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AIBU?

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Original poster

To ask if you have personally ever doubted the sex you were born into

238 replies

Chantelli · 02/08/2020 20:51

Just that
Yabu - of course my gender and sex have always been aligned
Yanbu - I've often felt as though I do not identify with my biological sex assigned at birth

OP posts:
cardibach · 02/08/2020 21:13

@RunningFromInsanity

Luckily no. I am very much a woman and ‘girly’. I also use the advantages that come with being a woman.

It must be very hard to not identify with the sex you have been worth with.

Why do you associate being a woman with being ‘girly’? Do the ‘advantages’ come from being ‘girly’? What. About women who aren’t, and don’t want to be, ‘girly’? Are we still women?
TheMandalorian · 02/08/2020 21:14

No. I am me. I like dressing up to go out and putting makeup and dresses on or jeans and a t-shirt. Or getting muddy mountain biking and camping or climbing trees.
I felt sorry for George in the famous 5 stories being described as a tomboy because that concept no longer existed in our world of the late 80s. Girls had short hair, wore jeans and made dens with the boys.
It must be harder for boys because its still not really socially acceptable for them to wear a dress or make up. Although in more liberal areas no-one bats an eyelid.
I did have a period age about 13 where my arms kept getting in my way and felt wrong, but then I finished growing and they are fine again. Glad I didn't have them surgically and irrevocably altered though....

Gatehouse77 · 02/08/2020 21:14

I’ve never doubted my biological sex but wasn’t chuffed with how big my boobs were in my teens.
I’ve never doubted my gender either but I’m far from the stereotype of ‘female’. I’ve never worn heels, would never choose to wear a skirt/dress (except for very specific events which include my wedding), dabbled very briefly in make up around 14 but not since.

I describe myself as female but not feminine.

OddBoots · 02/08/2020 21:15

My sex is what it is, trying to pretend it isn't is more harmful than learning to accept reality.

I don't like the gender crap society tries to put on us because of our biology but it's the concept of gender that is outdated, not the physical reality of biology.

QualityFeet · 02/08/2020 21:17

I spent childhood certain I was a boy. I had a name and dreamed as a boy. I have remained short haired, enjoy competition, motor bikes and motor sport but fortunately understood as a teen that this didn’t make me less womanly. I understood the restriction of stereotypes which I had seen early on. I remember hating my breasts so much ... horrifying to think where that could have ended up.

RunningFromInsanity · 02/08/2020 21:18

[quote BooFuckingHoo2]@RunningFromInsanity out of interest what advantages do you think there are of being a woman?[/quote]
Getting things for free, getting bought drinks, guys helping you out, being able to talk to strangers/children without them getting scared, nicer clothes, guys giving up their seats etc
All stereotypical stuff.

xmummy2princesx · 02/08/2020 21:19

I believed I was a boy as a child made my family call me by a boys name and wore boys clothes had short hair all my friends were boys. Then hit puberty and felt like a girl

OhMsBeliever · 02/08/2020 21:19

Yes. When I was a child right up to my teenage years I desperately wanted to be a boy. I went through puberty young, starting my periods at 10, had to wear a bra etc. I hated it. Hated my female body, would have done anything to have stopped all that.

Thankfully back then I was just called a tomboy and allowed to get on with it - my parents let me choose what to wear (apart from at school I never wore skirts or dresses) what I played with, how I had my hair (mmmm, lovely 80s bowl cutGrin) I had a boys name for myself and was so pleased when people actually thought I was a boy.

Now, as an adult, I know I'm a woman, and I also know that gender stereotypes are shit, and I don't conform at all to whatever crap is supposed to be "womanly" But the stuff I like makes me me, it's my personality and has nothing to do with gender. 🤷‍♀️

IAmFleshIAmBone · 02/08/2020 21:20

What do you mean by 'assigned'?

LazyFace · 02/08/2020 21:20

Not once despite not being taught how to be 'girly'. I was just a child with short hair (for practical reasons probably) but I never once questioned what I was. I guess looking down at my fanjo would have killed off any doubt anyway.

tilder · 02/08/2020 21:26

Awesome thread. What gender critical feminism is all about.

My sex is not assigned. It is not a choice, it is biological reality.

