woman but of course asking myself whether i am a woman doesn't really help me know if i am a woman.
i've been asked before whether i feel like a woman, but how would i know what it feels like to be a woman? similarly, if i'm asked whether i want to be considered a woman i don't know how to answer that besides "depends, what's a woman?"
i've vaguely been considering myself agender because i don't have emotions towards gendered terms in general, but i feel like that's because i don't really know what those terms mean - if i knew what a woman was i might want to be one, for instance.
i could just assume i'm cis but i have some objections to the idea that being cis is a default. similarly i could go off my presentation but my presentation i feel is just habit and besides i don't think there's any particular link between any presentation and any gender.
maybe a woman is someone who has a preference for the term "woman" independent of what it means?
Honestly, pronouns are a human creation, the reason this matters is sexism. Will edit more later

That being said, they do matter, and we can’t change that soon,
So if ur asking this question ur probably nb.

Lmk if I read it wrong
 
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There are other reasons pronouns and gender matter besides sexism. As a trans person, I'd rather not get rid of pronouns and gender, and I am not alone on that front, both for trans people and cis people. I'd be careful about how broad one's generalizations are.

E: it’s fine, all good

I don't have a ton insightful to say on the original post. Knowing one's gender–if one has one–a totally fair question that lots of people grapple with. Some people, cis and trans, just 'know' it innately. Their conceptualization of gender may be incompletely formed, but it's strong enough, and applicable enough to them, that they innately know which gender (if any) applies to them. I was in this boat – once I became materially aware of trans people, I very quickly realized that "girl" was what I wanted to be.

I wouldn't presume to know your identity better than you, but you lacking an innate conceptualization of these terms reads as agender to me - gender does not seem to mean a lot to you, at least at this stage, and it of course is not something you have to identify with. Just as true, if you build an understanding of gender and identify more strongly with one (or multiple), that's rad too.
 
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this is sorta a silly question maybe, but how do i know what gender i am?
to know if someone else is, say, a woman i would ask them whether they are a woman but of course asking myself whether i am a woman doesn't really help me know if i am a woman.
i've been asked before whether i feel like a woman, but how would i know what it feels like to be a woman? similarly, if i'm asked whether i want to be considered a woman i don't know how to answer that besides "depends, what's a woman?"
i've vaguely been considering myself agender because i don't have emotions towards gendered terms in general, but i feel like that's because i don't really know what those terms mean - if i knew what a woman was i might want to be one, for instance.
i could just assume i'm cis but i have some objections to the idea that being cis is a default. similarly i could go off my presentation but my presentation i feel is just habit and besides i don't think there's any particular link between any presentation and any gender.
maybe a woman is someone who has a preference for the term "woman" independent of what it means?
honestly i feel this big time. i used to really solidly identify as a dude before i socially transitioned and lived as a girl for a year and now i'm back to presenting as a dude but it's just like-

i don't really feel pulled in any one way gender wise– i don't particularly feel any dysphoria or hatred of myself or my body (like you said, it's just habit atp), i just feel very solidly meh. it does make me feel a little lost sometimes, especially bc i feel like ppl really expect you to conform one way or another, especially cis ppl, so it's just super easy to feel out of place or like you're doing something wrong by not strictly inhabiting one or the other. i used to feel really strongly that i was a woman and wanted to be perceived as such by others because that was how i perceived myself, but now i just feel kind of directionless. is it necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so, to me it just feels so awkward because we're living in a very rigid society when it comes to gender

idk gender to me has always been something that's so personal and intimate that it's hard to explain or even make sense of to yourself. sometimes i think it's just not even worth bothering about, but i know i have a lot of complex feelings about it and it truly does permeate everything.

i know this is kind of a non-answer, but honestly you don't have to know. if you don't feel very strongly about how you want to be percieved in terms of your gender then that's okay. to me, i'm not even quite sure how to describe how i identify to others without explaining an immense amount of personal information that i don't always wanna talk to everyone about.

to me it's just kinda messy yk?
 
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