A lot more about gender and how I relate to it.

About a month since I last updated. This is one of my weaknesses that I have yet to overcome, being able to stay focused on one subject without getting sidetracked on another one for quite awhile. Also finding myself the time to do that isn't required is hard for me, which I really hope to overcome. But enough about that, the topic at hand this time, sex and gender.

By default, sex and gender is a binary system of male and female, something that doesn't change from birth, and the meaning of gender is often used interchangeable with sex. Most people likely wouldn't even think of anything of more then two genders or sexes.

I'll like to say sex and gender are not the same thing despite being used interchangeable. This is usually not even thought up of very deeply except when it comes to the issue of intersexual and transgender people. Intersexuals are most certainly a third sex. In a nutshell, people who are born in a way that they couldn't really be labeled male or female. Their usually "corrected" before leaving the hospital, to fit into the binary system of being a male or female.

I'll also say there is in fact a third gender. Gender is not as simple as male or female. How would we define what makes a living being male or female? Gender could be broken up into role and identify. I should note that these can vary depending on what culture you're in. Gender role is how a gender is expected to act and what tasks they are usually given. Gender identify is more personally and how oneself views oneself in terms of gender, which is most cases is usually male or female that matches with their gender role and sex. This is the key factor in there being a third gender. In other words, gender is man made and may or may not be a concept in nature, unlike how sex is.

Gender is also not as simple as masculine or feminine behavior. For example, a tomboy might have more masculine behavior then feminine, but she's still considered female (including considering herself that) and while she might act similar to males, her expression and appearance might still be that of a girl or woman. On the other hand, a transgender or transsexual person might still have the body of their birth sex, but their expression and appearance might go to the point where their considered to be of the opposite gender from their sex.

Omnisexuality/Pansexuality goes beyond simply male and female, for people that might have a sexual attractive for intersexuals, transgendered people, genderqueers, and anything else not of the binary man or woman system. It also seems to have no focus on the gender of the person unlike bisexuality, which the bi part only says two. It's realizing that not everyone fits the male or female binary gender system that we're heavily taught is there and the only truth. Most cultures and nations might not realize anything beyond male and female, including pronouns, but their there. Third gender pronouns are very debatable among such communities and there is yet to be an accepted norm for a set of one. The word it is not considered a good term for a person outside the male or female gender.

This is what I believe I personally fit, a third gender, or rather, Androgyny, not male or female like society says I am and should be. Hence, I'm rather uneasy at times when you're forced to say your male or female on forms and even more so if it has to be public knowledge and in public view. This usually applies to certain web sites on the Internet. I don't wanna wear a big male or female label even if 98% or 99% of people have no such problems. Of course, people would think I'm crazy. I don't call myself The Deviant One for nothing.

Autogynephilia (in other words, love of oneself as a woman) is a concept thought up by Ray Blanchard that claims there are only two types of transwomen. The first type is a transwoman who is sexually arousal by being a woman "himself" (more on that in a moment) and is into other women. The other type is a transwoman who is into men and becomes a woman to dodge having to deal with being a homosexual man and to appear as a heterosexual woman. The concept was furthered extended by J. Michael Bailey (who wrote a book called "The Man Who Would be Queen", which can be read for free online) and Dr. Anne Lawrence, a transwoman. This concept focuses heavily on putting all transwomen into those two types and if any of them denies it, they "must be lying". Their also do not fully accepted transwomen as of they were women and are called by Blanchard "a man without a penis". If I'm not mistaken, transmen are never mention anywhere in all of this.

Concepts like that is what I believe can really hurt the TG community. Everyone doesn't fit into neat boxes as suggested by Autogynephilia. Something seems wrong with being a transwoman lesbian unlike being a gay man. It should also be noted that J. Michael Bailey claimed that bisexuality doesn't exist, which is seen by the LGBT community as another attack against them. This concept pretty much fails to realize that most transwomen are women trapped in a man's body and that they work to correct it.