Gender? It's like a straitjacket. I choose not to wear it.

HMSSophie · 02/08/2020 21:26

I remember aged about 11 really hating, HATING, the fact I was going to grow up into the sex I was born into. I did not want to get all the shit and misery that went with it. And being the second sex, the lesser, the other. Raging!! But have I therefore ever wanted to be a man? Yes. Felt I WAS a man? No. Never. And now decades later I'm so bloody glad I have lived my life as a woman.

Haworthia · 02/08/2020 21:29

No child is ever born into the wrong body.

Gender is a social construct.

nocoolnamesleft · 02/08/2020 21:30

I have never doubted my biological sex. I have gone through phases of not liking my body, especially during puberty. I continue to rage against the straitjacket of gender which the patriarchy uses to oppress me.

lifesnotaspectatorsport · 02/08/2020 21:31

I don't think it's possible to doubt a biological fact like my female sex. Periods are a pretty incontestable sign.

I also happen to feel quite comfortable with some societal gender-based expectations of me as a woman. I like clothing, hair styles etc which are typically associated with femininity. But even if I didn't, that wouldn't make me an iota less female. It's in my DNA.

JayAlfredPrufrock · 02/08/2020 21:31

Nope. Never.

But I do rage against the gender stereotypes.

HowManyToes · 02/08/2020 21:33

@RunningFromInsanity doing wonders for feminism there Hmm

CheshireSplat · 02/08/2020 21:34

I only answered to William when I was 4. (I was a girl.)

When I was about 13 I was sure I was really a gay man trapped in a girl's body. Having analysed this later I can put it down to an obsession with EM Forster and in the late 80s there were definitely more opportunities for men than women to do stuff and have fun.

I'm now mid 40s and definitely a woman.

Dragonglass · 02/08/2020 21:34

I haven't voted because I don't agree with either of the answers.
I am a woman, that's it!
Gender is a load of made up crap.
My body is that of a woman, my 'identity' is just me.

TheVanguardSix · 02/08/2020 21:34

Never doubted it for a minute. Always owned it and felt thoroughly 'me' to the core. 'Me' just happens to be a woman. I am rather androgynous in appearance but definitely identify and feel 100% woman.

BoggledBudgie · 02/08/2020 21:35

Gender isn’t real though, it’s just something that has been made up to satisfy people who wish to change sex (which is biologically impossible to do).

My sex is female, I have always identified as a female because I am a female.

HandsomeMaid · 02/08/2020 21:37

I’m not voting as your options make no sense.

I’m a woman. I’ve never doubted that because it’s perfectly bloody obvious. I don’t conform to gender stereotypes and I wish that I hadn’t been raped because I’m a woman. It never made me think that I’m actually a man trapped in a woman’s body because of this though. In the same way I don’t believe that I’ve been born into the wrong because I have a physical disability. It would be nice to be able to live and be accepted as an able bodied man. But I’m not insane enough to think that it’s actually possible.

SlipperyLizard · 02/08/2020 21:37

Gender is a social construct and the stereotypes it seeks to impose hinder the free expression of men and women.

I am a woman, but I don’t identify with the regressive stereotypes of my alleged “gender”.

No one is “born in the wrong body”, there are no internal feelings that are exclusively “male” or “female”.

pallisers · 02/08/2020 21:37

Not at all. Being a woman was as inevitable to me as being human. I certainly disliked a lot of the restrictions on women and the lack of equality and opportunity for women but I felt I should change the system rather than myself. and even with the shit that society often imposes on women, I have always liked being female and being female would be my preference.

I grew up in a place and time where the heavily gendered blue/pink/different toys/little princess stuff just really didn't exist. I was going through old photos recently and it struck me that dh and I wore very similar clothes right through childhood except for special occassions.

NameChange84 · 02/08/2020 21:39

Never for a second. Loved being a little girl and I love that I am a woman. I also love my femininity and am very drawn to “the feminine” in general. I love how different mens bodies are to my own and really celebrate the difference between us. My periods are horrendous but I’m weirdly grateful for them and feel really happy that I was born with a woman’s body which would develop to carry life within it, give birth to new life and which could feed and nourish a child.

I’m delighted that I wasn’t born male. I used to feel sorry for little boys as a child.