Androgyny.

Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words άνδρας (andras, meaning man) and γυνή (gyne, meaning woman) that can refer to two concepts regarding the mixing of both male and female genders or having a lack of gender identification (Courtesy Wikipedia.)

But what does that really mean? An androgyne is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. Androgynes sometimes refer to themselves using gender-neutral pronouns or the singular they. Androgynes can be genderless or sometimes bigender depending on how a person views themselves.

Some people refer to androgynes as gender fluid, others refer to them as lacking gender altogether. The term itself is rather fluid in meaning. Androgynes are transgender, as they do not fit society's standard gender roles, but it is not to be confused with transexuality.

The term androgynous is often used to refer to a person whose look or build make determining their gender difficult and androgynous traits are those that either have no gender value, or have some aspects generally attributed to the opposite gender (again Wikipedia.)

If you take a look at my profile, it says I am male. But if you keep looking, you will also see that note I put in there at the bottom. I am only picking male because there are two options that YN has given me. I am currently seeking to fix that.

I am an androgyne. I see myself as genderless, between the genders if you will. It is something I have had to come to grips with in the last few months, having earlier thought I was a male to female transexual for the most of my life, and gay before that. The views I hold about myself change every time I stumble across a new piece of information or a new definition I didn't know about before. All I know about how I felt as a child is that I didn't feel male. Not female. But not male. I confused this with being gay, then thought I was a transexual, and then finally realized, with the help of a close friend, what my feelings really meant.

But even upon this realization of self-identity and the comfort it brings knowing I have a way to describe how I feel to others, it also brings immense pain. This is not something I wanted to happen to me. This is not something I want to have to live with for the rest of my life. My body disgusts me for what it is and I long for something I cannot have - a body that I can be happy in. I am not a transexual, I am not eligible for much surgery or medication under DSMIV. I feel trapped in this shell of skin and memories.

This is a dream that, in short, explains how I feel about being androgyne.

I wake up in a place that I can only describe as heaven. At this point I should probably point out that this is incongruous to my belief system and I don't believe in the existence of heaven or hell. But besides that point, I was in this place. It was bright, and completely packed with people... but the place was vast, so it did not seem crowded. I walked around, just observing people, a group playing football, a group gathered around reading a book to some children, a group just walking and talking about the plans for the day.

I stopped to play with the children playing football, and it seemed we were almost playing on a field made of foam. I could jump as high as I wanted and when I fell I just bounced right back up. I kicked the ball back to the goalkeeper and continued on my way, where I met a Japanese teenager named Hiro. He had a book of the Japanese alphabet, and tried teaching it to me. I didn't get it at first, but a woman came up and placed her hand on his head and then mine, and instantly it was if I could read when he was thinking, and I started to understand the language he was trying to interpret for me. I looked at her wish a confused look, but she just smiled and beckoned the teenager back to his group of friends.

It was then I came across I guess what you can say an angel, a tall being clothed in white, who put his hand on my shoulder from behind and I turned around to look at him.

He said, 'hello Alex, let me bring you to the people you knew in life.' And I followed him up an escalator to a landing where many of my friends were gathered. They all looked at me and smiled as I approached. One of my greatest friends, a man named Esmael, ran up to me and gave me this giant hug.

He said, 'Alex, look at me! We are exactly as we were meant to be! Everything is perfect!'

I got excited and looked around for a mirror. If everything was perfect, then I could finally see my happy ending, what I have to look forward to.

I turn to find a large mirror on the wall, and I look into it. And I am in the exact same body that I have always been in.

Everyone disappears and the mirror shatters, the shards falling in slow motion to the ground. I turn to the angel, who is the only one left, and his clothing has turned from white to black.

He points at me, and says, 'Well, it seems not everyone can be perfect.'

And then I wake up in a cold sweat, and almost immediately burst into tears. How am I supposed to feel about myself if I cannot change anything about my body? Am I ever going to get that happy ending like everyone else or am I doomed to a life of suffering in a body that I don't fit in?

Just wanted to share that, maybe spark a bit of discussion here, this is a thread to herald my return to YN.

-Jenos

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Sex changes come in two or three parts. The first step is hormones, second step is either top or bottom surgery. You can't get it done all at once.

Okay, thanks, Shade. I didn't know that.

