I just don’t feel feminine, аlthough I have long hair, I use makeup and I can’t be called tomboy, but I think calling me a woman sounds ridiculous, I’m not sure why, has anyone dealt with this?
Not sure if it’s relevant to why you feel ridiculous, but feeling like you don’t qualify as what you are is common I think.
In my 20s I felt like a 7 year old boy dressed up in a suit and grandma pinching my cheek and going “well who is this handsome man?”.
This is like saying you don’t deserve to be called a red head. It’s not something you earn, it’s just something you are. Don’t overthink it
Obviously you get to choose your labels, but theres absolutely nothing wrong with being a tomboy and it certainly doesnt invalidate your identity, unless you feel it does. Some of the women i know and like the most are tomboys. I certainly dont view them as any less of a woman, although quite frankly i dont spend time thinking about peoples genders either.
Just do you! Being proud of who you are is great, but if you dont like who you are there are always options to change. If you had to describe how you want to be viewed, how would you go about it?
I’m just gonna come out and say what other people seem to be dancing around. These are things that a trans man would say. Not saying that’s necessarily the case for you but like it’s probably worth trying to find someone affirming and professional to discuss dysphoria with.
Or:
- a gender-non-conforming woman
- an enby
- someone who’s gender fluid
- some flavor of neurodivergence, BPD, or any other issue associated with an ambivalent sense of self, overestimating how much one should feel like “x” in order to “deserve to be called x”
- a person in the process of discovering their own gender identity
So let’s not jump to conclusion. There are many options and being a trans man is just one of them - and one we should never hastily impose on anyone.
Personally I grew up being taught by a bunch of older 2nd wave feminists, so the messaging I received was a lot of “A woman is anything she wants to be.” Cue picture of Rosie the Riveter repairing a truck or something. I wonder if you maybe didn’t have the best relationships with the women around you growing up? Because personally, I’ve just always felt more comfortable with women. When I was a kid, women were more inclusive with me and easier to talk with, and I think the moments where women segregated from men, where it was just me and a group of grandmas in the kitchen or something, were really formative for the development of my feminine identity.
