I’m gender fluid – this is what it means to me Words matter. I felt elated when I learned that the latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary had included, as […]

Words matter.

I felt elated when I learned that the latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary had included, as one of many new additions, the word “gender-fluid”.

It gave me hope that people like me can finally be unashamed of our identities.

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The term gender fluid might be currently in vogue (thanks to Ruby Rose and Miley Cyrus using it to describe themselves) but it was first recorded in 1987 to describe a person who does not identify themselves as having a fixed gender.

For me, being gender-fluid means I feel myself to be a mixture of male and female.

Coming of age

I live most of my life, fairly happily, as a man. However, I do not feel like my whole self unless I can occasionally “become” a woman – by wearing women’s clothes.

My cross-dressing began at ten, when I opened a box of old costumes at home, took out a knee-length lace dress and locked myself in the bathroom to try it on. Other garments followed: a burgundy gown with enormous shoulder puffs; a sky-blue leotard.

I felt excitement, a stirring of nascent sexuality, and the thrill of liberation. It was like being on an ecstatic yet soothing drug.

But I did not know how to describe myself. Where I grew up, in middle-class St Albans, men who dressed as women were mocked and abused as “trannies”.

I was a fairly boyish boy who played rugby, rode a bike and enjoyed hiking, and I was desperate to avoid ridicule.

So, like many gender-fluid people, I went through a confusing adolescence. I was a boy in public and, in private, I cross-dressed, terrified of being discovered.

It was not until a few years ago that I came out, first to close friends and family and, now (excuse me while I swallow momentary panic) to the world in general.

Life’s a drag

Gender fluidity is nothing new. From drag queens such as Divine to the androgynous looks of Marlene Dietrich, performers have often blurred the distinction between male and female.

Yet, despite these role models, everyday life can be difficult if you are gender-fluid.

Since building up the courage to leave the house in female dress I have endured harassment, including jeers of “shemale”, while walking down the street. Other gender non-conforming people have faced violence.

Yet trying to conform to rigid gender norms takes a psychological toll on me. While growing up, my insecurity about gender taught me to conceal my emotions for fear of exposing my feminine side and facing mockery.

Being gender-fluid in a non-accepting world can feel like being imprisoned.

The ‘right’ body

In the past, science has not helped gender-fluid people, as it has tended to pathologize us, treating us as psychologically abnormal. Men like me are sometimes called transvestites, a word with connotations of a psychiatrist’s manual.

I use the term gender-fluid instead, because it allows me to affirm my identity without implying I have a mental disorder.

Nevertheless, gender fluidity provokes questions. For instance, I am often asked if I would prefer to live as a woman full-time. My answer is no, though I understand why people ask.

Awareness of transgender issues has grown in the past few years thanks to high profile celebrities such as Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner. But not everyone on the trans spectrum – and I include myself in that – feels they were born in the wrong body. Gender is complex. There are many alternatives to conventional gender identities, and not all of them require an individual to transition.

I am often asked another question. Am I gay? My answer is no; however, I do not identify as one-hundred-percent straight either, believing that my sexuality, like my gender, is fluid.

Out of the closet

Venturing out in high heels for the first time was among the scariest things I have done, but that was nothing compared to telling my secret to friends and family.

In time, I hope it will be easier for people like me to come out.

Not long ago, I met a man at a cross-dressers’ nightclub. Wearing a cocktail dress and brunette wig, he told me he had cross-dressed throughout his twenty-year marriage, and never told his wife. He was in the habit of hiding his clothes, shoes, make-up and wig in his car.

His story was heartbreaking because he sincerely believed his deception had been a good thing for her sake. He was, in his view, protecting her from his shameful secret. “She would not understand it,” he said.

My hope is that, with greater acceptance, gender fluidity will no longer be seen as shameful, either by society or by gender-fluid people themselves.

Words matter; gender-fluid people can now rally around a word that gives us self-respect.