I dated a gender fluid person and am now fiercely gender critical. AMA

[AMAToday]

Just that really.

Thanks for the offer!
Did you relate to your then date as one gender or sex , or the other? Are you bi?
Why 'now' and 'fierce'? Were you not before?

What I mean is, did you relate to this person as the sex or gender you usually find yourself attracted to, or as a fully gender fluid person. If that makes sense.

What exactly is ‘gender fluid’? How does this manifest itself and how goes the GF person explain it?

What did that actually mean in practical terms?

I believed I was bi at the time as it fir in with 'their' gender identity.

I later realised I was actually a lesbian but wasn't allowed to refer to 'them' as my girlfriend.

At the time I was in love and had rose tinted glasses on so I went along with everything and defended 'them' to the core. I believed it was a genuine thing until the relationship progressed and I understood this person more. It wasn't genuine at all.

My ex was a bio woman. But she apparently didn't feel like a woman. But didn't want to be a man either.

She had short hair, wore mens clothes. But sometimes she would dress very womanly. It depended on her mood.

In hindsight I belive she was a butch lesbian and quite confused.

I couldn't use female pronouns. But neutral ones. But funnily enough when she felt masculine male pronouns were OK.

But when she dressed feminine she got upset if people said 'miss' to her

So she didn’t feel like a girly girl.

What did you think about gender identity stuff before you were with her? What made you gender critical?

The redbarrows I had previously only been with men. She was my first woman. I identified as pansexual as gender didn't really matter to me at that time.

I didn't understand the impact it had on women's safe spaces or rights.

I believed it didn't matter. I was attracted to the person not the genitals.

However this is around 5 years ago and like I said my views have done a 180° turn.

Before we were together I was very live and let live. I supported trans people and gender fluid/non binary people but I think that was because I myself had just come out of the closet and felt LGBT was a family. I didn't think enough about the realities of it.

I became gender critical because I soon realised that
1- she wasn't genuine in her 'plight', it was a massive form of attention seeking.
And now she is once again a straight woman in a heterosexual relationship despite me supporting her through her coming out and her legal name change etc..

And secondly because I started to realise how many of our rights as women and lesbians were being clouded by this movement.

Did your ex have a unisex name or did you have to use two different names depending on how masculine or feminine your ex was feeling?

Happy my ex had a born female name.

She then chose a neutral name and legally changed it.

And got very upset when people 'dead named her', after 35 years of knowing her as her birth name.

I have two acquaintances who are non-binary, both are married to men and present in a stereotypically female way, but are offended if people presume them to be female or use female pronouns. I don't really understand the difference between feeling genderfluid and just being a woman who enjoys a variety of things (and/or ways of dressing) without caring if it's nasculine or feminine. I mean, why they big deal?* Both these people used to be pretty "alternative" in their younger days and make a big deal about how they are LGBT and "woke" and tbh I wonder if it is for attention and/or that they find it too depressing to contemplate that they are "just" suburban married SAHMs now.

• and that's my question for your AMA, though perhaps you're not sure either. How did your ex explain it?

ExH is gender fluid. I didn't find out for the first decade. I left him. He's now with another woman, and they have had a child together, living a very heterosexual life. He used to abuse me, but blame his identity as he was a victim of life.

Sorry there isn't a question there, but solidarity. I've been there and can relate to everything you have posted.

I agree. It seems completely pointless aprt from to make something all about them, them, them and have an excuse to be perpetually offended and have the conversation revolve around them.

I don’t get it, I really don’t. I’m not a traditional girly girl nor is my (gay) sister.

We may object and take the mickey out of someone if we are called ‘girls’ (for we are in our 50s) but if someone tried to deny us out ‘womanliness’ they’d get short shrift.

I guess she never did explain it as such. I just accepted it as I loved her.

She often talked about maybeee removing her breasts. She had PCOS and so could grow a small amount of facial hair. Which she did. Not because she wants ashamed of her hair, no one should be. But because it made her more masculine.

She is now the most feminine person I know. Massively long nails. Always made up flawlessly. I just don't get it.

Why does a woman feel the need to remove her breasts to be ‘gender free’ (since half the sex of the planet have them) yet a surprising number of ‘females’ keep their penis and call it a ‘female penis’? In fact, moobs really are a thing...

I think it was a fad phase a sexuality questioning 35 year old woman entered into in confusion and there lies the danger.

If she can get into that and use it for attention what chance do pre and teens have?

a fad phase a sexuality questioning 35 year old woman entered into in confusion

Do you think she couldn't accept herself as gay so used the gender thing to convince herself she was heterosexual despite being in a same sex relationship?

it seems completely pointless aprt from to make something all about them, them, them and have an excuse to be perpetually offended and have the conversation revolve around them

Have to say I agree. The people I know find so much offensive that I don't really want to speak to them anymore besides a quick hi in passing.

Did she have some sort of trauma in her past? Or how do you rationalise why she was identifying this way?

I don't know if it was a cover for her sexuality. She wasnr ashamed of being in a lesbian relationship.

Except she wouldn't label it as a lesbian relationship as she wasn't nt a woman.

She sounds a bore. Tiresome and self obsessed. I wouldn’t waste energy on her.

Oh I don't. Haven't spoken to her in years.