I´m not a boy - Gender Questioning

Straying from the usual subculture-selfies-post punk related posts, I would like to share my little gender experience. This is a very personal matter to me, so I apologize in advance if I would (again) sound melodramatic or utterly confused, since often I am indeed confused when it comes to this.

The reason I chose to write about the matter here is because I love being frank about things and I
don´t believe in taboo topics. Maybe my experience will ring a bell to some, maybe you could give your opinion on gender matters as well and we could all learn(?).

I do fear however, that this might come up as a "trending topic", as if you are spending as much time on the internet as I am you might notice that it has become more than common to wonder about ones gender identity, to come out as this or that and deny all possible stereotypes, claiming that how some people portray themselves is very complicated.
It is true that I haven´t addressed this topic ever in my blog nor do I speak with people about it (only with my closest friends) but I have been dealing with some personal questions for a long time, and I would just like to share it here.

I love men.

I love men so much I love to watch them with other men.

I love men so much I wish to be one of them sometimes.

I love men so much I wish to be one of them to be with other men as a man myself.

I love men so much that being seen as a woman by them is sometimes not enough for me.

I love very particular, long haired, feminine, makeup wearing men.

I´m not attracted to women, but I love femininity.

I have been struggling with the above for a good amount of years now. My love for all things gay and homoerotic was and is something I cannot explain.

This issue has 2 sides which are the main reason for my problem:

1. I love wearing makeup and dressing like a woman, I love having long hair and I love my feminine body. I was raised to love it and I would never in the world change it, not with hormones or surgery! I love the way I look more and more as I grow up. I do not feel that I was born in the wrong body.
2. Yet sometimes something in me doesn´t fit. The average young woman would sometimes think "I wish I could look like that" while looking at other young women on the street. My mind has the same thoughts whenever I look at other young men on the street! I literally caught myself on this thought so many times by now. I envy how other men look and I wish to look like them.
   

These 2 extremes are the source of my dilemma. If I don´t want to physically become a male, what´s my deal then!?
Exhausting Boris with this talk and wishing to actually do something to know for sure rather than wondering "what if", I´ve decided to do a little experiment. On the last The Wings Of Desire concert I dressed like a man, and even did my makeup differently:

What a disappointing experiment it was. Look at me- I am nowhere near looking like a man. This is the closest of going without makeup as I can get, and even without any I would look worse than this. My round face is too feminine, and my face features (especially my eyes) are the complete opposite of what I would like them to be.

I was very discouraged after appearing in public like this, when I finally understood what was my problem.

I am not a man, not in this body at least. This body is dedicated to something else, and it is not where I will find the solution.
It is my mind.
I am a man on some days, especially on paper, when I write about things, be it this blog or fiction, into which I pour a lot of my gender questioning. I am a man in my mind, and in my mind I know that if I would posses the body of a man, I would be looking completely different. I would be a lot taller, thinner and I would even be of a different race.

Having a penis and growing a beard would not solve my problem. In fact, I don´t even like masculine features that much, and I am positive that if I would have been born a man I would have been very feminine.

This is a stupid cycle I am going through every once in a while. I am blessed to have a partner like Boris who more than understands this, yet sometimes I do not really know how to express the feeling of being a man in my mind. Being called a different name even with masculine pronouns didn´t work either. I felt awkward and not like myself.

That´s why I have put the issue aside for now. Sometimes a lovely thought comes to me, that I am not less of a man when I am wearing a skirt and makeup. I do not wish that society will see me as a man, I am more than comfortable staying as a woman, since I know that my appearance has nothing to do with my gender identity.
I don´t know if this is common or not, but I do think that most people who´s gender identity is opposite than their sex will have the need to change their appearance according with their gender. It´s not my case, far from it. I sometimes feel that "being a man" is a sexual stimuli, it´s something connected with eroticism in my head, as I have been writing homoerotic short stories for a couple of years now, and it is the only way where I can dive into that masculine place in my mind, and dare I say- play out the scenario of what could have happened to me as a man in this world.

I am ending the topic on a positive note. I´ve run experiments to find a solution to my problem, and found out more about myself. I cannot identify as girlfag or queer or what have you... I´ve read a lot on the subject and no category seems to fit me, even so that the more specific I go into those categories the more confused I feel.
But little things seem to make me feel in place, for example like writing and being honest with myself. Talking to Boris has been a huge help as well.
Funny though, that unlike everything else I have tried, finding my "man name" was really easy, and it is one of the things I identify with the most. It makes me happy to know it, even if no one addresses me with it. None should, since I am a man on paper. The closest to describing it would probably be like having an alter ego, or when a writer is using a pseudo name.

So is this a coming out post? Maybe, maybe not. I just wanted to share an aspect of my personality, and it makes me feel relieved to share this with the world. I am not ashamed of it.

If you have any advice or thoughts on the matter please share them! It could be nice to hear a different perspective, regardless if you emphasize with the subject or not.

Alexander F.