If you are questioning your gender identity and/or sexual identity and wondering what are some very safe initial steps you can take to try to get some kind of meaningful feedback for your own edification, here are some suggestions:
If you are female, try cutting your long hair shorter or putting it up or otherwise experimenting with a more masculine-coded hairstyle. Try spending less time styling it and making it girly. You can even just look at male ponytails instead of female for inspiration for how to deal with your hair in a more masculine-coded fashion, which is typically less time-consuming than most female hairstyles.
When you are ready to actually start dressing differently, you don't have to make some big commitment to change your whole wardrobe. You can try to tweak what you normally wear.
But if you have enough money, you can just go shopping and try to go more unisex or more gay and see how you feel about dressing that way. Come up with an excuse if you need to, but see how dressing differently makes you feel. Do you feel more like the real you?
Be prepared to talk about why you are doing this. If necessary, come up with an excuse or cover story.
In my teens, I cut my very long hair short after starting gymnastics because I got tired of stepping on my hair. I also had other reasons for making that move. Those reasons were more private and I didn't tell the world about them. My official story was "I'm taking gymnastics. I got tired of stepping on my hair."
You are not obligated to give the "real" underlying/private reason for every single thing you do to every single person you know. "I'm tired of stepping on my hair" was a real reason, it just wasn't the full story and most people absolutely didn't need to know the other, more traumatic reasons behind that move.
In fact, most people probably would not have wanted to know.
When I was sixteen or so, I spent some time buttonholing anyone who would listen to my sob story and crying on their shoulder at random. At some point in probably my twenties, I finally was better enough to realize that I was psychologically traumatizing people by dumping on essentially random acquaintances. After that, I became pickier about when and how I shared my story because I realized a lot of people do not really WANT to know traumatic personal details about my life.
So you absolutely shouldn't feel like you are lying to people or deceiving people by not telling everyone The Truth, The WHOLE Truth every minute of every day about every detail of your life. The reality is there simply isn't enough time in life to do that all the time with everyone you meet and it's a social curtesy to not burden everyone all the time with your personal baggage.
Get a massage
If you are questioning your sexual identity or gender identity, one of the big stumbling blocks you may have is that you are struggling to get some of your needs met currently. Many people rely heavily on sex as a primary means to meet their need for touch. Getting that need met some other way may do two things for you:- Lower your stress levels generally because unmet need of any kind adds to stress.
- It may make you feel less intimidated by the prospect of navigating this process by decoupling a non-sexual need from sex, thereby giving you more maneuvering room to deal with your issues.
Change Your Hairstyle
If you are male and have always had short hair, let it grow out. Plenty of manly men have long hair: Rock stars, Samurai warriors, etc. Growing it long does not have to necessarily say anything about your gender identity. If you don't like it, you can simply cut it later.If you are female, try cutting your long hair shorter or putting it up or otherwise experimenting with a more masculine-coded hairstyle. Try spending less time styling it and making it girly. You can even just look at male ponytails instead of female for inspiration for how to deal with your hair in a more masculine-coded fashion, which is typically less time-consuming than most female hairstyles.
Rethink Your Relationship to Clothes
This does not have to start with dressing differently. You can just start by getting a sock puppet on Reddit and signing up for a bunch of stuff to explore ideas about clothes anonymously. It's fine to mostly or only read at first.When you are ready to actually start dressing differently, you don't have to make some big commitment to change your whole wardrobe. You can try to tweak what you normally wear.
But if you have enough money, you can just go shopping and try to go more unisex or more gay and see how you feel about dressing that way. Come up with an excuse if you need to, but see how dressing differently makes you feel. Do you feel more like the real you?
Make Your Own List
If you want to explore your identity and keep it on the down low, start your own list and add to the above ideas. Ideally, they should be things that are or can be viewed as "normal" for your current gender and sexual identity.Be prepared to talk about why you are doing this. If necessary, come up with an excuse or cover story.
In my teens, I cut my very long hair short after starting gymnastics because I got tired of stepping on my hair. I also had other reasons for making that move. Those reasons were more private and I didn't tell the world about them. My official story was "I'm taking gymnastics. I got tired of stepping on my hair."
You are not obligated to give the "real" underlying/private reason for every single thing you do to every single person you know. "I'm tired of stepping on my hair" was a real reason, it just wasn't the full story and most people absolutely didn't need to know the other, more traumatic reasons behind that move.
In fact, most people probably would not have wanted to know.
When I was sixteen or so, I spent some time buttonholing anyone who would listen to my sob story and crying on their shoulder at random. At some point in probably my twenties, I finally was better enough to realize that I was psychologically traumatizing people by dumping on essentially random acquaintances. After that, I became pickier about when and how I shared my story because I realized a lot of people do not really WANT to know traumatic personal details about my life.
So you absolutely shouldn't feel like you are lying to people or deceiving people by not telling everyone The Truth, The WHOLE Truth every minute of every day about every detail of your life. The reality is there simply isn't enough time in life to do that all the time with everyone you meet and it's a social curtesy to not burden everyone all the time with your personal baggage.
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