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Not to sound dumb, but could someone please explain to me how you can have a "nearly complete" sex change?

Sex changes come in two or three parts. The first step is hormones, second step is either top or bottom surgery. You can't get it done all at once.

Hm, I guess I was just thinking along the lines of genitalia, Rae2Rae. Pretty limited way of thinking, I know.

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Out of curiousity, what are people's opinions of androgynes getting a complete or nearly complete sex change?

Not to sound dumb, but could someone please explain to me how you can have a "nearly complete" sex change?

I know what you mean about not being able to be happy in your own body. I'm a female bodied androgyne who identified as a F2M (female to male) transgender for quite a while until recently. That was when I discovered that a website on other genders and identities that don't fit the male-female polarity.

My current problem is that I still want the hormones and surgery. It probably won't make much sense to most (though it may for some other androgynes), but I identify as a male bodied androgyne in a female body. It is very confusing and it made me think that I was a F2M for a long time. I tend to still get confused about it and I'm not sure if I'm both, neither or something else altogether but it never fails to bother me that I won't be eligible for most (if any) of the surgeries I want. So unless I can lie really well I'll never have a body I can be content with.

Maybe if society evolves enough in the next decade or so to realize that androgynes have just as much of a need for surgery and care, I can still get it under truthful circumstances. I hopes of that happening are slim though and I can be realistic.

Out of curiousity, what are people's opinions of androgynes getting a complete or nearly complete sex change?

Perhaps I shouldn't ask this here since this is someone else's topic, but I'm curious. I figured it is close enough to this post and ties into it (the orginal poster mentioned wanting to change their body) that I don't have to start a new topic for it.

So any opinions?

Victor Violet

Hi all,
I've joined Youth Noise for the sole reason of contributing to this thread. At 45, the last thing I can be mistaken for is a youth...
Jenos, your post echoes my life in many many ways.
But the one point that really drew me here, to reply to, was Clp013's comment:

'Maybe it's my misunderstanding of sex vs. gender, but I just can't see how someone can't be either male or female, at least in a physical sense.'

In my view, its very easy for someone to be physically neither male nor female. Putting aside intersex conditions - solely for the purposes of my interpretations [and I know the situations are many and varied], we'll say intersex relates purely to genetalia complications.

People can end up with a mixed physical gender through three primary causes [I'm sure there's many more]. Firstly, through the dumping of female hormones into the environment which are reabsorbed into our food chain. Secondly, through pollution and thirdly from leaky atomic / nuclear facilities.

I come from the third category.

I was born in the UK in the 60's, close to an atomic facility with a fearsome reputation for bad internal security, leaks, scares etc. And that also happened to be the place my father worked.

As I had normal male genitalia, I was classed as male. Seemed logical at the time.

As a young child I always felt different from both genders. At an early age I classed myself as gay for the simple reason that I naturally fancied men. And as I was supposed to be male, that seemed logical as well. [I still use the 'gay' word as an easy explanation, though less so these days]

However, I was also born with female nipples, small breasts developed as did incredibly smooth skin. Later, I got legs most girls would die for

People generally get a little confused when I say I was born with female breasts. As I look predominantly male, they assume I mean that overweight fatty man-boob phenomenon of the past decade or so.

Nope.

All I will say is this. Guys, you don't have them. I KNOW what you're missing! They work. And I won't swap them for the world. And, yes, the nerve messaging is also the envy of some females

UK size wise, I'm a 12 and a B cup [just], very little main body fat at all.

To me, they are a great improvement on the standard male body, lol!

I hope you get the picture, these are real physical attributes that cross the gender divide.

If you don't beleive me, pop over to my myspace site, if the moderators allow personal web pages, I can be found at www.myspace.com/kelso1962 my main avatar is a photo of me and my breasts are [unintentiaonally, I usually use a bra] clearly visible. And clearly female - man-boobs are a different shape, although female breasts on a male form do tend to pull more to left and right.

Thing is, I am very happy as me. I do not want to be 100% male and do not want to be 100% female. I have good parts of both. For example, my best friend is female - and she finds me the best girlfriend she's ever had, and by that she's referring to genetic females.

The other point I wanted to make is this: Androgynes like me may be few and far between just now. But be under no illusion. If mankind carries on the practices it is currently following, then in a generation or two, there'll be a lot more of us. Humans are still evolving. You're all aware, I hope, of how many fish are gender mutating due to pollution. You really think it can't happen to our species? I wear the proof.

