Bending, Blending, and Discovering
But first, to start, the purpose of this section seems obvious: to explain my gender identity, which is neither male nor female. However, after years of trying to figure "who I am," I discovered that the term, if terms must be used, "androgyne" is apt to describe me. Why? Why not any other term?
The process of identification takes place in more than just a single day. For me, my search for my identity has been since I entered high school as a fourteen-year-old in ninth grade. To begin, the word "Androgyny" was a vocabulary word in English class. And, the word, the combination of the two roots, "andro" and "gyne," seemed ideal to my emotions and the way I saw myself - as a person with both masculine and feminine characteristics.
But, like most people, I only believed, at the time, that there were two genders: masculine and feminine. Androgyny seemed like something that was merely superficial. I looked superficially androgynous - mistaken for a boy at times, called a girl from behind in public. My gender had to correspond to my birth sex, I thought, despite I felt attracted to both girls and boys but felt disconnected somewhat from both sexes.
Fast-foward to sometime in the future, maybe junior year, but I don't know. Eventually, I separated gender from sex and sexuality, and realized that androgyny was not merely a superficial state but a mentality. And, if a label had to be used or if I had to be confined to a mold, then "Androgyne" it was.
However, now, I'm a freshman in college.and I'm still not open about my gender identity. Yet. Yes, I do feel miserable, because I feel like I'm locked in a closet, repressing myself to be accepted by my peers, although I'm not. A depressing end, perhaps, or an anticlimactic finale, but I'm only eighteen years old and still have not explained my gender to my mother, or both parents for that matter. I wish this could seem more exciting or uplifting, but its not. Life itself isn't terribly exciting, and this, my process of "coming out" will follow that viscously-moving pattern.