My experience being bigender (because not a lot of people have spoken about it)
(When I say “it” I mean their story)
I was born afab. 3 older sisters, the eldest being a trans woman.
As a child, I never liked femininity. Dresses, princesses, fairies were all must avoids. Ninjas, minecraft, scary games were my favourite things. Boyish through and through. This is with exception, I had a yellow dress when I was about 5, that I loved to wear. And that was the only thing.
Getting a bit older and a bit more articulate, I was very prominent in wanting to be known as a “tomboy”. I held this title like a gold sheriff badge. I wasn’t just a girl- I was a tomboy. I fell into a boy friend group early on. My best friends were two boys we’ll call “Stanley” and “Dean”. (Fakes names for privacy) and we remained best friends for about 11 years.
When I got to about year 5, a girl I was friends with asked me my sexuality. At that point, I’d never really thought about it, I just knew I didn’t want a boyfriend. I said,
“I dunno, I guess I could date anyone.”
Retelling this story later to one of my sisters, she told me that was called “Pansexual”. And that was my first queer label. I was a pansexual tomboy.
A year later my denial about men caught up with me, and I came out as gay.
From then on, I was gay. Always gay. Never lesbian. I didn’t like the title of lesbian. It made me uncomfortable, like a lot of other titles actually: sister, daughter, “deadname”, girl,
In fact, it kinda hurt whenever someone said on of those things to me. Like I was walking and suddenly felt a rock in my shoe. I brushed it off. Ignored it.
Year 8, I had a girlfriend. Not my first. She was a lesbian. I was gay. We never had any REAL feelings for each other, we were young. But watching episodes of doctor who together was fun. One would typically be disappointed in having a relationship with no romantic feelings but it did make it easier for a conversation we had about halfway through…
I told her one day,
“I… think I might be a boy.”
She was completely supportive. Honestly just a really nice person. Over the next few months, I was awake to ungodly hours contemplating and thinking of what my gender could be.
Am I a boy? That feels so…intense. A lot of commitment. But “girl” hurts. Am I non binary? I mean, I can still relate to being a boy. I want to be included. But I don’t want to miss out on all the girl stuff…
And that repeated for a while. I knew of the term “bigender”. But I avoided it, thought people would take me less seriously. Eventually though, it caught up with me. I was bigender. Half boy half girl.
And I had a new name. A name that I really love to hear people say.
But that’s not the end of the story.
After I came out, my friendship with Stanley and Dean fell through. Not because I was trans or anything. We just grew apart. And for the first time, I was not in a group. I actually joined a group of girls.
It wasn’t great, but thats a different story.
I learnt from coming out to finishing school, that no matter how hard I try and conform to social rules regarding gender. I will never be viewed as a man. Only queer. Only female. Only other.
Rough experience. But it did give me a strength.
Through this realisation, I began to comfortable fall back into some femininity. Once I was secure in my own manhood and masculinity I was free to play with my gender however I wanted. Drag became a small interest, trying out make up and nail polish and skirts. My friend from year 5 is now my best friend and I love her so much. And I haven’t been too deterred from my masculinity either. I love playing sports and heavy lifting, barbecuing and wearing my boxers.
I am (rather) comfortable and at peace with both sides of my gender. Sometimes I am not: sometimes I feel emasculated. Less of a man. Sometimes I feel unworthy of being a woman. But when it’s going right, it’s like my womanhood and manhood are moving in perfect rhythm of each other, and it is very peaceful.
Thanks for reading my story.