Hey all! If you need it, I use they/them for my pronouns! Don't worry if it gets mixed up though! I'm also quite new to any sort of terminology used for this situation, so all I know is what I've read and may mess something up. Please let me know if I need to change anything!

To jump straight to it, I suppose I'm here because I'm exhausted. Stress has been killing me lately, and I'm hoping an outside opinion can perhaps clear up a little of this fog. I don't figure I'm the person that knew I wasn't cis-gendered since forever ago. I always knew something was...off, however. I am biologically female, 26 years old. Almost never have I ever been fond of anything that is traditionally associated with being female. Make-up, dressing pretty or being into fashion, chatting all the time? No thanks. I've always been 'one of the guys' when it came to the social aspect of things. I couldn't stand to be around those of my own sex not because of who they were, but because I had zero interest in what they liked so I always gravitated toward the guys. Having grown up in a fairly conservative household, I didn't think much of it other than I was considered weird because I didn't know about LBGTQ things.

My mother was very insistent on me dressing the part of the lady, though. I loathed clothes shopping (and still do) because she always pushed blouses, skirts, dresses, and so on. While I thought they were nice and I could appreciate them for what they were and how it looked on other women, I felt so out of place when I wore things like that. I almost felt like an impostor--as if I shouldn't be wearing it because it felt wrong. I chalked this feeling up to not having any self-esteem, but something nagged at me in the back of my mind. Could never figure that bit out, though.

Skip forward some years, getting older and wiser (supposedly pfft), I am extremely open-minded and accepting--not the person I was while under my parents' roof. I start to learn about the LBGTQ community. Specifically, I find out about being genderfluid. I talked it out with some close friends that were part of the community. After a lot of struggling to accept myself, I finally took the plunge and grabbed onto the label of genderfluid. At the time, it made perfect sense! I considered myself very neutral in the way of gender, having a rare day or few of wanting to be perceived as wholly male or female. As time went on, though, I started realizing that...perhaps this wasn't really what this feeling was.

It was weird, finally letting myself accept it all. I hated obviously feminine names being used for myself. Every time someone uttered my full birth name, I felt myself get disgusted. I always told people not to call me my full first name--that I didn't like it--but they laughed it off like it was a joke and teased until I had to get angry with them. I'm a huge gamer, and generally all of my online personas are male. My internet handle has always been a male name and this is what all of my friends know me by. I love this name, and have always felt connected to it. It sucks going to work and being called my normal name.

I never did like my body, though I will admit that is for self-esteem reasons and probably not gender ones. I will say I've never been a huge fan of my chest and, given the opportunity, I'd probably get rid of these things. I don't generally have an issue with my downstairs set up. Overall, I look at it as if I just drew the female body card in the lottery of life. I'd change it to male if I could, but I'm not entirely upset over what I got.

That said, I hate being perceived as a woman. Never liked it, and I doubt I ever will. But I've never seen myself as the typical manly man, either. Even though I would prefer to be seen as a guy, I still don't prefer male pronouns. I don't mind them at all and would take them over female pronouns in a heartbeat; but I much prefer they/them.

I guess with that rambling, my question is: what the heck am I? I know labels aren't everything, and this won't define me as a person, but I have this painfully strong need to know what to call myself and, I guess, know me? I wish I could just not worry about it like my friends suggest, but I just can't drop the issue. I can't be alone in this, right?

TL;DR

• I hate being perceived as female and everything associated with it
• I prefer being perceived as male, even though I'm not what society deems masculine
• I don't have major body dysphoria