I’m a pretty androgynous person. I don’t have a clear sense of feeling typically masculine or feminine, and I tend to get uncomfortable presenting myself in a strongly gendered way. It’s taken me a long time to understand this about myself, and in many ways I still am. I’ve gone through various phases of trying to look like what I thought a man or woman ought to be and, for anyone who’s known me closely in those periods, I was inexplicably uncomfortable and unhappy.

I’m also transitioning. By this I mean that I’m in the process of changing some of the gendered characteristics of my body. I don’t yet have a comprehensive list of everything I plan to do and I don’t expect to end up looking like a normal man or woman, but I’m slowly getting to a place that feels more right for me. I guess you could say that I’m transitioning from one kind of androgyny to another.

Over the last year or so I’ve been presenting increasingly ambiguously and it hasn’t worked out quite the way I once anticipated. I had thought I could opt out of gender perceptions. I had worried that I would be viewed with confusion. I had envisioned SNL-style situations of people going to great lengths to discover my “real” gender. Or, worse, I had feared that the sex on my birth certificate would remain visibly branded on me—that I would never be able to get rid of a gender label that hasn’t quite fit.

What I’ve found instead is that my perceived gender is usually open to interpretation and often decided immediately. In a new situation, it seems that people subconsciously just pick a gender and go with it. I rarely correct people, but sometimes I feel brave enough to ask how they arrived at whatever conclusion. People usually tell me they don’t know why or sometimes attribute it to an arbitrary characteristic like my shoulders (which, for the record, aren’t particularly noteworthy) or my hair (which is medium length and usually asymmetrical), or my glasses (which aren’t actually part of my body).

I get the impression that people often see what they want to see. People I perceive as lesbians and/or queer women tell me I look like an “androgynous dyke” or, more endearingly, a “cutie” or, less endearingly, ignore me. People I perceive as gay and/or queer men usually view me as a sort of feminine gay guy or, I think with hopeful intent, “a little cocksucker fag”. People I view as straight men seem to perceive me as female if they’re being generally chivalrous (e.g. holding a door for me) and straight in the rare event that they find me attractive (read: are hitting on me). I tend to be perceived as male if they’re asking for directions or money. I haven’t noticed any trends among people I perceive as straight women.

What interests me most, though, are the occasions when I seem to be read as an androgynous or otherwise gender non-normative person. This seems to most commonly happen among other self-identified trans* and/or genderqueer people, but not always. Sometimes young kids will just flat-out ask “are you a boy or a girl?”, which I think is awesome. Sometimes well-meaning people who appear to be my parents’ age, in conversation, will tell me that I “seem really comfortable” with myself.

On one occasion at a queer bar, someone I perceived to be a middle-age lesbian looked at me and exclaimed audibly, “Oh come on!” She grabbed my jacket lapel and asked, almost annoyed, “What are you supposed to be?” before pushing me away. I’m not sure what she thought I was, or was trying to be, but apparently at least one of these things wasn’t working for her.

What I also find interesting, though maybe not surprising, is that after spending any length of time with someone, my gender seems to stay fixed. People who already know me as the gender on my birth certificate, regardless of whether they know I’m trans*, don’t seem to notice anything out of place, even when I’m presenting in a way that’s arguably more appropriate for the “other” gender. Sometimes I get specific compliments: “I like your haircut”, “are those new shoes?”, “you sound different”, or even “you seem much more [confident/mature/happy]”. I feel excited and grateful to be well-received, but find myself a bit confused that no one associates these things with being trans*.

On the other hand, I recently had the experience of dating someone who seemed to perceive my gender exclusively as the one not on my birth certificate. She seemed surprised, but respectful, when I told her I was trans* (this happened roughly ten minutes into our first conversation). Over the course of the handful of weeks we dated, she seemed, understandably, concerned about my apparent double life.

“How do you look when you’re at work?” she would ask, knowing my coworkers perceive my gender differently.

Old friends that know, to various extents, “what my deal is”, still wonder how I look when my gender is read differently.

It’s all pretty similar; I don’t have distinct “guy” and “girl” presentations. I style my hair a little differently. I wear sneakers instead of oxfords. I wear slightly different makeup, or go without. I wear sports bras, or not.

But there are some meaningful differences, and I’m slowly getting a better handle on things. I’m slowly having more control over my presentation; I’m getting closer to being able to consciously affect a particular presentation when I choose to. It’s not a perfect science, and I imagine changing genders is something many people have no interest in doing, but I feel fortunate and privileged for having a mutable body. I’m a little anxious to see how I’ll be received, if and when I chose to further change my physical self, but for now I feel that it’s becoming my own.