Now, the rest of this post will most likely be focused on me.

I want to feel fully complete as an androgyne. After all, it is part of the trans community, even if a somewhat unknown sub group of it. It doesn't fit the binary gender system that sometimes the trans community focuses even more on then non trans people. I feel that a female body look and feel would fit me a lot more then where I'm at now. Despite the androgyne bit, society is gonna see me as male or female and I whether go with the latter. It'll also mean more "freedom" to do certain things that males normally take a lot of heat from. Also this is a chance to further prove some points about gender.

My ultimate purpose is to become and feel complete. Right now, it just feels like I'm living a shell of myself, not my true self. While it has not been all the long (since late 2005), it just feels strong and it only keeps building up as time goes by. If I had to compare to a label, it would be that of a shemale or transgenderist. A shemale in most cases being a pre/non-op transsexual who still has sexual function in the penis. A transgenderist being similar to a transexual, but they value their genitals and don't want SRS.

The one thing that sets me apart from many trans people is I don't plan to fit an extreme gender role or sterotype. Didn't tomboys and many other types of women taught people that not all women act like a stereotype lady who behaves in a certain way? Unlike many transsexuals who want to get rid of all possible signs of their former self, I don't intend to get rid of much male concepts about me. I mainly want to add the female stuff to my gender. I don't need to look and feel as much as a woman as possible just for society to see me as one. To some extend, yes, but not fully. It may seem kinda like an oxymoron to want to do this, but not SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgery). I think it should really be called GRS (Genital Reassignment Surgery). Genitals isn't the leading factor in how one acts. That's why I used the shemale label, to still have a functional penis while otherwise having the body of a woman, including breasts.

So why would I go through the process of hormones if I don't intend to become a "true" woman? This is hard to explain. Look at it this way. Trans people usually have a gender that doesn't match their sex. Male to female (MTF) and female to male (FTM). It's almost the same way with me. A gender (androgyne) that doesn't match my body (male born). It's not enough just to have a face that looks androgyne, but also a whole body that is pretty much female in shape and feel. I feel that is more right for me then a male body. Sure many androgynes likely doesn't go through any process of changing their body, but I'm not like many androgynes.

I'm willing to lose friends and family over this. Well, it's not like I have much family to lose. I'm not very active or in touch with my family, but what they do know about me (minus the TG bit) so far is pretty positive. That's pretty much for the family I don't live with. Should my dad know anything about this, he likely would be angry beyond belief. However, he doesn't even live in the same state as me and doesn't really keep in contact with me, which stopped sometime mid 2006.

To me, this is getting so frustrating. My mother doesn't understand how I could want to become a woman (at least through society's eyes), yet keep a penis. She pretty much sees a penis as the primary factor, if not the only factor that defines someone as a man. So regardless of how much I appear as a female on the outside, she'll still consider me a man. Now had I plan to get SRS, this may or may not be the case. Also, she only goes on about the negatives of this whole thing and mention nothing positive, not a single positive thing at all. She acts like I'm confused because I want to have the body of a woman, yet have a penis. She even goes as far to say other TG and pre/non-op transsexuals are confused. I argued over and over about this, including how would she know how they felt? Just because I feel the need for these things doesn't mean I'm in anyway confused about them. Also, just because someone is confused about someone else doesn't mean that person is confused about oneself. Furthermore, she seems to act like there is no need to understand this. I swear that this shouldn't have ever been brought up, but it was gonna happen sooner or later.

This is indeed gonna be a hard process, with a lack of funds (and means to get them) and bad location with very limited support. I feel like I must do this, as I refuse to live my whole life in my current state. I rather die at a young age living my life to the fullest then die at a very old age without really doing anything with my life. I'm sure many other feel the same way. My life with the details above (plus more I have yet to explain, related to other topics) wouldn't be a very safe life and could in fact be dangerous, but again, I rather live that life while living life to the fullest, not a safe life while hardly doing anything. Maybe now more and more people are starting to see why I'm using the title The Deviant One.