I would like to invite you to read this blog entry I found today here at Transgender Blogs. I a very profound and yet concise way, the author has been able to demonstrate the complexity of transgenderism, identities and sexual orientation. Life is nto black and white.

Hello to everyone

Now - how do I introduce myself? What labels/descriptions/terminolgy do I use? Gender and gender identity is so complex and individual that sometimes none of the prepaid labels seem to fit.

First of all, "Ben Verona" is not my real name, but I guess many people here use a pseudonymn. On the face of it I'm a 64 year old man living in England. Here's the first stumbling block - your image of "64" might conjure up the word "old". Well - I don't feel "old" but I am also entirely comfortable with my age. I'm far more at one with myself than I was when I was 30.

So - I'm biologically male but for many years I have identified more with my feminine psychological aspects than with my masculine ones. However, over the last ten years I have become increasingly conscious that I also have a female (as opposed to feminine) aspect that has lain dormant for most of my life and who increasingly demands recognition.

I want to say clearly that I am quite comfortable with this and that my gender identity causes me no distress. I regard myself as lucky to have an ambivalent gender identity and I celebrate it. If I had been biologically female then my life would have been different and maybe I would have been more "cisgender". That said, I do not wish to transition. I have total support and great respect for those who do transition but that is not my pathway.

This is because I have an identification with both genders and also with something (I'm unclear just what it is!) that is outside the gender binary. My gender identification is very fluid - it can move from male to female and back and rest anywhere along the connecting line and can do so in a matter of hours or even minutes.

For this reason I also feel that the term "transgender" doesn't quite fit, though I feel at one with those for whom it does fit. "Bigender" or "androgyne" are nearer the mark as they imply that I am both male and female simultaneously. "Gender fluid" is the closest I've got so far, though I do wonder whether others hear the term as I understand it.

My main outward expression of my female persona is to cross dress in private. So I am a "crossdresser" in some respect but then, once I put on "female" clothes I have entered my female identity so it could be said that I am no longer "crossdressed"! I'll explore that a bit more in the Crossdressers' forum.

I am "out" with maybe half a dozen friends about my gender fluidity but I don't yet feel ready to be "out" in public. Maybe coming here is a step in that direction.

So - I'm open to dialogue with anyone here but I'm especially interested in talking to those who, like me, have a fluid gender identity. Hello to you all!

Source: