Introduction and DAE that people relate to you as either male or female/the relationship revolves around that?

It started as a joke, one of those jokes you make that are actually a little more revealing than you intended. “Yeah, I’m a gay guy in a girl’s body” a joke I was really making at a young age that I didn’t even fully understand the complications of.

I never really wanted to have a gender anyway, I kind of just wanted to be me. I never understood why what I’m doing had anything to do with my gender, why can’t I just rough house or play whatever we’re playing?

I grew up though and for most of my life I never really had to worry about love and romance. I was scared of it first of, but secondly, I just wasn’t attractive. Most people called me a dude.

Sometimes I felt like a dude.

But so many people treated me like a dude, all my guy friends, so I just became that.

Until I began losing weight and suddenly that guy you knew had a body you couldn’t ignore as just “a dude’s.”

So to get to my title, as I’ve started to try and date, I usually go for dudes. Thing is, I’ve had dykes come my way and get angry (because if I’m dressed that way I have to be a lesbian! You’re a fake! A tease! – I feel bad when this happens) female straight woman want me as a dude, straight guys who want a strong girl and gay dudes that thought I’m a dude. (another one I feel really bad for :()

I find though, even unconsciously, people treat you different. I’ve had friendships with girls where they kind of just wanted a “guy” around. Oddly enough, most people relate to me as a man even if they call me “she”. Body language, ect.

It gets really weird for me when I meet a guy I’m attracted to or want to attract, because then I go so feminine. This sucks for me sometimes because that “rough and tough” attitude attracts a lot of people to me sort of slides away and they’re left with an bashful, shy girl.

Another weird thing Sometimes when guys try and go "alpha male" to impress me as a woman, my masculine side just sort of bashes its way through. I would get these thoughts before I started to realize that's happening where I'd think "this is gay, ulrg,this is so gay stop it!" like I felt... challenged? Maybe emasculated? Then scold myself for... homophobic thoughts? it's confusing.

Male: Cocky, wants to fight, shit starter, tease, flirt, protective, badboy. (I even went through a ‘bad boy’ phase) now it’s more of a gushing older but tough brother. Female: writer, lover, caring, shy, introverted, very compassionate.

When I'm doing MA or anything like that, it's extremely masculine. Even when female-acting people want to relate I'm just not even there, I'm all about getting stronger. I use this side a lot in security.

When i'm being creative, or having a party or social gathering where I'm not the entertainer (again masculine) I'm going around having extremely emotionally intimate conversations.

I only have two people where I can just "be" where I don't feel myself slipping to one gender or another, those people I'm very grateful for.