Anyway, sorry it was a long post and a general one. As I said, I joined purely for this discussion, I'll pop back for a little while to see how it progresses, then leave you all to your own devices.

Hope I helped clarify a little....

Much love

Rae xx

ps, apols as this has posted second in the thread - it should have been at the end where it may have made a bit more sense! Doh, see, I'm way too old for here...!!! lol

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Help at all?

Yes, actually. For some reason, I wasn't thinking about stuff like that when I posted. Must have been too late for my mind to be working right...

*puts a band-aid on Amps forehead*

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*Laughs.*

Not a 'Mr.' amp, get used to it.

doh...*smacks forhead*

I believe you are thinking of Maria Jose Martinez Patino.

She was a hurdler in the 1985 Olympics who was disqualified for AIS, but reinstated 3 years later after fighting it in court. Because of that the Olympics abolished genetic testing for gender in 1992.

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I've done a lot of research on this stuff for the past few months, so if anybody has any questions, please, feel free to respond or chime in.

I like how you know all the actual names.

Wasn't there an XXY runner in the Olympics in the 1970s or 1980s who was disqualified because she thought she was female, but they decided she was male, or at least male enough to not be able to race, because of the extra-chromosome?

I'm sorry if that's completely wrong; it's been awhile since 9th grade.

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Applause to Mr. Idanian (Jenos)

*Laughs.*

Not a 'Mr.' amp, get used to it.

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Maybe it's my misunderstanding of sex vs. gender, but I just can't see how someone can't be either male or female, at least in a physical sense.

That's exactly it. The word sex refers to a person's physical body. My sex is male. The word gender refers to a person's gender identity, or how they see themselves in relationship to society as a whole. My gender is androgyne.

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You can be born without male anatomy dropped, and subsequently, thought to be a female.

That condition is called CAIS, or Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. That means that the person is a XY male, but due to an insensitivity, or immunity to the male hormone Androgen [more commonly referred to as testosterone (but look at estrogen vs. androgen - androgen is the original term and testosterone was a term coined referring to the testes)] causes the testes to not descend at birth, and instead a vagina is formed. There are usually no actual female reproductive organs in a CAIS person internally, only externally, so they are often mistake for female upon birth and raised as one.

The opposite, where a child is born XX but has male reproductive organs is called PAIS, or Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Same idea, but the sexual organs are reversed, with external male sexual organs where there should be a vagina.

Let it be known that these syndromes are referred to as 'intersex' conditions, which replaces the old term 'hermaphrodite.' Most AIS persons are infertile as well.

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You can be an XXY, and fit into neither.

This condition is called Klinefelter's Syndrome, where a XY male has an extra X chromosome, resulting in XXY, which in most cases is a normal male with smaller male sexual organs, but secondary female sex traits, such as round hips, and breasts. I think I might actually have Klinefelter's, but I haven't had the money to have a test done to determine my chromosome arrangement, most likely not though.

I've done a lot of research on this stuff for the past few months, so if anybody has any questions, please, feel free to respond or chime in.

-Jenos

quote:

but I just can't see how someone can't be either male or female, at least in a physical sense.

You can be born without male anatomy dropped, and subsequently, thought to be a female.

You can be an XXY, and fit into neither.

You can be born with both male and female parts.

Help at all?

Maybe it's my misunderstanding of sex vs. gender, but I just can't see how someone can't be either male or female, at least in a physical sense. I mean, I can see how someone might not fit into what society defines as masculine and feminine, but I guess I don't really see that as what makes you male or female.

I don't know. I'm one of those people who does actually fit into neat, nice categories, so I have a hard time understanding anything else. I'm not the kind of person who can actually put himself into someone else's shoes. I try and it just doesn't work.

I had never heard of that before, but I have always wondered what you would be if you are not a girl or a boy.

Wow. This really makes you think about these kinds of things, and it makes me realize even more that we should "...judge by the content of their character" not by any physical or sexual/asexual traits.

who are we to argue otherwise? who are we to do anything but offer support for this third gender? crap we give plenty of support gays, lesbians and transexuals, but androgyne deserve support well.

Applause to Mr. Idanian (Jenos), for bringing this subject to the forums attention